Melda sighed. “I find that hard to believe,” she said. “And we have bigger problems than your endless appetite.” She lifted her arms, turning for emphasis. “How in Emblem are we supposed to sail a ship?”
Tor swallowed. He hadn’t thought of that. The vessel didn’t even have a wheel.
Vesper’s eyebrows knitted together. She turned to Tor. “You said the Night Witch gave you her powers, right?”
Melda shot Tor a look. He turned away from it, not knowing why he had shared so much with Vesper. A stranger.
But he had. And they were all on the same journey now.
Tor nodded.
“This ship belonged to her, and it looks different from the others. Look.” Vesper stuck her chin toward the frozen row of boats, now tiny in their wake. “They have more ropes, and the masts are not the same. And there’s no wheel.”
“What are you getting at?” Melda said.
“By inheriting her abilities, this is your ship now. Only you can command it.”
“And how do you propose he do that?” Melda snapped.
Vesper kept her eyes on Tor. “Think of where we need to go. Picture it in your mind’s eye. Smell the sea, the blood queen, the isle, like it’s right in front of you.”
Tor closed his eyes. He remembered the blood queen from the map, her hair dripping a dark puddle. A chill crept up his spine as he remembered a different woman. A different dark puddle. One like a torn-out piece of nighttime sky. One he had almost drowned in.
There was a burst, and Tor opened his eyes just in time to see the cobweb sails puff up and out, like his father’s pastries in the oven or his sheets on the clothesline, filled with a mystical wind. The cobwebs fell away, replaced by a dark midnight blue fabric, speckled with silver stars.
Then there was a snap as the ropes untied themselves from their masts. Once unmoored, they flew through the air, hurtling toward Tor.
He made a move to duck or jump away, but the ropes were quicker, tying around his wrists and ankles in a flash.
Melda gasped, but Vesper raised a hand to keep her from untying Tor.
The ropes glowed faintly gold, for just a moment.
Then the vessel turned, guided by invisible hands, and the ship began to sail.
* * *
Tor closed his eyes against the salt. Water sprayed the deck as the ship plummeted down, right into the center of yet another swell. The ocean hissed as the ship passed roughly through it, the waves so jagged and vicious, it was as if the sea was trying to block their journey.
For an hour they had sailed, Tor tangled in the ropes.
Melda gripped the side of the ship and turned to him, lips pale. “Can you try sailing steadier?”
Engle grinned at her, looking thrilled as he was flung up and down, not bothering to hold on. “Can you try having a little fun?”
Vesper sat below on the lower deck, twirling the charms of her strange bracelet, not looking fazed in the slightest at the rising and falling of the ship. Of course not, Tor thought. She was from Swordscale. The waves were her home.
Tor tugged on the ropes around his wrist and ankles, feeling like a prisoner. His arm jerked up in response, as if he was a puppet and the ship was his puppeteer.
He gritted his teeth, trying to imagine the Night Witch on this ship. She would never have allowed the boat to command her. No. She would have led it the same way she had led Tor, Engle, and Melda to her lair.
Angry and head pounding with nausea, Tor pulled with all of his strength against the ropes, shooting a firm message through his mind, the same way he had visualized the blood queen’s location.
At once, the ropes went slack. They unraveled, landing in a heap at his feet. Slowly, the ship started to sail a bit smoother under Tor’s orders, commanding the waves instead of succumbing to them.
“You tamed it,” Vesper said from below.
Tor walked to where Melda and Engle now leaned against the starboard. Melda’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “I don’t like her,” she said quietly. “And, more important than that, I don’t trust her.”
Engle shrugged. He bit into a strange, bumpy fruit Tor had seen Vesper give him, from a pouch of miniature foods on her bracelet that she could grow to normal size for eating. “She seems okay. She did warn us the Calavera were coming.”
Melda rolled her eyes as Engle chewed with his mouth open. “She was also dying. She needed our help.”
Tor lowered his gaze. “What are you saying, Melda?”
She looked out to the sea. Estrelle was long behind them, and the coast was just a line, too far away for anyone but Engle to see clearly. “I don’t know.” She turned back to Tor. “Just—be careful, okay?”
Tor nodded. “I have something for you, actually.” He reached down to grab the hourglass he had taken from the Night Witch’s castle. Dark blue sand shifted inside. It was tiny, barely bigger than his hand. “I’m not sure what it is, but I thought you might.”
Melda studied it closely, tilting the glass up and down. “I think it’s an arenahora… We studied them in leadership.” A month ago, Tor thought, she might have added a remember? to the end of her sentence. But she knew him better now. “They can be attached to a task, or an event, or anything, really. They track time, depending on what you meld them to.” She closed her eyes for a moment, pressing the arenahora to her emblem. The sand turned purple to match it, then multiplied, shifting almost completely to one side.
“What happened?” Engle asked. “What did you do?”
Melda opened her eyes and grinned. “I just thought of the snowflake charm that froze the Calavera. If I’m correct, the hourglass has matched with the timing of the ice melting. So we’ll know exactly how much time
