ARC: The Wizard's Promise (6 page)

That night, I crept up on deck, the way I’d done every night since we left Skalir. But tonight was different. Tonight, the air itself felt sinister, like the wind was laced with poison instead of enchantment. I had my bones with me, still wrapped up in their handkerchief. And I intended to get some answers.

Kolur was sleeping at the helm, the steering charm glowing in the darkness. I crept up to the bow, where the wind was strongest, and closed my eyes to get a feel for its magic. It was strong tonight, a glimmer behind my closed eyelids, a tremor in my muscles. I pulled the wind’s strength into me so that it was racing through my blood, sparking and shining. I opened my eyes and dumped the fish bones into my palm. They jumped with enchantment. My whole body thrummed, the magic rising and falling with the swell of wind.

I murmured the incantation and scattered the bones across the deck. Kolur snored in the distance. The bones arranged into their patterns. At first I thought it was a scatter of islands, some archipelago in the north that I didn’t recognize, and my heart leapt – was this where we were going? Jandanvar wasn’t an island chain, I knew that much. But then I looked closer and saw that the bones had fallen into bland nonsense: Friendship. A long journey. Magic.

“Worthless,” I muttered. I gathered them up and tossed them again, this time trying to concentrate on a specific question:
Where are we going?

The bones clacked across the deck. They had fallen into the exact same formation as before.

I batted them away in frustration, sending them scattering toward the mast. Kolur slept through it all. I stood up and shivered in the cold. Water splashed around the
Penelope’s
prow, spraying me with a frozen mist. Moonlight bounced off the water.

“Hanna.”

I jumped. The voice was melodious and soft. Inhuman.

“You!” I grabbed the railing and leaned over the side. Isolfr floated in the water, his eyes wide and shining, gazing up at me. “Did you put a spell on Kolur and Frida?”

He slid into the water so that his shoulders and neck and most of his chin were submerged.

“You
did
.” I clung to the railing like it could save me. “Kolur!” I shouted. “Kolur, wake up.”

“He won’t.” Isolfr’s voice was quiet, a rush of whispers to blend in with the roar of the sea. “He won’t wake up.”

I stared down at him. Cold horror crawled up the inside of my stomach. “What did you do to him?”

“Made sure he slept through the night.” Isolfr rose out of the waves, looking indignant. “Maybe I was helping him. Frida Kuhn, too.” He wore a dark tunic and his pale skin gleamed in the moonlight. “I just want them to sleep.”

“No, you don’t.” I wished now I hadn’t kicked my bones across the deck, since I would have liked something to throw at him. “What are you doing? What do you want?” I paused. “What
are
you?”

His eyes went wide again. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought him scared.

“Well?” I said.

He dove under the water.

I cursed and screeched in vexation. Across the boat, Kolur snorted but didn’t wake up.

“Answer me!” I shouted into the water. Isolfr was down there, a dark shadow moving beneath the waves. “Tell me what the hell is going on. What do you want?”

The shadow moved back and forth. I was certain it would disappear. But then Isolfr’s head crept up, water streaming through his hair. He looked like silver.

“Am I going to get an answer out of you?” I demanded.

“Only if you ask the right question.” His lifted his chin, almost like he was trying to be brave. My heart slowed. Maybe he really was scared. Now, there was a thought. That this strange shimmering magical creature was afraid of
me
.

“What are you?”

He shook his head.

“What do you want?”

He paused. Opened his mouth. Closed it. The water sloshed around him. Finally he said, “To help.”

“Help with what?”

“I can’t tell you yet.” He paused. “There are – factors.”

I sighed. “Fine. Why did you enchant Kolur and Frida? They ignore me if I try to tell them about you.”

“They can’t know about me.” His eyes flicked back and forth. “It would be – dangerous right now. I can’t reveal my identity to them. But I can reveal it to you.”

“I don’t know your identity.”

“I told you my name.”

I sighed and leaned my elbows against the railing. Even with my coat, I was getting cold out here. I rubbed my arms. It didn’t do much.

“Are you cold?” Isolfr rose farther out of the water. “I can show you how to create a heat charm.”

I looked at him, considering. The wind blew straight through me. But I shook my head. “It’d be easier if you just gave me some answers.”

“I’ve given you what I can.”

I sighed. “Why is it dangerous for you to tell Frida and Kolur who you are?”

He hesitated. “It’s quite complicated,” he finally said. “But Frida Kuhn has – a history. She’s known to be unstable.”

I glanced over my shoulder, at the open hatch leading down below, where Frida slept. Kolur had said Frida was a troublemaker–

“Don’t lie to me,” I said.

“I’m not.” Isolfr shook his head, throwing off dewy droplets of ocean water. “I’m just saying she’s a powerful woman.”

I laughed. “Sea and sky, are you scared of her?”

Isolfr floated in the water and didn’t answer me.

“What did she do?” I hesitated. “Am I in danger?”

“Not from her.” Isolfr bobbed with the swell of a wave. “She wouldn’t hurt you. But she did some magic, back when she was training in Jandanvar, that harmed my brother.”

“She trained in Jandanvar?” I was startled and the question came out too loudly, my voice echoing out across the night. Isolfr dived below the water.

“Oh, for–” I rubbed my forehead. This was starting to get tiresome. “Come back up!” I shouted. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

His eyes appeared. His nose. His mouth. He really did have a lovely face.

“So she trained in Jandanvar and hurt your brother.” I sighed. “And you don’t want her to know you’re here.”

He nodded. “She’s frightening.”

“Fair enough.” I didn’t add that he seemed a bit skittish in general. “All right, one more question. Do you know where we’re going?”

He nodded. The sea foam shone around him. “You’re going to a place in the north. But I can’t say more than that yet.”

“Jandanvar?” I leaned over the railing, far enough that my coat was dampened with sea spray. “It’s Jandanvar, isn’t it?” Anger swelled inside my chest. “That place is halfway to the Mists! They let people from the Mists wander their streets. What’s wrong with Kolur?”

Isolfr didn’t say anything.

I sighed and stepped away from the railing. The wind played with my hair.
A place in the north
. Well, that was more than Frida and Kolur had told me, at least straight on.

“So, why will you talk to me?” I said. “Am I not as frightening as Frida?”

“No, of course not.” Isolfr gave a disarmingly handsome smile. “I am to help you, like I said, to work with you. What you said about Jandanvar isn’t entirely true, by the way.”

“What?”

“That it’s halfway to the Mists. It’s in this world.”

“I know that,” I said. “But they still let the Mists through there. And it’s a place of dangerous magic; that’s what everyone says.” It had never occurred to me that witches trained in those cold, frozen lands, casting spells up to the swirl of Jandanvar’s lights.

“People live there,” Isolfr said.

“Not human people.”

“Frida is human, and she lived there.”

I scowled at him.

“You are right to fear the Mists, though. Those who mean us no harm never leave Jandanvar.” He lifted his chest out of the water and looked me straight in the eye. I trembled from the cold. Still, I didn’t dare leave him to slink down below where I could crawl into my bed sheets until I found warmth. He was giving me answers.

“You should watch for mist on the water,” he said. “A certain type. Very thick.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “What do you think I’m wearing this bracelet for?” I lifted my wrist up and shook the bracelet for him to see. It glowed in the moonlight.

Isolfr frowned. “That’s weak magic.”

“It’s better than nothing.” I folded my arms over the railing, and my breath puffed out as I spoke. “Besides, any child of the north has been trained to look out for the Mists since we were babies.” I counted off with my fingers. “Unnatural gray mist. Folk with flat gray eyes. Unusual star patterns. We learn the constellations just so we can tell if the Mists have been changing the night sky.”

Isolfr almost looked disappointed. I figured he had his whole speech worked up, trying to warn me about the Mists. “But many humans have gray eyes.”

I shrugged. “Mama told me you’ll know the difference when it’s the Mists and when it’s just a human.”

His shoulders sagged and he shook his head, flinging dots of water across the ocean’s surface. “It’s not enough. You need to learn to recognize those creatures that are particular to the Mists. The ones that the people of the Mists control.” He looked at me. “Here on the open sea, they’ll fly or they’ll swim.”

“So does everything else.”

He gave me an annoyed look. “Yes, but these will be creatures unlike any you’ve seen before. They communicate on the veins of magic running through our world, so you’ll
feel
them coming, a tremor on the air.”

I looked away from him, out to the wind-beaten ocean, and shivered.

“They often blend in with the light and shadow, reflecting their surroundings like mirrors. You have to look for disturbances just out of the corner of your eye.” He paused, treading water and gazing up at me. “Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever seen something move just on the edge of your vision, but when you look over, nothing’s there?”

I toyed with my bracelet, spinning it around my wrist. “Sure. Happens to everyone, doesn’t it?”

“
That’s
the Mists,” he said, “moving along the roads between worlds. Be careful if you see it.”

I nodded. The cold was working its way through my coat. I couldn’t stay out here much longer.

“Be careful,” Isolfr said, and then he dove back into the water.

This time, he didn’t emerge again.

CHAPTER 5

We continued on our journey to the north, and I continued my nighttime visits with Isolfr. Talking with him was like trying to figure out a puzzle: I’d ask him questions, he’d give me vague answers, but only if he was of a mind to. Frustrating, to be sure, but exciting too. Something to distract me from the boredom of life at sea.

“So, if you won’t tell me what you are,” I said, leaning up against the railing, a blanket pulled around my shoulders, on top of my coat, “can you at least tell me where you’re from?”

Isolfr bobbed in the water. He looked like a patch of moonlight.

“I’m from up there,” he said, and pointed straight to the stars.

“The sky?” I said. “You’re from the sky?”

He nodded. “I miss it, too. My family has a palace in the air, and it’s quite a thing to see.”

“I’d imagine so.” I’d no idea if he was joking, if this was in any way an honest answer. I’d never heard of creatures living up among the clouds, but then, neither Mama nor Papa knew about much in the way of spirits.

Whatever Isolfr was doing down here, I suspected it was more involved than protecting the
Penelope
from the Mists. I also suspected he didn’t want to do it. Now, he never came right out and
said
that, because Isolfr never came out and said anything, at least not anything useful, but I got the sense of it anyway from how wistful he’d look when he talked about his home up in the clouds.

And then one night, when we’d been talking for a week or so, he startled me with a sudden burst of straightforwardness.

“Do you trust me?” he said.

I blinked at him in surprise. I was out at the bow, our usual spot. The nights kept getting colder and colder, and the stars were sharper now, like flecks of diamonds up in the sky.

“What?” I said.

“Do you trust me?” He sounded out of breath, like he was nervous. He lifted himself up out of the water, his eyes fixed on me.

“Truthfully?” I hesitated. Isolfr looked so hopeful I didn’t want to tell him no. “I’m not sure.”

He furrowed his brow and dropped low into the water. Even in the darkness, I could tell my answer saddened him.

“Wait,” I said. “It’s not – please don’t take it personally.”

He lifted his eyes, and that wounded expression made his features even more unearthly.

“You have to admit you’re a little hard to trust,” I said. “Since you can swim in freezing water and claim you live in the clouds.” I paused. “And you keep warning me about the Mists.”

“That’s to help you.” He pushed himself up. “I want you to trust me,” he said. “I have to show you something and I don’t want you to be afraid.”

A chill went through me, and I wrapped my arms around chest to keep warm. “This is new,” I said.

“I’ve been delaying it.” Isolfr looked down at the water. “Kolur is a fool, you know, and he’s on a fool’s errand.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, because I certainly have no idea what he’s doing. I keep pressing both of them, but they never give anything away. I’m not even sure when we’ll be making port next.” I clung to the railing and pressed myself over the side of the boat. The sea spray stung my face and made my eyes water. Clouds drifted over the moon, turning everything dark. “What do you want to show me? Is it related to where we’re going?” I felt a little thrill of curiosity – maybe I’d finally found a way to get Isolfr to tell me what was going on.

“No.” He hesitated. “It’s related to – it’s from – the Mists, actually.”

“The what?” I jumped away from the railing. The open ocean was too open, and I felt exposed. “No. Absolutely not. You won’t even tell me what you are, and now you–”

“I’m not from the Mists!” He drew himself up and his skin gleamed and his eyes flashed with a ferocity I would never have expected from him. “I’m trying to
protect
you from the Mists. And that’s why I need to show this to you.
Please
.” A wave swelled and almost swallowed him up. He looked deflated after his outburst, a piece of silk caught on the current.

“I was tasked with warning the
Penelope
of the danger she’s sailing into.” Isolfr’s voice was quiet. I had to strain to hear it over my racing heart. “I was asked to show you the threat you’ve been facing. I’ve put it off, because–” The waves surged again. “Because I was afraid. But I can’t delay any longer. So even if you don’t trust me – you’ll have to trust me.”

He smiled then, that charming bright smile, but I could see through it. And what I saw was fear.

I thought about my family’s stone cottage on the road to the sea. I thought about Mama’s garden, the way it looked in the summer, when all the herbs were blossoming and the vegetables were growing. I thought about Henrik playing in front of the fire, about Papa coming home from his fishing trips smelling of the ocean, about Mama singing pirate songs as she swept dirt out the back door.

I wondered if I’d experience any of it again.

I looked down at Isolfr floating there in the dark ocean. His eyes reflected the starlight. In the last week, I’d begun to set aside the reality that he wasn’t human. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it until now.

“Please,” he said.

“What are we sailing into that’s so dangerous?” My voice wavered. “Just tell me. I’ve thrown the fortunes, and I didn’t see anything–”

“Because this part of your future is blocked. But you’re traveling north, to the far north, the top of the world.” Isolfr swam up to the
Penelope
and touched his hands to her side, the first time I’d ever seen him do so. Nothing happened. The boat kept moving through the water. The protection charms didn’t even ripple.

That, more than anything, convinced me.

“Jandanvar?” I said.

He didn’t answer.

I threw my hands up in frustration. “I still don’t understand why you won’t just tell Kolur, if this is so dangerous. I don’t have any control over what he does.”

Isolfr’s face darkened. “I can’t tell him. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head and the freezing wind blew my hair into my face. “This is pointless, Isolfr. Fine. Whatever you need to show me, show me.”

There was a long pause. The wind picked up, blowing in from the north. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep warm. One hand brushed against my bracelet, and the magic in it hummed, tell me everything was all right.

Isolfr climbed over the railing.

Out of the water, he moved like a dancer, graceful and serpentine. When both feet were on deck, he looked at me shyly. His hair clung to his cheek. Water pooled at his feet and shone on his skin. That dark tunic was plastered against him.

“Hello,” he said, like we hadn’t just been speaking.

“Hello yourself. Are you sure you’re not cold?” I nodded at his soaking tunic.

He shook his head. The
Penelope
rocked in the frigid wind.

“Well?” I said. “What is it you want to show me?” My heart started beating fast when I asked the question. And the boat’s rocking made my head spin.

Instead of answering, Isolfr began to sing.

I was startled to hear which song: it was one in the old language that I knew well, about an ancient queen who was the first to sail between the islands. A wizard’s song. The words were carefully chosen, the sort of words with magic in them that would weave in with the invisible veins of magic flowing all around us.

As Isolfr sang, he knelt down on the deck, his eyes closed. He lifted his left hand in an arc, palm flat, and his right hand thumped out a beat on the deck. The wind roared, bringing snow and chips of ice and a faint sparkle that looked like stardust. I was too astonished to be afraid.

My eyes itched and watered, and I rubbed at them. Splotches of light appeared on my closed eyelids.

When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer standing on board the
Penelope
.

I screamed and whirled around. We weren’t even at sea anymore. The sky overhead was the thick golden color of autumn sunlight. The ground beneath us was flat and reflective, like a mirror. When I looked down, I saw myself staring back at me.

My chest hurt, and I took deep breaths, trying to capture air. “Isolfr!” I shouted. “What the hell did you do to me?”

Someone grabbed my hand, a touch gentle and cold. Isolfr. I shrieked and pulled away from him, terror vibrating inside me. He let me go, saying, “Wait. Hanna.”

“Where are we?” My voice bounced around in a tinny, haunting way. “What did you do? Sea and sky, I should never have trusted you! You’re a monster, aren’t you? You–”

He grabbed my hand again and squeezed. “You’re safe,” he said. “I swear it.”

I shook my head, but my panic was ebbing in spite of myself. The golden light cast a sense of calm over everything. It was obviously enchanted, but it didn’t strike any warnings with the magic residing inside me, or the magic residing inside my bracelet.

“We’re in a liminal space,” Isolfr said. “The place between worlds. No one can hurt us here. Feel.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “Concentrate. You’re a witch; you can feel it. We’re safe.”

His hand was as cold as the night air aboard the
Penelope
, but it was pleasant, like the day after the year’s first snowfall. I concentrated, steadying my breath. He was right. That sense of calm came from a protection spell, a sort not so different from the one Frida had cast over the
Penelope
. Only, it was deeper, and older, and stronger.

I’d never felt magic like it.

“We’ll only be here a few minutes. I want you to meet someone, but we have to do it someplace safe.” Isolfr let go of my hand and raised his own hands up over his head as mirrors of each other. “Gillean of the Foxfollow, I call you!”

His voice rang out, sonorous and rich. It didn’t echo emptily the way mine had. I stared where Isolfr stared. I had no idea what I was going to see.

Shadows appeared, moving together into vague shapes. They lightened; they distorted. It was a man. A skinny man, with a mop of tousled gray hair and a shuffling, awkward walk. When he saw Isolfr, he let out a sigh.

“Mr Witherjoy!” he exclaimed, clutching at his chest. “Oh, you had me for a fright.”

“I’m sorry, Gillean, I couldn’t warn you.”

“Your name’s Isolfr Witherjoy?” I said.

Isolfr tilted his head. “It’s both. Hanna, I’d like you to meet Gillean of the Foxfollow.”

Of course it was both. I’d just said that. I was about to protest when Gillean turned toward me, and my body froze.

His eyes were gray.

Matte gray, like stones.

He was from the Mists.

He gave me a bow, practiced and easy. I stared at him in horror.

“You lied,” I said to Isolfr, my voice deep in my throat. “You are from the Mists.”

Gillean laughed.

I turned sharply to him, wishing I had a weapon beyond my bracelet. I didn’t keep a knife on me, not when we weren’t bringing up the nets. There was no reason.

“Forgive me,” he said, and he smoothed down his dusty old jacket. “The notion that Mr Witherjoy would be from the Mists–” He chuckled again and shook his head. “I assure you, he’s quite of your world.” Gillean’s expression softened slightly, and he said, “And I don’t mean to harm you. I can’t harm you, in fact, even if I wanted to.”

The golden light brightened, and my thoughts were suffused with peace. A world built of a protection charm. This would be a place to live.

“Why do you bring me here?” I asked.

“I was wondering the same thing myself,” Gillean said. He looked at Isolfr. “You said you wouldn’t need to speak with me again, after the last time.”

“I know. I’m sorry. My orders changed.”

Orders? Who was he working for?

“I need you to tell her about Lord Foxfollow,” Isolfr said.

“Who?” I said.

Gillean’s face went pale. He trembled and rubbed at his shoulder distractedly. For all the stories I’d heard about the Mists, my first encounter with a man from those lands wasn’t particularly frightening. And yet not even that golden light could melt away the tiny chill of fear still crawling under my skin.

“It’s all right,” Isolfr said gently. “It’ll be just like before. I need her to hear, though, from you. If I could have found another way to do this, I would have.”

Gillean hesitated. “And you’re sure I’m protected?”

Isolfr paused, just for a fraction of a second, before answering yes. It left an uneasy feeling in my belly, that pause.

“I was valet to Lord Foxfollow,” Gillean told me. “He is a dangerous man, my dear. He has tired of all the power in our world, and so he wants to go after yours.”

“Is that where Kolur’s going?” I said. “To meet with this lord?”

Gillean didn’t answer. He had a glazed look, like the past had entangled him completely.

“I served as valet to his father, too,” Gillean said. “That had been pleasant enough. But when he died, and this Lord Foxfollow assumed his title–” He closed his eyes. Isolfr moved forward by a step, one hand held out as if to catch Gillean before he fell.

Gillean took a deep, shuddery breath and regained his composure. Isolfr stepped back. “Oh, it was awful, my dear. He’s an awful man. You wouldn’t know it speaking to him, not at first, because he’s quite charming. He always knows what you want to hear. It was through pure manipulation that he gained all the lands in Mists. But I don’t imagine your world will go so easily. You humans have always put up a fight.”

I was at once horrified and bewildered. Of course the Mists had tried to gain access to our world before – Ananna
had stopped one such man, and her lover Naji had done the same long before he met her. But Ananna was a pirate queen and Naji was one of the Jadorr’a, and it made no sense to me that Kolur would be swept up in that sort of destiny. He was a fisherman. And not even a very good one.

“But the worst is when Lord Foxfollow’s charm fails him.” Gillean let out a ragged breath, and Isolfr moved close to him and put his hand on his arm. Gillean nodded. “When he can’t manipulate you into doing what he wants, he sends out his horrors. They were formed out of the magic of our world, a dark spell banned many decades ago. Lord Foxfollow pays no attention to such rules. His horrors take no solid form. They’re constantly shifting, constantly
changing
. I can’t imagine the havoc they would do here if they were released. I remember when he sent them after his cousin Rothe, when he learned that Rothe had been meeting with one of Foxfollow’s rivals. It wa–”

Another ragged breath. Tears shimmered on his cheeks. Isolfr wrapped his arm around his shoulder with a gentleness I didn’t expect.