Page 78 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Lord Arad almost didn’t answer, but Jagaros let loose a grumbling growl, and he went on quickly, “There was a boy—maybe a young man, I don’t know—who was practicing his Summoning magic right outside the window when he heard her sneeze. He came to investigate and found her standing in here with a knife, poised to kill him. She jolted into action when the boy suddenly said, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you okay?’ And all his ruddy questions seemed to stun the lady of the sea, who paused long enough to take him in. She saw his wild blonde curls and his much-too-tender, weak little face and dropped her knife right then and there.”
“It was love at first sight,”the younger bat named Velika sighed.
“It was ludicrous at first sight,”Lord Arad snapped.“Utter ludicrous! They didn’t even know each other, yet we had to watch them gawk and flirt and keep meeting each other to talk about wretched stars and dreams, and later on—”
“I’m sure we can skip what happened later on, Father,”Velika cheeped.
I couldn’t take a deep enough breath. Wild blonde curls and a tender face—that had definitely been Fabian. Which meant he’d found my mother, a pirate who’d been immune to the island’s shield just like Coen. A pirate who’d snuck through to spy. And they’d… fallen in love here. Not just on this campus, but in this forgotten, festering classroom.
I could practically see it, the tent and sleeping bag and supplies she must have set up in here, stolen food and canteens of spring water piled up in one corner, and clothes and weapons piled up in the other. And all the while, these bats must have dangled and squirmed and watched above her.
But the next part of the story went blank in my mind. How had they separated?
Jagaros, bless him, growled up the question for me.
“Such a sad moment,” Velika said quietly.
“Such anexpectedmoment,” Lord Arad corrected. “Human love never lasts.”
I cringed against Emelle at that, images of Coen flashing before me, but Lord Arad had already plunged on.
“She had the baby, right here on this floor. For a month, they raised the baby together, the boy rushing over to feed and burp and other disgusting things after his classes. And then he took his Final Test and passed it, and she told the boy she had to go back. She’d take the baby, she said, and raise it on the ships, and train it to fight in an upcoming war. The child would grow up to be a spy and assassin and warrior. It would be an honor, the lady said, to provide her people with such a thing.And she invited the boy to come with her,to leave the island and join her.”
A deep chill settled to the bottom of my stomach. That child, of course, had been me. My mother had wanted to give me to the pirates… as a baby. She’d wanted to hand me over like a gift. An offering.
“The boy,” Lord Arad continued, “begged her to stay. Begged her to leave the sea behind and find a dull little village with him and raise the child in a respectable, unassuming home. She refused. She said theseawas the child’s home. She let him kiss the babe one more time and made to leave. But the boy, crying those horrible, ugly human tears, used his magic to send all the blood in the lady’s head to the bottom of her feet.”
What? I couldn’t imagine it, what with Fabian’s loathing for violence. Couldn’t imagine him holding me in the crook of his arms and sobbing while he knocked my mother out.
“He left with the baby, then?” I asked, and my voice sounded hollow.
It was Velika who cheeped, “Yes, he left with the baby—and her knife.”
My blood vibrated within me at that. Her knife.Myknife, now.
"The lady of the sea woke up in a rage,”Velika continued, “but by that time, he and the baby were long gone. And she couldn’t risk scouring the entire island for them, not when she didn’t have one of those strange brands on her shoulder that mark you humans as belonging to that witch on the mountain.”
“So she left?” I whispered. “She went back?”
“She went back,” Velika confirmed. “She went back cursing the boy’s name and vowing to find her child again one day. But we haven’t seen her since.”
Perhaps the pirates had killed her for fraternizing with an Esholian. Or perhaps she’d simply forgotten about me over all these years. But one thing was clear, as I stood clutching Emelle’s hand, listening to the rustling of tomb bats and the grumbling buildup in Jagaros’s throat. As my eyes, which had finally fully adjusted to the gloom, saw what lay under the scraps of Fabian’s letter: the bloodstains of birth.
No matter how noble or compassionate my father’s intent might have been…
He had kidnapped me from my mother eighteen years ago.
CHAPTER
28
Where are you?
It was Coen, brushing his presence against my mind, tasting my shock and anger and fear. He must have just got out of his last class, but I couldn’t believe an eternity hadn’t passed since I’d first unfolded Fabian’s letter.
What happened? What’s wrong?
I replayed everything Lord Arad and Velika had said. A curious numbness had slunk through me, lining the inside of my skin with its tingling. Beside me, Emelle had gone still and silent, and I had no idea what she thought of this. Would she tell someone, despite her promise not to? Would she think of me as… tainted, now that she knew I was the daughter of a pirate spy and a traitor?
