Hidden Island Chapter 19, part 2 of 3

Hidden Island
Chapter 19, part 2 of 3

"They could work right in the reef itself without any trouble. They never snagged a net or scraped a hull," Will said.

"Are you going to get to the fucking point sometime this century, or what?" Lace asked flatly.

"The Kestrel will never make it through the Drifts. She'll end up as kindling," Will said. "Getting a ship this size through that channel is impossible."

"Then why the hell are we going?" Lace demanded.

"We aren't going to take the Kestrel through," Will said.

"I thought as much," Jack said from behind them. "You think all those small boats will get through the Drifts where the Kestrel can't. It's madness.

Those little ships will never carry all the gear we need to transport, and they'll be dashed on the rocks just as fast."

"No..." Will said, giving Lace a meaningful look. She stared back at him, her face slowly changing from annoyance to bewilderment to dawning realization.

"Oh, fuck me," she muttered. "That could work."

Will slowly nodded. "She doesn't get to know. Nobody does, save for the Captain."

"What!" Jack exploded. "Why not!"

Will turned around and leaned against the sink. "Morant."

Lace looked back and forth between them for a moment, then nodded. "I know the rules and why we have them, Sterling. Navigators don't give up the route plan. The tricks of your trade are your own. I won't tell anyone your plan."

"Well, I sure as hell don't understand your sailor tradition garbage," Jack huffed. "Why? What does Morant have to do with anything?"

"If Morant knew Will's plans, he could drop Will off at the next port and continue without him," Lace said. "I've seen it happen. Navigators are only valuable if no one else can do their job. If other people know the route, a navigator is a pointless job—just another mouth to feed. Ship owners are a cutthroat lot. If a sailor is on a ship collecting pay for a job that isn't needed, that sailor will be dropped at the nearest port."

"That's why we all guard our skills and maps so closely," Will said with a slight shrug.

"I still don't see what that has to do with me, but fine. Keep your secrets," Jack said, furiously drying more pots and pans. Will watched her breasts bounce, feeling conflicted about enjoying the sight. As much as his feelings about Jack had changed, she was still quite lovely to look at.

"If you find out, you'd tell Morant. It's part of your job," Will shrugged.

"I would not! I work for him, but I certainly don't like him. Why would you think I'd ever better-"

Jack stopped. A muscle clenched in her jaw. Will watched her, waiting. She went back to drying.

Will turned around and went back to the dishes.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Lace looked back and forth between the two of them, her brows high on her forehead. "What the fuck was that?" she asked, confused. She felt like the room had gotten even smaller.

"You want to tell her, or should I?" I just wanted to let you know that Will asked without turning around again.

"Go ahead. You wouldn't believe my side anyway," Jack muttered.

"Maybe I would if you'd ever tell it," Will shrugged.

"I did!" Jack yelled. "I told you I had to!"

Will turned around to face Jack again. "Oh yes, it was the obvious explanation," he snarked.

"What did I tell you before we went into that chamber?" Jack asked fiercely.

"You asked me to trust you. Then you let me take the ring, knocked me out, and stole it. Then you left me for dead, cursed, in the middle of a trap-filled ruin in a jungle full of angry cultists," Will said like he was explaining arithmetic.

"Fuck me..." Lace said, shocked at that revelation. "You did that?"

"No!" Jack snapped. "Well, sort of. I didn't have a choice. I tried to tell him after he made it back."

"A year later," Will said. "I lost count of the number of times I almost died and the number of people I watched die around me before I figured out that I was a walking bad luck charm, and when I finally made it back, you couldn't even tell me why."

"I did it for Bella," Jack said grimly. Then she cursed under her breath. She looked angry that she'd said anything, frustrated with herself for being unable to hold her tongue. She fumed.

"I had no designs on Bella. You two had a good thing going as far as I was concerned. I didn't want to be around her after I got back because she reminded me too much of you," Will said. He was starting to have a hard time staying calm. This was precisely where he didn't want to be in this situation. Why had he even started talking?

"No, not like that," Jack said. "I did it to save Bella."

"From what?! From me?" Will snarled. "What could you have thought I would do to Bella?"

"You aren't listening! Again!" Jack yelled. "Bella was dying!"

"What?" Will asked. His building anger suddenly emptied, and he felt confused and hollow.

"Fuck," Jack scowled down at the pan she was still clenching in her fist.

"Fuck is right," Lace said with a half grin on her face. She held her hands on the sink, leaning against it and unashamedly watching the drama unfold. "You two put on a hell of a show."

"Not the time," Will said with a slight shake of his head toward the dusky-skinned woman beside him. He turned back to Jack. "Explain."

Jack shook her head. "Bella was dying. I had to save her. That's why we went to that ruin."

"Explain more." Will didn't move. His head was spinning in too many directions.

"Do you remember the mural we found?" Jack asked.

"Sure. It was only partial. There was something about giving up your heart and something else about unimaginable wealth. There was standard cultish sacrifice and reward nonsense and a list of trials we had to get through. We figured it all out. It wasn't even that difficult, aside from that bit with the ropes that had rotted away. Why?" Will asked.

"You were the sacrifice, Will. That was the last trial," Jack sighed. She dropped her pan and sat down.

Will's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He shut his mouth again and thought for a bit. "You tried to sacrifice me?"

"I did sacrifice you," Jack said sadly.

"No, you didn't. I survived," Will said, gesturing at himself to emphasize the obvious.

"Sacrifices don't have to mean death, Will. They must mean loss. I sacrificed you. I know I did because it worked," Jack said, sounding as hollow as Will felt.

"Great. You know that explanation doesn't make anything better, right?" Will asked. "It kind of makes things worse."

"The whole ruin was a trial to get the ring. The last trial was a sacrifice. A betrayal. That's why I brought you along in the first place." Jack sounded defeated entirely.

"That's worse," Will said.

"I had to sacrifice the thing dearest to me! That was... you how I felt about you. I sacrificed us," Jack stared at the floor at Will's feet, unwilling to look up and meet his eyes.

Lace snorted. "I feel like I'm reading a penny dreadful. This is some dramatic bullshit." Jack's eyes snapped up at her and glared. Will snickered, then started laughing. Lace started laughing with him. Jack glared at Will.

"You, asshole!" she snapped. "I finally tell you! I finally admit it all, and you. You think you can laugh at me?"

Will wiped his eyes and then swept his hair out of his face. "Well, she's right. This is quite dramatic. If we were watching someone else have this conversation, you'd be the first to roll your eyes."

Jack stopped and rubbed her temples. "I would. This is such nonsense."

"Alright, it was a trial, and you had to sacrifice me for the ring so you could... what? Save Bella with it somehow?" Will asked.

"Exactly right," Jack nodded. "I knew you would be fine. You were alive and still the most capable man I've ever known."

Lace looked at Will, thinking maybe Jack had confused him with someone else. She was about to open her mouth, but Will held a finger.

"Save it for later," he said. She sighed and shut her mouth again.

"I had to save her, Will," Jack said.

"How do you know she was dying?" Will asked.

"She told me. She'd done the divinations. She knew exactly how long she had left," Jack said with a slight shake of her head.

"That's why you wouldn't let me take the time to do any research," Will said.

Jack nodded. "I'd already done enough on my own. There was no time, and I feared you'd figure it out if you started researching that ruin."

"So you knew what you were doing from the beginning," Will said.

Jack gave a slight nod.

"Before we'd even left, you'd already decided to... sacrifice me." Will continued.

Jack nodded again.

"Because that's what you had to do to save Bella's life," Will said.

Jack took a deep breath and nodded again.

"You could have told me. I'd have stayed there willingly, taken the curse and everything," Will said.

"That isn't a betrayal, Will," Jack said. "I had to betray you. That was the point of the trial."

"That's a messed-up trial," Lace said.

"Yes, it is," Jack agreed firmly.

"Why? What was so important about that kind of sacrifice?" Will asked.

"It's what the wards protecting the ring demanded," Jack shrugged. "It was like a lock, and that was the last part of the key."

"Who would design a key like that?" Will asked.

"Someone who didn't want any decent person ever to have that ring," Jack said.

"Why? You said you used it to save Bella's life. Why shouldn't a good person have that?" All the bitterness had unexpectedly drained out of Will, leaving him feeling strangely hollow. The kettle on the stove started whistling. Will picked it up and dumped it into the sink behind him. The mundanity of the chores suddenly made the whole conversation seem almost normal.

"Because it's a curse, Will. I can't tell you any more than that. Please believe me when I tell you that it isn't something that any decent person should have to experience," Jack said, sounding as hollow as Will did.

"You're saying you are a decent person?" Will asked.

"No. I'm saying I'm not. I deserve this, and I think that was the point of the trial." Jack took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Will said nothing. She'd finally told him. She'd been wanting and dreading this moment for years, and now he was just... quiet. She had no idea what would happen next, and it was gnawing at her. "Say something," she said quietly.

"What happens now? Does the magic go away? Does Bella die now that you've broken the rules?" Will asked.

"No, that was just for the trial," Jack said.

"So you could have told me sooner?" Will asked, his tone slightly edged. "Why didn't you?"

"Because now you're going to ask questions and eventually figure out what all of it means, and I... It would be best if you didn't do that. Please don't ask me why," Jack said.

"First, you tell me to talk, then tell me to shut up." Will let out a single laugh.

"Yes. I suppose so," Jack shrugged.

"Alright. It will take me a while to process all this anyway." Will said, turning back around to keep washing. " I can't say I don't understand what could have driven you to do what you did anymore. I don't know what I would have done if I had been in your shoes."

"I appreciate you saying that," Jack said.

Will didn't reply to her. Instead, he looked to Lace, still leaning against the sink, watching the whole thing unfold like she was at a play. "What were you going to say earlier," Will asked.

Lace eyed him up and down, her eyebrow slowly raising. "If she thinks you're so competent, she must meet more men. You don't even know how a fishing web works."

Will blinked. "What?"

Bella's vision swam in the mirror. She pushed herself along by will. Her face in the mirror never wavered, but behind her reflection was all churning fog and flickers of half-formed shapes and light.

This was the dangerous part. The Ways Between had no maps, paths, or stars to navigate by.

The only guiding light was a distant point to focus on, a destination; if she lost focus for a moment, she'd lose sight of where she was headed, and the whole ritual and all the energy she'd spent preparing would be wasted. Worse yet, she might upset the Traveler, who was not known for patience or forgiveness. It was challenging to earn the attention of a higher power. The Traveler did not have to allow anyone to travel her Way. Supplication was hard, and maintaining the Traveler's continued ambivalence to her presence meant upholding what she said she would do.

The Traveler cared little for destinations or reasons but cared a great deal about broken promises and unkept oaths. The Ways were full of people and... other things that had set out with purpose and lost their way. Worse yet, the Ways Between were home to many things without purpose beyond cruelty, capriciousness, or simple hunger.

She ignored the whispered voices, faint cries for help, the glitter of faintly seen treasures, and the distant songs and chants. All that mattered was her destination: finding what was hers, connecting what was here with what was there.

She'd done this before, but never across these distances. She knew that distance was a strange thing in the Ways Between. However, the distance on the mortal plane still did matter, but exactly how much seemed to vary according to many factors, like time of day, day of the year, and other esoteric phenomena that she'd never been taught. She'd been at it for more than an hour. She hadn't moved. Her muscles hurt from the effort of standing so still and compensating for the motion of the waves while she tried to keep her face lined up with the marks on the mirror. Her stomach was rumbling. She'd missed dinner.

The fog parted behind her reflection in the mirror, revealing a handsome man's face with eyes full of the same fog that surrounded them both. He began to speak with her; she rushed past.

Fingertips touched her shoulder in the mirror. She felt it, there on her body, in the Captain's bedroom. Not a reflection. There and real. A rich voice in her ear asked why she was running. In a moment of panic, she nearly looked down at the hand she felt, but she forced herself to continue to face the mirror. She pushed with her mind. The churn of fog surged forward again, and she felt the hand slip off of her.

The churn of fog broke occasionally, showing her places, reflections of the natural world cast in black and white. Now, she was rushing past a tiny island rimmed with warding Akula totems, each with a bright, colorless fire burning at the base. All the hue had been leached free of her surroundings. She had color, and occasionally, she thought she saw other things that did. They were distractions. She could still feel the tug of her destination. That was all that mattered. She felt lost, but she knew she wasn't. Not really. She wanted to look up at the sky. It was an instinct everyone had when trying to find their bearings. She had to remind herself that there was no sky.

Above her was only the wooden ceiling of the Captain's chamber. The grey island with its strange carvings was only a background in the mirror, and as soon as she passed it in her periphery, it was gone. Picturing it all as an illusion helped. The churn was a maze without walls. She had to maintain her focus and keep moving in the correct direction.

Abruptly, the fog thinned again. She was on a grey cobbled street. She couldn't see far, but she didn't need to. Her face broke into a grin. Finally! She knew this place. She was close now.

The streets rushed past her, the fog swirling. This was the hard part. In the mirror, she could only see what she was passing in the Ways, never what was in front of her. The urge to turn her head for a better look was insistent but foolish. She had to concentrate to make the right turns at the right intersections. She could hear faint music and the sounds of laughing, boisterous people. It sounded odd as if it was far away and underwater. She couldn't see anyone who would be making the sounds, but that wasn't a surprise. They didn't exist here; only their echoes did. She focused her will to turn herself a bit in the mirror. It wasn't changing her destination. It was just changing her route to get there: a small loophole, one of the few she could exploit. The streets behind her reflection turned a bit, giving her a better idea of where she was.

As she did, she caught sight of half of a hanging sign. A dancing girl with a tambourine. She'd made it! The rest was easy. She knew the route blindfolded.

A few more steps and her reflection would pass through where the door would have been had she been there. Something stopped her. She pushed with her will, but her position in the mirror stayed. Her surroundings didn't shift. She should have been able to walk right through the door like it wasn't there. She couldn't see it since it was before her reflection, but she knew exactly where it should have been. The rules of the Way were clear.

While she walked between, all doors in the mortal realm should have been open to her. There were only a few ways to close a door in the Ways, and one of them had been used on Merry Mary's.

"Why?!" she snapped at her reflection. Who would do that? Why would anyone want to block travel into Mary's via the Ways ritualistically?

Who even had that kind of power? Bella didn't, and as far as she knew, she was one of only two or three decently skilled practitioners of Witchcraft who frequented Bastard's Bay. She couldn't think of any reason why the others would be interested in Mary, even if they had the power to do it, which she doubted they did.

The Magistrate was known to ward their libraries and archives against various divinations, including this one. Alexandra could have done it, but Bella couldn't imagine a reason she would.

The Magistrate needed to work magic quickly, so they would have had to carve their runes into the flagstones.

It would have been a production. Someone would have noticed. Maybe the Warding was old?

What was Mary's before it was a brothel? A bathhouse? Perhaps someone was very concerned about their privacy? No, that was just... The idea of Mary's being warded this way at all was absurd.

The feeling of being lost that she'd been fighting the entire time the ritual had been going well.

She couldn't turn around or stop facing her destination. That would break the ritual. She could move laterally or back up, but she had to keep her reflection facing her goal. There was another door. The kitchens. She backed up and willed herself along the wall, down the alleyway, and around the back of the building. She needed to become more familiar with this side of the building, which made navigation difficult, but she had a pretty good idea of where the doorway should be.

She tried to move herself forward. Nothing happened. She re-positioned herself. Nothing. Again.

Still nothing. The way was blocked. A sense of panic started to rise inside her. "Think. Think," she said to herself, looking at her reflection like she was giving herself advice.

The chimney wouldn't do. It was too small. Sizes, like distances, were sometimes malleable in the ways, but she needed to learn more about how that worked. Trying theoretical size manipulation on her reflection in the Ways while maintaining the ritual she'd already started sounded too dangerous.

"What am I supposed to do while you're... working?" Janie asked. She was sitting with her hands in her lap, her back straight and her knees together, her posture more like a prim schoolmarm or governess than someone wearing her underclothes on the outside and presenting herself lewdly in a brothel.

"Whatever you want. Wander around. Enjoy the shows on stage. Sit at the bar. Wander around and talk to people," Tonya shrugged. She was setting up the space for customers. She put a deck of tarot cards on the table along with one of Bella's hokey crystal balls, then pulled a big book off the shelf and flipped through it until she found something close enough to an arcane symbol. That went on the table, too.

"But then the men will think I'm... working?!" Janie was having second thoughts about this entire plan.

"No doubt. New girls are always popular, especially when they look like you," Tonya winked. Just tell them you aren't working right now. They'll leave you be. If anyone gets pushy, Caine will sort them out."



To be continued