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  As for Dante, he wasn't certain what he believed. Nether was drawn to blood and death, so there were times he suspected an imbalance of shadows could cause sickness. But foul air seemed to be the most common factor: that's why there were so many diseases in swampy, warmer places. Or in houses with too many people and too few windows. This suggested that when no nethereal treatment was available, a cure might involve fresh air and isolation.

  Exploring these matters could be the secondary focus of his voyage. That way, no matter what happened with his so-called father, Dante would return with something valuable.

  "Well, no matter the cause, I have a cure," he said. "This will only take a minute."

  He drew his knife and scratched the back of his left arm. Blood welled in the nick, shadows flocking to it like dumb moths. On the other side of the bed, Naran gasped.

  "Nethermancer!" He rushed for the door, grabbing the handle. "All hands! All—"

  Steel whispered on leather. In a blink, Blays drew both swords, putting one to Naran's outstretched wrist and the other to his neck.

  "A suggestion," Blays said. "Shut up."

  The cords of Naran's neck tensed and flexed like rigging in a gale. "You came to kill us? Why?"

  "I'm sure this looks very bad. What with certain people's swords pressed to certain other people's jugulars. But I promise you, we mean you no harm."

  In the gloom of the cabin, Naran's eyes were as white as little moons. "Who are you people?"

  Dante let his hands dangle at his sides. "I'm as you say: a nethermancer. And I will make your captain whole—if you'll allow it."

  "That's not my decision to make. Captain Twill?"

  The woman tried to speak, but her throat caught. She swallowed, baring her teeth. "The Weeping End is a death sentence. Slow and nasty. If this bastard means to kill me fast, that sounds like a blessing."

  Naran removed his hand from the door. Blays put his swords away. Dante exhaled, then moved his vision to the shadows inside the woman's frame.

  Her body was being broken. Wrongness whirled within it, tearing her apart from her spine to her skin. Dante drew streams of darkness from all corners of the room. It settled on Twill's skin, sinking into it like the water left on the sand from a retreating wave, penetrating to the deepest sources of that wrongness.

  She gasped, sitting up in bed. Naran started forward, then stopped himself. Twill closed her eyes. Her entire body trembled. Dante paid her no mind, smoothing out the ulcers within her, then sending the nether through her veins to cleanse her blood. The sickness was deeply rooted. He could leave no trace behind. Scouring her clean took many minutes. His hold on the nether grew less fine.

  Finished with her insides, he moved to her outsides. The sores on her face sealed. Scabs formed, then dropped to the sheets, revealing smooth, unbroken skin. Beside him, Blays looked completely nonchalant. Naran looked ready to jump out the porthole. Twill's eyes remained closed.

  Dante reeled in the direction of the nearest chair and sat. Twill's eyes sprung open. She sat up cautiously, turning her hands palm up, then palm down. She opened the dresser beside her bed and withdrew a mirror. Without being asked, Naran raked the curtains back from the windows, spilling sunlight into the cabin.

  Twill held the mirror to her face. She laughed, touching her smooth skin. "Is this some kind of trap?"

  "What do you mean?" Dante said.

  "The ethermancers refused to see me. So are you here to taint me with nether? Prove I'm as debased as they say?"

  "Healing the unwell is about the only thing they've ever given back to this city. Why would the priests turn away a sick person?"

  "Because she's from a place that deserves no saving."

  "Collen Basin?" He gestured toward her eyes. "Why?"

  "It's the seat of Arawn's sedition. Worshipping the wrong god leaves our souls impure. And opens our bodies to sickness." She swung her legs out of bed and planted her stockinged feet on the floor, looking surprised by how easily she was able to stand. "What's the deal? You talk like a local, but you're as ignorant as a child."

  "I grew up here. But I left Mallon many years ago."

  "Be happy about that, shadowslinger. If you hadn't gotten out…" She mimed wrapping a noose around her neck and pulling it tight; she popped up on her toes, sticking her tongue from the corner of her mouth. "Naran told me you want to go to the Plagued Islands. That's why you healed me?"

  "I thought it would be a little easier than stealing your ship and enslaving your crew."

  "Well, I'm certainly grateful to have skipped out on death. But we have a problem: my gratitude won't do anything to feed and pay that crew."

  "Don't worry about payment." Blays smacked Dante on the shoulder. "This guy's got more money than a pub on Falmac's Eve."

  Twill smirked, then sobered. "Whatever you're offering, I'm sure I'd make more by turning you into the priests."

  "The only thing you'd earn doing that," Dante said, "is an abrupt booting through death's door."

  She laughed and threw open the windows. A cool wind swept through the cabin, carrying the smell of fresh water. "No worries, Mr. Dante. I can still feel a heart beating down in me somewhere. I'll take you to the islands. But I'll need a few days. My crew's out drinking—I choose to pretend they're mourning my fate—and my holds are empty. I won't travel to the Plagued Islands without a full belly of iron."

  "Fine by me. We could use a few days in the city ourselves."

  "Be careful out there. If they know what you are? They'll kill you."

  ~

  Years ago, Mallon had been his home. He'd been looking forward to revisiting it, to learning what had changed and what had stayed the same. But after Twill's revelation that nether-users were now enemies of the state—an affront to Taim, first god of the Celeset—Dante spent as little time on the streets as possible.

  Most of his time was spent in libraries and monasteries, seeking anything they had on the culture and history of the Plagued Islands. There wasn't much to find. When he stumbled on something useful, he made the monks a donation in exchange for their making a copy of it, or more rarely, to purchase the book outright. The gods of the Celeset were the same in Mallon as in Gask: Taim, Carvahal, Lia, Mennok, and so on. Dante was able to navigate the monasteries with minimal gaffes.

  As he made his rounds, however, the single difference between the two nations grew more and more glaring: here, there was no Arawn. The god of death—and of nether.

  He allowed himself a very small amount of chatter with the monks. Some were completely apolitical, either from devotion to their gods or exasperation with the games of the court. Others, however, couldn't get enough of it, either because they had designs on entering the political arena, or because gossiping about lords, ladies, and the clergy was the only fun they were allowed to have.

  So they thought nothing of Dante's interest in the subject. He picked up the gist very quickly. After Samarand's failed war to revive Arawn's worship in Mallon—the same war that had brought Dante from Mallon to Narashtovik—anti-Arawn sentiment flourished. Arawn's believers revealed by the war had been driven out or killed. His worship was outlawed once more. And anything related to him, such as the wielding of nether, was outlawed as well.

  Six or seven years ago, when Dante had been closer to Mallon, this oppression of Arawn's people would have infuriated him. Now? It only made him sad. When he at last departed on the Sword of the South, he turned his back to Mallon, happy to leave it to rot.

  Two hours later and the city had vanished completely; the only land in sight was Sentinel Mountain, behind and to starboard. Dante retired to his cabin. Due to the smallness of the ship, he had to share the room with Blays, and was not looking forward to the snoring. Out of sight of the crew, he used his loon to contact Nak. A member of the Council of Narashtovik, Nak acted as their de facto secretary, coordinating communications through their small (and extremely secret) network of loons.

  "So you're off," Nak said. "Any idea when you
'll be back?"

  Dante gripped the edge of the bunk as they hit a swell. "Tuesday? Certainly no later than Thursday."

  "I'm not trying to schedule a dinner date. I am merely looking for a rough estimate."

  "If the winds do what they're supposed to—and winds are proverbial for their steadiness and predictability—Captain Twill thinks it will take a week to get there and two weeks to get back to Bressel. So depending on how long things take at the island, I'd think we'll be back in Narashtovik in six weeks. Eight at the utmost."

  "Just in time for summer! I bet you can't wait."

  Summer. When the heat and humidity lay on the city like a drunk husband. Dante closed down the connection and opened one of his books, hoping to take his mind off his most hated time of year. Now and then he ventured out for fresh air and a glance at Captain Twill, who he hoped to speak to regarding the Plagued Islands, but she was busy seeing to the needs of the ship until that evening.

  The night was chilly and blustery, but possibly in response to her recent time spent trapped indoors, Twill met him atop the aftercastle. She stood with her shoulders thrown back, her hair kept from blowing in her face by a number of braids and ties.

  "I want to thank you again for making this journey," Dante said. "There's only one problem: I have no idea what our destination is like."

  "If you don't know squat about the islands, what makes you so keen to get there?"

  "Family business."

  She looked him up and down. "You don't look like an islander."

  "That's because I'm from one of those families that enjoys living as far away from each other as possible." He pulled his cloak tighter around his chest. "So what are they like? The people there?"

  "I couldn't say. I've never met them."

  "I'm sorry, there must be some mistake. I was under the impression you were Captain Twill, veteran traveler of the Plagued Islands."

  "The Sword of the South has been making this trip since before I was a swabbie. The inhabited islands have designated trading bays. They call 'em swappers. You drop anchor and sooner or later somebody comes down to the beach. We use telegraphy—flags, in our case—to explain what we've got and what we want. Once we've agreed on a price, we row out to a little island off the shore and drop off the goods. The locals come out, make their inspection, and if everything's on the up and up, they take our stuff and leave theirs in its place. Then we pick it up and go on our way. System's smoother than a greased otter."

  "What if they take your goods and run off?"

  "Then our boat never comes back. I've heard of the occasional theft, but most towns value a good trade partner more than a one-time score."

  "I can see that working," Dante said. "What manner of goods do you get in return?"

  "Spices. Flowers. Herbs. Stuff that smells good, tastes good, or makes you feel good."

  "And is it really that dangerous there?"

  "Everyone else seems to think so. Which means my crew thinks so. Which means that if I, a skeptic, were to get in breathing range of the locals, I'd turn around to find my ship has left without me."

  Dante scratched the side of his jaw. "So how will they react to when Blays and I expect a ride home?"

  "Don't worry." Twill smiled. "We'll just tow you behind the boat."

  "You don't believe the islands are diseased, then?"

  "They have their share, same as anywhere else. Including one I've never seen elsewhere: the Black Creep. If that one gets you, you won't even know it until a week or two later. A week after that, you can hardly stand. After that?" She hummed a Mallish funeral dirge.

  "Do you know the cure? Or how you contract it?"

  "Wouldn't have any idea. Like I said, the men would mutiny if we tried to spend any time on shore. Anyway, the Plagued Islands might not be as bad as they say—but the name had to come from somewhere, yeah?"

  The next day, clouds scudded in and out of the skies. Dante read more, mostly in his cabin; he found he got seasick when he could see the horizon rolling around in his peripheral vision.

  As the afternoon drew on, Blays swung the door open, letting in a rush of sunlight and salt air. "Some day, I'll stop being surprised that you'd rather jam your nose in a book than look at the new world unfolding around you. But it isn't this day."

  Dante didn't look up from his book. "What am I missing? Let me guess: it's big, flat, and blue."

  "There are also birds."

  "I'm trying to learn about what we're getting ourselves into. There's virtually no information about the Plagued Islands out there. It's almost as bad as Weslee."

  Blays stayed in the entrance, keeping one hand on the door to keep it from whacking him. "I've got a surefire way to learn about the islands: by going to them."

  "They weren't always this isolated. Hundreds of years ago, they were on the route between Mallon and the continent to the south."

  "A place so important you don't even know its name." He wiped his nose on his collar. "What made you decide to do this after all?"

  Dante shook his head slowly. "Idiocy, I suspect. Along with a large helping of spite."

  "Ah, spite. The only force capable of giving love a run for its money."

  "I thought about what you said. The few parts that were useful, anyway. And I found myself upset."

  "Sorry about that. I only wanted you to give it some serious thought."

  "I wasn't upset at you. I mean, no more than usual. I was upset at him. For leaving me alone. Maybe he had a good reason—or maybe he's just an asshole. I decided I needed to find out which. While there's still time."

  "So it doesn't even matter what the answer is so long as we find one. That should make things easier." He jerked his head at the doorway. "I'll be outside. I've never been south of Bressel before."

  Dante closed the book and followed Blays out of the cabin. The sea was slate gray. Just as it looked from the south shores of Mallon. As the days went on, however, the sea's hue shifted from gray to gray-blue, and then to navy. Every morning, the air felt a little warmer. As he ran low on reading material, he spent more and more time outside the cabin, but there wasn't much to see besides gulls and petrels whose wingspans were wider than a man was tall.

  None of the books he read laid out the islands' history in full, but bit by bit, he pieced together a tenuous approximation. Many centuries in the past, there had been a fair amount of trade between Mallon, the Plagued Islands, and the lands further south. About six or seven hundred years ago, however, a series of wars had broken out between the islands' clans. At the same time, a terrible sickness had emerged.

  These two events had killed trade for decades. Over time, though, it resumed—only to be brought to a sudden halt roughly four centuries ago, when another conflict had engulfed the island. No specifics were mentioned, but hundreds of Mallish had perished in the fighting and the ensuing plague. Ever since, sickness had ravaged the land, limiting contact to the few souls brave or greedy enough to tempt disaster.

  He fell asleep compiling his notes. A knock woke him sometime later. Blays threw open the door. It felt as though he'd been asleep for no more than two hours, meaning it should be early afternoon, but the light from outside was dull and gray.

  "I think," Blays said, "you're going to want to see this."

  Dante was tired enough that he wouldn't have cared if a pod of dolphins were fluke-waltzing on the surface of the water, but the earnestness in Blays' voice drew him from his bunk. Outside, most of the sky was clear and blue. Yet it was as dim as twilight.

  Ahead and to starboard, a pillar of clouds connected the sea to the sky, wider at the top than the base. Behind it, the sun was a dull coin. A dense mist hung around and above the miles-high pillar. At its base, the ocean wasn't flat—rather, it was concave, the horizon dented like a ball dropped in the middle of a taut sheet.

  Twill appeared atop the aftercastle, leaning her arms on the rail. "So is that all it takes to extract you from your cabin?"

  Dante drifted toward the s
tarboard edge. "What is it?"

  "It's the Mill."

  "Arawn's Mill?"

  "That's what they say. I've never met the big man to ask in person."

  He gawked across the waters. "Can we get any closer?"

  Twill snorted, walking down the castle stairs. "Sure. If you've decided you want to go to hell instead. We're already closer than anyone else dares to get."

  "What is it?"

  "Whirlpool. Miles across. Biggest one I've ever heard of."

  He pointed at the sky. "Is it causing the spout? Or is the spout causing it?"

  "Again," she said, joining him at the rail, "although Arawn is surely aware of my curiosity, he's never seen fit to give me the answers."

  She watched for a minute, then strode away, yelling orders. As they drew closer, the winds worsened, buffeting the sails. Sailors kept busy in the rigging, trimming the canvas to every shift in direction. The sky grew darker yet.

  Blays strolled up to the railing, grinning vacantly. "I've never seen so much nether in the air. It's like someone dumped a flock of crows in a thresher." He glanced at Dante. "What?"

  "I still can't believe you learned how to use it."

  "Sorry to have encroached on your hallowed ground. I'll remind you the only reason I learned to wield it was so I could try to escape from you."

  At the time, Blays' departure from Narashtovik had wounded him to the core. Now, Dante found himself laughing about it. "It's very strange that tragedy can become comedy through the simple addition of time."

  "I think that only happens when you've endured something together. Go through it alone, and it may always feel sad."