She handed him the book. Its cover was made of barnacles and shells, stuck together in uneven patterns. Its pages smelled of salt and brine, long yellowed and ripped in some places.
It had a name: Book of Seas.
“We can only hold them off for so long,” Tor said, holding up the snowflake charm. His mother’s eyes darted to it, then met his once more. “Estrelle needs to be evacuated…just in case.” Just in case we fail were the words he didn’t say.
Chieftess Luna swallowed. “Leave it to me,” she said, and threw her arms around her son. “I wish I could have done more to protect you. I wish I could do more now.”
Not far away, he spotted Melda embracing her own mother. She must have come looking for her daughter. Engle’s parents were far away, at the Alabaster Caves, where they worked as researchers.
He breathed in the cinnamon scent of his mom, of home, one last time, knowing it could be a while before he returned. “You did everything right,” he said. Tor pulled away, trying to smile. “I’m the one who made a bad wish.”
She took his hand and pressed a nail against his palm. Not on his lifeline, but on the scar the Night Witch had left. “The only way I can fathom letting you leave is knowing what you are. And what you now wield.” Chieftess Luna shuddered. “You are strong, Tor, you always have been. Don’t let this new part of you change who you are.”
He hugged his mother once more. She motioned for Engle and hugged him, too.
“You three, keep eyes on each other,” she said, addressing Melda, Engle, and Tor. Then she looked at Vesper and nodded, looking uncertain whether to trust her, but left with no other choice. Tor squeezed his mother’s hand.
Then, he turned to the sea.
They waded into the ocean until the water reached their knees. Vesper tossed the tiny ship into the waves. Under her directing hand, it became a boat just big enough for them to climb inside. It grew, bit by bit, the farther they sailed out. Tor held tightly onto a ledge as it slowly expanded around them. When they were deep enough that his mother was just a tiny figure in the distance, the ship bloomed in one dizzying whoosh and they all were propelled high into the sky. Tor lost his grip and rolled right into the center of the deck, its wooden planks expanding longer and longer, more ship rippling from its center, the sides growing farther and farther away. Only when the water was deep blue did the ship snap into its full form, a mermaid decorating its front.
Tor stood on wobbly legs, taking in the vessel around him. Steady as land, yet fluid as the sea. He wanted to explore its every inch but didn’t have time to study the boat as he walked to its bow, salt filling his nose, wind howling in his ears and sending his hair back.
The ships of smoke and bone now sailed so close he could see their passengers. Engle had been right. The crew looked almost indistinguishable from the bone boat itself—skin covering only bits of their bodies. A man grinned at Tor with only half of his lips and a quarter of his teeth.
“Tor.” Melda was by his side. Engle was at the other.
He nodded. “I know.”
They drifted closer, wind whipping their hair back, salt filling their nostrils.
“Tor.”
“Just a little closer.”
They were headed straight toward the main ship, a beast with a swirling phantom shark at its front, its jaw opened wide, rows of teeth on full display.
Tor watched the teeth, getting bigger and bigger—and closer.
“Tor!”
He threw the snowflake as hard as he could in the space between their ship and the rest.
The ocean cracked as soon as the snowflake landed, turning to ice that rippled in waves, long sheets that traveled faster than wind. Ships groaned as they came to a halt, frozen in place. And the frost did not stop at the water—it traveled with insatiable hunger, climbing up the hulls, to the decks, freezing the half-dead sailors before they could make a single move, screams hushing almost as quickly as they started. Someone managed to throw a sword, and it, too, froze before reaching the Night Witch’s ship, falling with a clank onto the ice.
Frozen—a line of ships and people like a row of statues.
But not everyone stood still. Three men had somehow escaped the ice. One with a wide, black hat floating just above his head—Tor thought him to be the Calavera captain. Next to him stood a man with hair like Vesper’s, silver. The Swordscale traitor.
Between them was someone who made a chill rush down Tor’s spine. A man in a cloak, without a mouth. Just sickly pale flesh pulled too tightly across his face. His eyes were black, only a dot of bright yellow alive within them. He stared at Tor with a frightening intensity, then tilted his head under the cloak just as the ice tried again, rushing at them in full force. Before it could reach the three men, the one in the hooded cape conjured a purple flame in his palm. And with another flash of mauve, they disappeared.
“Grandma!” Vesper gripped the side of the boat, and Tor followed her gaze to a silver-haired woman on another ship, now frozen, reaching toward her granddaughter. She was surrounded by others who
