Page 57 of Empire of Shadows

The world around them had narrowed to a band of muddy brown water framed by a seemingly endless expanse of mangrove swamps. Ellie didn’t mind the change. Everything she had seen—from the shocking blue clarity of the sea to the manatee that had startled her that morning—was profoundly, delightfully different from the gray monotony of the world that she had known for the last twenty-four years.

Beyond the coast, the landscape quickly descended into wilderness. There were no farms or villages situated on the banks of the Sibun—only low palms, mangroves, and sea grapes tangled into a wall of brush that extended for miles to either side. Long-legged birds perched in the water along the banks, dipping their beaks into the mud for fish. Insects hopped along the surface of the water, and the sun beat down relentlessly overhead.

As Ellie moved to the shade of the canopy, Bates pulled another hat from the shallow hold under the floorboards of the deck. This one was a battered straw Stetson that had clearly seen better days. He plopped it onto his messy, sun-gilded hair, leaning back against the rail at the stern with the handle of the rudder braced comfortably under his arm.

His eyes were an even more startling shade of blue out here in the wild. The color rivaled the hue of the clear, open waters that they had left behind.

Ellie brushed the thought aside. She hardly needed to waste any of her attention on that particular aspect of the scenery.

She wished she’d had a bit more time during her escape to examine the notes that Dawson had made on the map—or perhaps to simply steal them. She couldn’t know for certain how much of the route the professor had deciphered before she had stolen the parchment back. Ellie comforted herself with the notion that he and Jacobs would need to acquire a boat and likely other supplies before they could hope to come after her. Dawson didn’t strike her as the sort to travel light. So long as she and Bates kept making good time, they should be able to stay ahead of any pursuit.

?

By mid-afternoon, the unrelenting monotony of the palms and mangroves began to give way to the ripple of low foothills. The trees lining the banks grew taller, sometimes reaching out to form a leafy green canopy over the muddy width of the water.

The river was low. TheMary Leehandled the sluggish current with ease. By the time the sun began to drift toward the horizon ahead of them, Ellie had not seen so much as a rickety dock for hours. Fat lizards draped across the branches of the trees overhead, accented by the bright flicker of the birds. Thick walls of green served as the boundaries of Ellie’s world.

As the sky began to change its blue for purple, Bates rounded another bend in the river and drew theMary Leecloser to the bank. With an echoing rattle, the launch’s engine slowed to a stop. The sound raised a cacophonous cry from a flock of birds that startled out of the branches of a massive overhanging oak. They rose up—dark, fluttering shapes calling in irritation to one another against the richly colored dusk.

“Are we stopping already?” Ellie asked, feeling a little jolt of alarm at the prospect.

“Can’t pilot a boat in the dark,” Bates replied. “Not unless you wanna risk putting a hole in your hull on some stray rock. Don’t worry. If your friend is trailing us, he’ll have to stop too.”

Reassured, Ellie rose and stretched her limbs. Her muscles protested against the long day of inactivity.

As Bates set about banking the fire in the boiler, Ellie moved to the bow.

A break in the foliage ahead of them offered her a glimpse of the mountains. The peaks rose, low and hazy, over the rich green of the trees… and looked far closer than they had from the veranda of the Hotel Rio Nuevo.

Ellie traced the shape of the medallion through the fabric of her shirt. She was so much nearer to the place where it had come from.

If that place is even real, she reminded herself.

Bates hopped up onto the rail and neatly jumped from there to the river bank, carrying a line from the boat with him. He tied it to one of the thick-trunked ceiba trees.

Pulled taut by the current, the rope gracefully swung theMary Leeinto a little hollow in the curve of the river, which put them out of the way of any debris that might float past in the night.

“How far have we come?” Ellie asked as he came back on board.

Bates sat down on the deck and pulled his rucksack into his lap. He rifled through it and tugged out a tin cylinder. Unscrewing the top, he shook loose an oilskin.

The waterproof bundle held another map. Unlike Ellie’s parchment, this one was obviously modern. It was covered in notations and markings. Ellie studied them over Bates’s shoulder as he unrolled it across the deck.

“We’ve come about fifty miles,” he replied. “Which puts us right… about… here.”

He dropped his finger to a point on the curve of the river that was not far from the dotted line that marked the edge of the Cayo District.

Ellie knelt down for a closer look as Bates rose to light the lantern using an ember from the box of the boiler.

He pulled a pair of unlabeled cans out of the hold and set about opening them.

“Looks like beans tonight,” he concluded as he peered inside.

Bates plucked a tin pan from a hook on the frame of the canopy and set it on the flat top of the boiler. He dumped the beans inside.

Ellie’s gaze drifted to the fist-sized gray rock on the shelf beside him. It was shaped roughly like a sleepy hedgehog. She wondered what possible function it could serve.

Before she could ask, Bates plopped down beside her, sitting a bit closer than was strictly polite.

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