Page 80 of The Queens and the Kings
The last three days had been charged with intensity, but calm. Henrik dissolved into his thoughts, saying almost nothing. Einar kept an eye on the sky, awaiting Drake with Arvid’s updates.
Time provided firmer ground for their budding friendship. Henrik touched Britt briefly—a hand to the small of her back, her elbow, her wrist—but often, as if challenging himself to get used to it.
“I’m taking us farther out of the bay while we wait for them to return.” Pedr glared at a ship that wisely skirted them in a wide circle. “Too many idiots in here. They can’t sail worth shite. We’ll return when the soldats are due.”
Britt propped her chin in her hand and sighed. While they sped toward open ocean, her thoughts followed a similar speedy track. Henrik and wyverns and General Helsing swirled. Herwandering gaze stared at the sea, but comprehended nothing until it snagged on distant movement.
She straightened. Farther north came a hint of sails and a flash of . . . wing. Awyvernwing.
“No,” she whispered.
Must have been a mistake. She saw something that wasn’t there. Another gray flap appeared, right next to the ocean. Impossible. Wyverns couldn’t swim. Could they? She whipped around, breathless.
“Do you have a spyglass?”
Pedr tapped his foot twice on a floorboard, then knocked on the mast at his back. A rope dropped from overhead, a spyglass tied to the end.
“What in the?—”
He shook his head, unwinding the offering. “Don’t question the arcane. It’s really weird. What do you see?”
She accepted the spyglass and pointed. “There. Do you see that flying shape?”
“Yes.”
Britt pressed her eye to the narrow end. “Is that a wyvern on a ship?” She swung it right, left, right again, and paused when something large and white appeared. The sails of a ship. Behind it, a gray mass rose on wings.
Her breath caught. The same spot, and definitely a wyvern. Another look away from the spyglass, then back through it, confirmed her hunch.
“The bastids!” she cried. “They have a wyvern on a ship.” She passed the spyglass to Pedr. “Do you see what I see?”
“I don’t need that to see it. That’s a navy ship.”
“Too big to be a frigate.”
“Looks like a ship of the line.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The biggest vessel the mainland navy has. There’s no obvious insignia from this distance, and it’s heading west.”
“With a wyvern.”
“With a wyvern,” he repeated.
Britt lowered the spyglass and clutched his arm. “How long will Henrik and Einar be gone?”
“Hours.”
“Do we have time to follow the ship and return?”
Pedr hopped two steps back. “Yes. Keep an eye on it.” By the time she whirled to track it again, he was already spinning the wheel.
The brilliant Arcanist hiding inside her even-keeled brother made itself known as the ship picked up speed. They splashed through waves, soaring across the sapphire ocean so quickly they skimmed the top. Wind whipped tears from her eyes. They leaked into her hairline and trailed behind the curve of her ear.
“Hold on!” Pedr yanked a small flute from beneath his shirt. He blew on it. No sound issued, but the ship vanished.
Britt gasped, grabbing for the first thing she could find. A mast. Her firm footing didn’t falter, although she stared down at smashed water crossed by lines. Her body, her shoes, the rigging, all of it invisible. She tapped a tentative toe forward. Far beneath her, water sprayed off the still-there-but-not-visible hull. She stood stories above the sea.
