Page 58 of Those Fatal Flowers

“You’ve been spending so much time alone. Have you been looking for more signs?”

I want to tell her that I’ve been taking care of the last sign I received. That he would have made a piss-poor sacrifice before, but even though I’ve nursed him back to health, I’ll never give him to Ceres. I’ll use him to force Proserpina tospeak to me again, and if she doesn’t, he’ll sail away from here with my blessing. But I don’t.

“I’ve been looking for her everywhere, Pisinoe.”

“Have you found anything new?”

“I would tell you if I had.” The lie slips from my lips with such ease that I startle myself. I expect Pisinoe to whisper into my ear that she knows I would, but she doesn’t. Instead, she strokes my hair a few more times before releasing me from her embrace.

“I have the metal pieces that you asked for. The small ones are there,” she says, motioning to a large bag that sits beside the door. Its seams are nearly bursting, mostly with nails. Pisinoe spends the most time poring over the treasure we keep in the sea caves. I’d never be able to locate the various parts that Jaquob described without her help. She was thankful for the task, a welcome excuse to dig through her hoard, but her next question doesn’t come as a shock. “And the rest are on the beach. That anchor especially was heavy. What are you going to do with them, exactly?”

“I’m repairing a small boat.”

She raises an eyebrow, no doubt recalling all our failed escape attempts.

I chew my bottom lip, waiting for the lie to materialize on my tongue. “Because of the women who washed ashore. What if more arrive, but alive? We’re cursed to stay here, but that doesn’t mean they would be. If it happens again, I want them to have a way out.”

Pisinoe watches me, a mixture of sadness and relief in her stare. “You’ve been acting so strangely recently…so removed, so preoccupied…First the lily, then this. Try not to burden yourself with too much.”

I smile softly, but it’s too late to heed her advice. I’m trying to force a goddess’s hand with a man she guided me to find,while hiding his existence so that he doesn’t become another sacrifice to her mother—it’s quite literally too much.

But after all this time, I’ll do anything to hear that voice again, even if it’s scolding me from the shore as he sails off into the horizon.

And so I help Jaquob build his escape.

Although he requested parts from his wrecked ship, he wanted only hardware and other metal baubles. When I offered to bring some of the ship’s original wood, he bristled at the idea. Who’d want to try to escape in a coffin? Instead, we go to work with fresh materials, although obtaining new timber is no small task. Since there are no large trees on Rotunda, I spend several nights collecting wood from the southern end of Scopuli. An entire week elapses where Jaquob and I hardly speak because I’m too preoccupied with transporting the felled lumber from my island to his, from the moment the sun slips behind the horizon to the moments before it returns in the morning.

Jaquob wasn’t wrong: Building a boat is a long process. Scopuli’s trees lose their leaves, and one moon cycle slips into another before the craft looks sailable. Its progress makes me more anxious to complete it, especially since Proserpina’s campaign of silence continues. Fear’s roots entangle themselves inside me—what if Jaquob leaves, and she still doesn’t speak?

“Does it need to be this large?” I ask him early one evening. He’s doubled over the side of the boat, working to get the center thwart in place, one of the bench-like pieces of wood where he’ll sit during his voyage. Cold air whips across the sand, a reminder that summer is a distant memory.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be at sea,” he cautions. “I need plenty of room for supplies, especially since I don’t know where I’ll land. We’ve maintained good relations with theAlgonquians, but I might be mistaken for British—or worse, Spanish—before I have a chance to explain myself.”

I mull over his words. I’d have no idea how much food to bring, what supplies to pack, how to navigate the seas, but such questions are facts of life for Jaquob.

Soon we’ll no longer be building, and we’ll need to start packing. What comes next is still hidden from me. Is it truly possible for him to escape? He isn’t cursed, but I’m haunted by the image of our beautiful boat shattering across the reef once he reaches the curse’s boundary, drowning him in the process. What lesson would that be—to watch him die beneath the waves after all this?

What do you want from him, Proserpina? From me?

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” he asks as he wipes his hands on a small piece of cloth. His eyes are hopeful. “What’s here for you?”

I turn away, looking out to the west. “I can’t leave, Jaquob. You know that.”

“I know yousaythat,” he retorts, coming up behind me to place a hand atop my left wing. I shudder. His touch underscores the differences between us. “But I don’t know why. You don’t give me much to work with. How is it that after all these weeks, I still know so little about you?”

“Because you love to hear yourself talk,” I tease, and then add, “My sisters are here. I can’t abandon them.”

“Ah, yes. The infamous sisters, the two soulless harpies who will surely kill me if they ever learn of my existence.” His tone is light. He doesn’t grasp the magnitude of his situation. “I managed to win you over, didn’t I?”

He spins me around to face him, placing both hands on my shoulders. His eyes are so dark that they’re almost black.

“You didn’t win me over,” I whisper, but the words aren’t convincing.

“Then why didn’t you immediately take me to your sisters as soon as you discovered me on the beach?”

“A feeling overcame me, and I acted without forethought. I’ll admit that Pisinoe might be persuaded to let you live for sheer curiosity, but Raidne would never allow it.”

“How would they kill me?”

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