Page 108 of Suffer No Fools
"He'll come around."It amused Stan to no end how much Tovey hated being the recipient of his own behavior. He'd refused to let Stan get to know him for years, and now he couldn't bear a few hours without hearing Hugo's every thought.
"I'm sorry,"Tovey said."I should have confided in you. I was scared I would lose you if I did."
"How could you lose me? I'm a big guy."Stan laughed at his own joke and the scowl Tovey flashed him over his shoulder.
From Luminest, it took eight days to reach Stony Eel Island while keeping pace with the rest of the fleet. During the day, they tucked themselves into the vacant crew sails, same as always. The only difference was Hugo now lay beside them and observed them above deck while they were working. He no longer needed to hide. They were taking him home.
As they neared the island before dawn on the eighth day, Roy and Ray took over early. Stan and Tovey needed extra time to sleep before they arrived.
Stan almost fell from the sail bed. The stone's call had grown stronger, or he was stronger, thanks to his bonds with Tovey and Hugo. The tower buried deep beneath the ocean cried out to be released from its prison.
Once he and Tovey dressed, they hurried to the navigation deck. Hugo was already there, gazing out at the lighthouse beacon. In a flash of sparks, it extinguished.
"Don't want them to see us coming," he said. "They'll know soon enough."
Hugo grinned at him and took his hand. On his other side, Tovey slipped their fingers together and brought them up to brush over them with his lips. "Your lead," he said.
Stan reached out with his power, gaging the distance between the coast and Reaper's Gate, the ridge of rocks that forced ships to wait for the tide to approach the island. There would be no waiting today.
Stan felt a hand on his back, and a burst of shared earth power. Trin was there, and Hugo shuffled aside, making room for her so she could guide her own weaves. Stan pointed to the weak spots, one to the north and one to the south. He took the southern side and worked north, and Trin took the northern side. Stan made quick work of his boulders, sinking them deep beneath the silt that had made the inlet too shallow for low tide.
Behind them, Efren increased the height of the waves, dragging more and more silt away from the shore and giving them easier access to the coast.
Trin and Stan met in the middle, and then they pulled boards from the docked ships, using them to build their own dock. Sleepy sailors sounded the alarm, but Hugo was already in the air, fire radiating from his skin and churning the water beneath him.
"We'll protect the ship," Trin said, patting him on the back with a grin.
Stan launched himself into the air, pulling Tovey along by his hand. They caught up with Hugo and Stan linked hands with him, as well.
On the dock, Efren and Niall kept pace with them, shoving sailors who accosted them into the surf. The water around them turned red and the screams of the dying filled the air.
A child no older than Trin stood on the beach. She held up her hand as a command for them to stop.
"It's her spectral weaver," Hugo whispered. She'd been mute since she'd almost burned out on Stony Eel Island, but that didn't keep her from communicating. She wrapped herself in afire weave and extended her arm toward Efren, as though he was the weakest of their group.
Stan knew better.
"Where's Coryn?" Efren asked. He drew Niall to a stop, still several feet from shore.
The child hefted a fireball at Stan's new dock. He barely had time to feel affronted before Efren batted it away with a water weave. It sank harmlessly beneath the waves.
"You'll never take it from us." The child spoke with Coryn's voice, and Stan shivered. "The stone is ours now. We have the scales of power."
Stan didn't want to know what she intended to do with it. He watched in horror as the spectral weaver approached Efren and Niall, who continued to inch backward toward the ship. This time, she used air weaves in an attempt to strangle Efren and Niall. The air whips cut through Efren's water like it was nothing, but it allowed Niall to see the weave and counter it with an earth spell, drawing the dock boards up as a barrier. She gripped them with another air weave and tossed them aside, but Stan slapped the boards back into place on the dock.
She lashed out at him with an air weave, the distraction Efren had been waiting for. A gray shadow leaped from the dark water, and enormous jaws clamped around the child's middle.
"Oh, fuck." Vadim ran down the dock. The spectral weaver floated in two jagged pieces where the shark's bite had severed her in two, but her last weave had been aimed at her attacker.
The shark lay on her side, unmoving, the notch in her fin clearly visible. The corners of Stan's eyes burned. Not Arrowtip.
"No!" Efren shouted, reaching for her fin.
"Not today." Vadim pulled Efren back from the water's edge and shoved him into Niall's arms. "Call the rest of them off, the greedy buggers."
A pointed snout snapped over the spectral weaver's arm and pulled her further from the dock, but the water stopped churning around Arrowtip.
Through Hugo's bond with Embertide, Stan sensed the healing weaves Vadim pushed into the dead shark, and then he heard the answer to Vadim's call, a resounding "Yes," when he asked if she wanted to live again.
