“Some of my family has come along,” he said. “They wish to help the Cerulean who saved me. There is fighting back on Culinnon and they want no part of it. There will be death today, human and mertag both.” He sniffed at the air and then looked back the way they had come. “By snails and seaweed, let us hope it does not follow us.”
“Yes,” Sera murmured, her fingertips flashing. “Let us hope.”
One day out from Culinnon, the mist appeared.
It was delicate at first, clinging to the water’s surface like a cloud to a nebula leaf. The wind grew colder but Sera did not mind. It felt good to be sailing again.
She was standing at the rail with Agnes when Errol emerged from the water.
“Ships are coming,” he said. “Ships with golden suns along with ships of Culinnon.”
When Sera translated for Agnes, she pursed her lips, her face stony. “The Renalt and my grandmother,” she said. “I suppose it was too much to think they would keep each other distracted. Ambrosine must have noticed that we left. She’s coming after us. And the Renalt is coming after her.”
“This ship is very fast,” Sera said, gazing up at the billowing sails.
“Let’s hope it’s faster than those clandestines,” Agnes said.
The mist grew heavier and heavier, slowing their pace, and then the fog took them and everything disappeared.
Errol led them carefully, even slower now. The fog left dewdrops in Sera’s hair and sent little shivers down her spine. It grew denser by the minute, surrounding the sloop in thick clouds of pearly gray. When Sera looked down she could barely make out the water lapping at the hull—if not for Errol’s light, they would have been lost in minutes.
The benefit of this was that there was surely no way Ambrosine or the Renalt could follow them in it.
The first destroyed ship took them completely by surprise. One second there was nothing but fog; the next, the prow of a half-sunken galleon was rearing up on their left.
Errol flashed and his family lit up the water, illuminating a safe path. The clipper veered, Matthias at the helm, narrowly missing the figurehead, a wooden dolphin with half its nose missing. Sera thought she saw a body floating in the water surrounding the wreck, but she couldn’t bring herself to look too closely and then the fog swallowed it up.
They passed several more wreckages, ships with gaping holes in their hulls, tattered sails hanging from their splintered masts. They were ghost ships, shrouded in grayish white, silent forevermore. Some had shredded Kaolin flags draped over their prows, others the green-and-silver flag of Pelago. The fog did not care for country or allegiance.
“There is a presence here,” Vada said. “It does not want us.”
Sera had sensed it too, but not the same way Vada did.
“It’s the tether,” she said. “It is protecting itself from your kind. But it . . . it calls to me. It sings.”
She could hear it faintly, could feel it resonating in her chest like a violin string. It kept her going, kept her hopeful as a silence so unnervingly complete fell around them. Even the water lapping at the ship had ceased to make any noise. Agnes had her hands pressed against her ears as if the silence was somehow too loud, and Leo was pale and drawn, gripping the rail so tight his knuckles looked about to split through his skin.
“It feels like this will be forever,” Eneas said dully. “Silence and fog and nothing else and no one left to remember.”
Sera clutched Leela’s pendant tight, praying for the fog to end.
“Look!” Agnes cried suddenly, and though her voice was muted, there was a spark of life in it.
In the distance there was a crack in the mist—a thin strip of silver that was widening as they approached. Like the first breath after being underwater for too long, the fog parted and the ship sailed into a circle of bright blue sky, so stunningly clear it made tears well up in Sera’s eyes.
Oh, thank you, Mother Sun, she prayed. The change in her companions was noticeable—Leo’s shoulders relaxed, Agnes stood to get a better view, Eneas and Vada exchanged tentative smiles.
“Braxos, Sera Lighthaven!” Errol cried from the water.
“Braxos,” his family echoed around him.
The waters surrounding the island glittered with jewels, some as big as ostrich eggs, colorful spots shining beneath the waves like a garden of light. White-sand beaches stretched across the shoreline, the land covered with lush green trees. And high above them, perched at the top of an ivory cliff, were the ruins they had seen in the photograph, copper doors shining—and the many-pointed star set directly over them, the same as the star on Sera’s necklace. The temple was made of rose-colored stone, with jutting, winding turrets and towers swirling up toward the sky like snakes. It was partially caved in on one side.
“By the goddesses,” Matthias murmured.
“We did it,” Leo said, breathless and a little befuddled. “We actually did it.”
Then everyone on the ship was laughing and cheering, clapping each other on the back and kissing cheeks. Home was so close, Sera could taste it.
“Ships!” Errol cried, his lights flashing danger. “Sera Lighthaven, the fog has gone. See, see, look, the ships are coming, the ships can see us now!”
In front of her were two hulking warships flying the golden sun flag of the Renalt. Off to her right, Sera caught glimpses of clandestines, visible when the light hit their hulls in a certain way.
The ships were pointed in all different directions, lost amid the fog, but Sera saw them begin to turn now, as the island that was once such a mystery had suddenly become crystal clear.
“We need to land now,” she said, but Matthias was already steering the clipper toward a smooth strip of beach. Once it hit sand, they all jumped out into water up to their knees. The ruins towered above and Sera had to shield her eyes from the sun. The tether was there, shining proudly up from its center, and she felt herself grow dizzy and eager and nervous all at once.
“Let’s go before those other ships get here,” Leo said.
There was a path from the beach, covered in leaves and smooth pebbles. They hurried along as quickly as they could—it was overgrown and sometimes they lost sight of it and had to double back. And always it climbed higher and higher. Agnes’s breath began to come in sharp pants and Vada clutched her side. Leo’s face was bright red and Eneas began to fall behind, Matthias even further back.
“Go on without me,” Matthias said, but Agnes moved to walk beside him, letting him lean on her shoulder, while Leo helped Eneas.
Up and up . . . and all the while the moonstone grew warmer against Sera’s chest, whispering to her in unknown words that spoke of home. When at last they reached the top, they were sweating and out of breath. Eneas collapsed onto his back, panting, Matthias slumped beside him. Leo leaned against a tree as Agnes sank to her knees. Only Vada and Sera remained standing.
“That,” Vada gasped. “Was quite the climb.”
A fat golden honeybee buzzed lazily by them and perched itself in the horn of an enormous purple flower. The sun shone like a golden aurum in the sky, and the grass was softer than seresheep fleece. The trees hung heavy with fruit, ripe plums and peaches, yellow pears and juicy red apples. And right in front of them, the temple soared upward, the doors open as if they had been waiting.