Sisters of Swords and Secrets

May 9

May 9

Beastslayer

Somewhere in Time Strait

Dear Tarisa,

I know, you thought it was impossible to send a letter through the seals a day early. I learned from Mama that I could use my Touch to boost the seals and send something faster in dire circumstances, though I risked the seals' destruction doing so. I was only to try it if the survival of the seals didn't matter more than what I had to say, and Ree, I might be saying goodbye.

My hands are shaking, my stomach is sloshing like the Slayer in a typhoon. I barricaded the door with the captain's trunk of smelly clothes, though the action was totally nonsensical. The chest is just a stack of sticks, a flimsy mental barrier between me and and whoever might be determined to barge in.

I stabbed a man. Ree, it looks so strange in black and white, so unbelievable. I can't write the rest down now, I can't—so I'll start with the translation. What led to all this.

It's been a week since the captain and Touchers died. For four days after being made captain, I mostly hid in my room, eating hardtack I'd cooked MYSELF weeks ago, pretending to decode the Navigator's fictitious notes. The crew's ignorance of magic worked to my advantage. I said to the quartermaster, "It will take several days to get ready for the ritual."

Tory nodded credulously and spread my lies to the rest of the crew, for once calming them. In short, my stalling worked until the day I received Quinn's translation of the passphrase on Hoy's door.

The moment your letter appeared, I rushed to Navigator's Hoy's cabin before I'd read any further. With my lackluster Touch the latch stuck horribly even after I spoke the passphrase. The edges of my vision got fuzzy and I giggled groggily as I struggled with it. I thought I would faint, even though you know neither of us has ever been the type. Mama's people were all too robust for that.

At last, the latch lifted and I was inside. I didn't dare shut the door, but I didn't want to be caught in here alone either, so I took off my boot and jammed it in the crack to barely keep the slab of wood open. I sat down on the floor, head in my hands for nearly a half hour before I felt the Touch-fizz recede enough to stir from that spot and explore. We use a special eel oil for light on board, since it won't burn on wood treated with salt. The lamp cast the room in a ghastly green glow.

Navigator Hoy was the least tidy sailor I have ever seen. You wouldn't know it, but most sailors are ordered creatures out of self-defense. Anything not bolted down or securely stowed away is liable to get destroyed in a gale as the ship see-saws back and forth. By contrast, Hoy had papers strewn across his narrow bunk, old cups from the galley rolling to and fro on the floor, his charts haphazardly scrolled and jammed in a cubby too small for them. I know what you must be thinking, "Perhaps the room was trashed by the murderer?" But I'm nearly positive this sort of cramped clutter takes months if not years to accumulate.

I decided to begin with solving the first problem: how to find out where we were? I started ripping through the charts. To my shock and dismay, none of them were for the Netherseas at all! There were charts of the waters near Solan, Trifay, the Yora Coast and nearly every major port in our world but nothing for the Netherseas.

His papers, likewise, were a colossal disappointment. Though I didn't know it, Navigator Hoy was writing a memoir of life at sea, meant to be presented to the Royal Society of the Enchanted Arts back in Solan. Though I piled them neatly (you know me, I couldn't help myself) I felt distinctly ill looking about the cabin. In fact, I put my hands over my face to block out the olive glow, trying to take deep breaths to calm the despair settling like a vulture on my shoulders.