An emblem.
Tor gaped at her. “You have two?”
On Emblem Island, having more than one emblem was considered wicked. It was why the Night Witch was so feared and why Tor had gone to great lengths to hide his new marking. No one was meant to have more than one; it was too much power to wield responsibly.
Vesper nodded. “In Swordscale, everyone has two.”
Tor’s shoulders shifted slightly forward, as if some of the weight had been taken away. Maybe he wasn’t so alone. So wicked.
He didn’t know what the gem emblem stood for, but if she said she could help them stop the pirates from attacking Estrelle, he would trust her. Even if Melda was giving him a look that showed she clearly didn’t.
Vesper placed her hand on top of Tor’s. And then, the four of them were gone.
The Calavera’s Curse
On a still sea, on a full moon, at midnight, it is said that a ship born of smoke and bone can be spotted on the horizon.
It never stops, not for a moment. It doesn’t have an anchor. It simply sails on forever, toward villages it cannot pillage. Toward ports with no harbor. Toward land it cannot reach.
The Calavera made their ships from the bones of their victims—and there were many. Once upon another time, there had been a code of honor that ruled the waters. But the Calavera did not just want treasure, they wanted power. So they made their own rules. They sunk each vessel that dared sail their way, vowing to be the last ships on the sea. And the killings did not stop when they reached land. They docked only to wreak havoc.
They had to be stopped.
A brave young pirate offered his blood to the ocean, begging for the Calavera’s reign of the seas to be ended. Far away, but always close by, the Night Witch heard the man’s plea. She decided the Calavera had become too strong, threatening even her own dark power.
So, she spun a curse as lethal and cruel as a spider’s web. It trapped the Calavera on their ships, sinking them to the seafloor. Only the lead ship, the biggest vessel, named Tiburon, stayed afloat. And it was cursed to sail forevermore without ever reaching shore.
3
The Night Witch’s Ship
Wind hissed in Tor’s ears as they touched down. His legs felt too stiff, like the bones had been snapped apart and glued back together in the moments it took to travel. Seconds longer than it had taken last time. Tor wondered if the coin’s power was dwindling with each use.
They had landed in a small field, atop the cliff Tor had scaled a month prior. The grass was pale, no color within it, except for the occasional black spot. A thick mist smeared the sky and sun away. Tor shivered. It was cold as winter.
The Lake of the Lost stretched before them, hundreds of feet below, gray as Melda’s eyes and eerily calm. Engle went still beside Tor. His eyes squeezed shut, jaw set tensely. Melda found Engle’s hand. Then Tor’s. And gripped them for just a second. Remembering. Vesper watched them from a few feet away.
A moment later, Engle smiled and said, “Let’s hope the witch kept her fridge stocked. I haven’t had breakfast.”
Tor returned his grin. Then he turned and stilled.
The Night Witch’s castle sprawled across the mountain, an endless stretch of silver bricks, arched windows, and dozens of towers spiraling into the sky, each topped with a different stone creature, eyes fixed on Tor as he took a step forward.
He wanted to hate it, but something at his core clicked into place, a puzzle he hadn’t realized he was putting together.
Tor could almost hear, somewhere deep in his mind, the Night Witch cackling.
“We have to hurry,” he said, shaking the feeling away. He made his way to the glinting front doors, made of pure metal.
They had no handle.
But Tor knew what to do. He pressed a palm against the cold iron, and the doors swung open, revealing a room so large and a ceiling of glass so clear, it was as if they were still outside.
“What are we looking for?” Engle asked, his all-seeing eyes already whirling back and forth as he took in every detail of the room.
“I…don’t know,” Tor said. He turned to Melda.
She shrugged. “Anything having to do with the sea, I guess.”
They split up, and Tor took so many different stairs and corridors that he would have feared getting lost in the maze that was the castle, if he didn’t sense a spark of recognition within him, the tug of an invisible thread that spooled down the halls, pulling him along.
He stopped in a library. Its shelves reached the ceiling, and only the top ones held books, accessible by sliding ladder. The others held objects. Gems, scrolled maps, tiny figures. Tor was reaching toward an hourglass when the floorboards behind him creaked.
“How?” Vesper.
He whipped around to face her. “How what?”
She took a step forward. “No one beyond our people is supposed to have that emblem.” She nodded toward his arm. “How?”
He splayed his arms, motioning at the castle around him. “The Night Witch. She gave me the emblem I always wanted.”
Vesper lifted a brow. “The cruel villain of every kid’s nightmares did it out of the kindness of her heart?”
Tor laughed without humor. “No.” He wondered if he should be telling her this, a secret he had desperately protected for a month. Melda clearly didn’t care for Vesper—maybe didn’t trust her. But even though he hadn’t made his own mind up about the waterbreather, he found himself saying, “She also gave me her other abilities. And responsibilities.” Her green eyes widened and he scowled. “I don’t want any of them or anything to do with it. Giving them to me was just another curse, to end the one that had made me look for her in the first place.”
Vesper tilted her head at him. “A
