Aug 2, 1722. Somewhere east of Kingston, aboard the Silk Duchess. The safest port we had available…

“Somehow, I’m still not dead,” I said to the wooden ceiling over my bunk. The ceiling didn’t offer any comment. So I yawned, pulling myself awake.

Morning sunlight poured through the cabin’s narrow window, lighting the occasional dust motes over the table. Muffled shouts and calls of the crew working on deck filled the air. Seawater kissed the ship’s hull with a sloppy slurp while the Silk Duchess pressed on through the waves. They were a comfortable, reassuring sound of normal, and right then, I needed that.

I thought about my alchemy shop and how it looked when we reached it after the warehouse. That hurt almost as bad as my shoulder.

“At least Sebastian found a cabinet to hide in,” I murmured.

Visions of shattered potions and burned recipe books danced in my head. I groaned softly before I shoved the thoughts aside.

“Get up,” I told myself with a sigh. “You’ve things to do, like taming a necrotic nightmare in a bottle.”

That seemed like a reasonable and good thing to do until I sat up. At which point, my body reminded me of all the abuse I’d put it through. It wasn’t feeling very forgiving, and let me know with a broadside of sharp aches. My shoulder? It was another story.

Sebastian then jumped onto the bunk, and also me. It didn’t help.

“Good morning, Sebastian,” I wheezed, then scratched between his horns. He replied with the usual purr that resembled a soft rumble of rocks in a barrel. After a moment, I pushed him onto my bunk, where he grumbled but curled up to nap.

Carefully, I reached for my bag on the nearby tiny table, bathed in the morning sunlight. I rummaged inside until I produced two glass vials of potions, one a dull red and the other green. I downed them both, one right after the other. A dual swig of raspberry-flavored healing potion and graveyard syrup.

I called the combined flavor ‘raspberry despair’. At least it wasn’t toad sweat. That was, in my opinion, a small improvement.

The healing elixir did its work, as a dull warmth drove off the chorus of aches. Gently, I rubbed the bandages around my left shoulder. I grimaced. Healing elixirs had repaired some of the damage, but there was a lot more healing to go. Once I changed into fresh clothes, I ran a hand through my hair when something moved in my bag.

It was the Codex anchor page. For a moment, it looked like the faded letters shifted slightly.

“Renwick?” I said in surprise, then snatched up the page and unfolded it.

Nothing. No burst of fog, smell of brine, before the man’s ghost appeared next to me. A dull, heavy feeling sank in my chest.

“I’m sorry, Renwick,” I murmured with a sigh. “I should’ve never asked you to keep watch.”

The fight in the warehouse roared back through my head. I pinched my eyebrows in a dismayed, sad grimace. I’m trained to heal people, help them. This time I failed. Dryden Storm had stabbed Renwick. Gutted him like a fish, really. I saw him bleed. How does a ghost bleed?

I shook my head. How is it even possible to murder a ghost? To make them bleed? A ghost blade, like Elara’s, can’t even do that.

A knock on the cabin door battered down my thoughts to kindling.

“Yes?” I called.

Lysander pushed open the door, with the usual smirk that bordered a grin on his dark, weathered face.

“You’re up! Good. I thought you might be. How’s the shoulder?” he asked while he stepped inside.

With Lysander in the cabin with me, the little room almost seemed claustrophobic. Lysander was a lean man, but ship cabins weren’t known for space. He sat down in the room’s sole, small chair across from me. Sebastian immediately left the bunk and accosted him for attention with a wiggle.

I touched my left shoulder, then gingerly moved it in careful circles. At least, until I felt a twinge of pain.

“Hurts, but the elixir is doing its job. I’ve been able to move it since last night. So I doubt I’ll lose the shoulder,” I explained as I slipped my left arm into a blue, cotton cloth sling. “But I’m not about to arm wrestle anytime soon. If I’m very lucky, I might even get full use back and only have a scar. But I won’t hold my breath on that.”

Lysander replied with a deep chuckle.

“You wouldn’t be the first in our line of work with a scarred limb. Just think of it as a tattoo with a better story!” His laughter faded as he pursed his lips with a serious expression. “I’m sorry about your shop.”

I sighed.

“So am I, my friend. Señorita Stewart was far too kind to take on cleaning the mess. I hope she’ll be fine.”

Lysander shrugged. “I’m sure she will be. You told the city watch, and they’ll check in on her. Also, you know, Buttons and his street rats will keep an eye on her, too.”

“Yes,” I replied. “They will. Seeing what Dryden and his crew did to my workshop hurt almost as much as getting stabbed. Renwick dying to save us?” I shook my head at a loss for words. “All just to find the damn Codex page.”

“I’d say Storm was looking for both you and the page,” Lysander countered, then crossed his arms. Sebastian huffed, then returned to the bunk for a nap. “It fits with his rant at the warehouse.”

I shrugged with my good shoulder.

“Maybe.” Then I rubbed my face. “I’m wondering if there’s more to it for Storm, though.”

I gestured wearily at the Codex page.

“Yes, he’s cursed to protect the book. Demanding I return it fits with what Lyra said about the Bindweaver’s Curse.” I scowled at Lysander. “But that last bit in the warehouse? About me trying to ‘steal’ the curse or whatever that was? I just feel that was about his amulet.”

Lysander leaned back to hook an arm around the back of the chair with a thoughtful look.

“Could his amulet have anything to do with the Codex? Another trinket made by that Tristam Greenholm who made the book?”

I shook my head a little. Then I remembered that voice I’d heard more than once when my hand’s been on fire. I frowned, eyebrows knitted, wrestling with the thought.

“Maybe? But not entirely.”

For some reason, that felt right. I didn’t know how I knew that, just that I did.

“There’s far more to it than just some trinket tied to a necromantic book,” I added.

Lysander arched a curious eyebrow at me. I sighed, then rubbed the bridge of my nose. This wasn’t a conversation I had been looking forward to, but I needed to tell someone.

I started with the moment that we freed Renwick from that Death Whisper and explained about the voice. From there, I told Lysander about the murmurs and half-understood words in my mind every time the tattoos and my hand burned. This even included the feeling of a presence next to me in the warehouse when Storm attacked me. 

It was a lot, and once I was done, it sounded addled even to me. To Lysander’s credit, he wasn’t suspicious or judgmental. He took it in stride.

“A voice?” he said. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a thoughtful statement. “It’s talked to you. Have you tried talking back?”

I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. Then again, I worried I had. I just wasn’t sure.

“What? So, you mean like another ghost?”

Lysander shook his head.

“Not ghosts. Spirits, Pedro. I’m talking about nature spirits. When I was a boy, the elders told me all about nature spirits, and how they sometimes talk to people.” He shrugged at me. “Given everything that’s come from Otherworld, why not nature spirits? At least a few, anyway? They could’ve survived to make it to Earth.”

“A lost Otherworld nature spirit?” I said thoughtfully. “Like a water nymph?“ Then my mind went to darker places of murderous oak trees that ate people alive. “Even say, a roblón?”

Lysander’s only reply was another solemn shrug.

I glanced down at the floor and frowned in thought. The fight with Captain Storm in the warehouse came to mind.

“Storm accused me of trying to steal the curse. His amulet even dimmed when I felt that presence next to me. Before that, both Lyra and Morowen said the Bindweaver’s Curse was altered. Knotted up with some sort of magic that drains victims.”

I squinted at Lysander with a suspicious look.

“This is a bit of a guess. But what if this spirit is trapped in Storm’s amulet, and it’s part of what’s corrupted the Bindweaver’s Curse?”

“Which would, in a way, make it tied to the Codex, wouldn’t it?” Lysander asked. “Almost like a fish in a net, trapped by this Tristam Greenholm who wrote the book in the first place?”

Aches flared out of my left shoulder, and I rubbed at it absently before I waved a hand at the Codex page.

“Señor Greenholm was also stupid enough to try to murder a sea hag for her power,” I replied. “So trapping a nature spirit would fit.” I pursed my lips again with a frown. “It could just be coincidence, too.”

Lysander leaned back a little in the tiny wooden chair.

“So, that bit of potion you collected in the warehouse? Just what is it?”

I sighed and rubbed my bandaged shoulder again.

“It’s in the galley. Last I checked, there’s a scent of old nightshade, what looks like powdered bone, bits of fool’s gold, even some resurrection fern.” I shook my head. “It’s very bad mix, my friend. Very dark. It’s like a fast poison that would kill you and heal you at the same time.”

As I described the properties of the elixir, Lysander’s eyebrows climbed higher on his forehead, eyes wide.

“It kills you while it heals you?” he said slowly when I finished. “So either you’re a very pretty corpse, or it’s a race which gets you first, the poison or healing?”

I nodded slightly.

“Yes, something like that. I’m running it through a distillery I cobbled together. It should be broken completely down in an hour. I’ll know more about it then.”

We both fell quiet. The soft sounds of wind in the sails, creaking wood, and the muffled lap of water against the hull kept us company. This was broken up by the occasional voices of the crew on deck while they went about their work. I broke the soothing quiet first.

“When we set out from Kingston, Elara set course for those locations on the warehouse map. Are we still headed that way?” I asked. “How close are we?”

Lysander’s expression turned grim.

“Close enough to see. I’d say we’ll drop anchor in an hour.”

“But?” I added suspiciously as I narrowed my eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

His mouth pulled into a tight line. “The location?” He hesitated for a heartbeat. “It’s for another fishing village.”

That hesitation sent an ice spider crawling up and down my spine. I suddenly had a thousand questions, but I kept quiet. Instead, I nodded a little.

“Go on,” I said while tension sank claws into my shoulders.

“A lookout was able to get a quick look ahead at the village with a spyglass,” Lysander continued, voice thick with emotion. “Nothing’s moving there. Not even the animals.”

I lowered my head for a moment, then glared at Lysander.

“Maldita sea,” I murmured. “When do we go ashore?”

“We?” Lysander repeated. “Pedro, you’re going nowhere with that shoulder. You’re staying aboard.”

Frustration and anger bubbled up from deep inside my chest. It wasn’t Lysander’s fault, but it came out before I could throw a rope around it.

“Like hell I will!” I snapped. “Lysander, I can’t just sit here while there could be survivors that need help!” Anger got the better of me. Slowly, I clenched and unclenched my right hand while I felt the heat and fire build inside. “I’m going.”

We locked eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment. Lysander blinked first, then sighed.

“All right,” he replied. “Elara is going to be furious.”