CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

FÉOLAN OPENED HIS EYES and knew that he would live. Gabrielle slept beside him—for more than two days, she had done nothing but flood her light into him and sleep like a dead woman. Féolan did not know how much time had passed, knew only that she had been a constant presence in his heart and mind, that she had sent a light blasting after him more than once when he had wandered into utter darkness. Only for the last half-day or so did he have any coherent sense of time or reliable memory. That was when the illness finally loosed its grip enough that he could perceive what she was doing and rally some strength to help her.

She had dammed up the leakage of poison into his system, and when at last the seeping stopped, the reactive swelling in his throat began to diminish. Yet she left the tube in place, though the irritation of it had become a trial, and the membrane as well. Instead she was sending her light to places where the poison concentration was most dangerous. Bit by bit, she labored to clear his heart, kidneys and eyes and to undo the damage that had begun there. The tube, the thick ugly growth in his throat: these were minor discomforts by comparison, and Féolan tried to bear them patiently.

Féolan woke and slept; the stuffy cramped room grew dark and brightened; the seas rocked soothingly or slammed against the ship. People came and went, bringing food for Gabrielle or visiting Madeleine. Often Derkh sat near him. Gabrielle sometimes slept in a hammock Dominic had scrounged and strung across the middle of the cabin.

At last the day came when Gabrielle told him she was going to remove the Veil. She helped him to his elbows and knees, so his head was lowered. “I don’t want it to fall in and choke you,” she said.

He felt her light fill his throat, felt the thick scabby growth slough away like a horny snakeskin. It filled the back of his mouth, nauseating him, and he felt a rising panic, unable with the paralysis that still slowed his tongue to move it forward.

“Cough,” commanded Gabrielle, and even as his mind protested that he could not, not with a hole gaping into his windpipe, her hand snaked around and covered the exposed end. “Now.”

It was a feeble uncoordinated effort, but enough. Féolan fished frantically in his mouth, and pulled out a tongue of mottled gray-black flesh nearly as long as the palm of his hand. It lay on the towel Gabrielle had provided like a strip of rotted boot leather, and Féolan recoiled at the putrid reek of the thing. Panting with exertion from this small adventure—through mouth and whistling copper tubing both at once—he lay back onto his side.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Féolan looked across the cabin to find Madeleine sitting up in bed, watching them. She grinned, and he smiled and nodded. It did feel good. Madeleine was thin from days without food but clearly on the mend. Her smile dissolved into troubled seriousness.

“Féolan, I’m really sorry I made you sick.”

He hoisted up on one elbow and shook his head, wishing he could speak to her. Tried to think what gesture a Human girl would understand. He pointed to Madeleine, cupped his hand close to his chest as if it held a baby bird or precious gift, then laid the hand over his heart.

Madeleine’s eyes filled with tears, but her trembly smile was brilliant. She understood.

GABRIELLE GAVE THE tube a sharp twist, murmuring an apology at Féolan’s grimace, and eased it out. She laid her hand flat over the gaping flap of skin.

“Try a breath?”

She felt suction on her palm, but Féolan’s breath flowed easily through his nostrils. He smiled, but she didn’t return it. She had bad news to tell him.

“Love, the incision in your skin will heal fine. You’ll have a little scar, but it won’t feel any different from before.”

He nodded, eyebrows raised questioningly. Then why the frown?

“The problem is with your vocal cords. I had to cut into them, and they have already scarred over along the cut edges. I wasn’t able to prevent it because—well, I was kind of busy trying to keep you alive.” Another nod. “The thing is, I can’t do much with scar tissue. It’s healthy flesh, but in some ways it acts dead. It’s like—” She groped for an analogy. “Like trying to make a stone grow.

“Scarring is a good way to heal skin, but it’s stiff and it’s going to keep your vocal cords from working properly. Your voice is going to be—I’m not really sure. You’ll be able to speak all right, but you might sound hoarse and raspy.”

Like a Human, he joked, speaking directly to her mind. It won only a fleeting smile.

“Maybe eventually, after I’ve worked to stretch out the scar to give it more flexibility, and you have learned to work with just the undamaged part of your voice. At first, maybe more like a cross between a man and a raven.”

No more singing.

“Probably not in public,” she acknowledged. She waited while he digested this information before offering an alternative. It was not the course she would recommend, but it was his decision to make.

“The only way to undo the damage would be to cut away the scar tissue and control the healing over the next few days. I’ll do it if you want me to, but I have to tell you it will be painful, and difficult to do properly.”

He was already shaking his head. I’m alive. It’s enough.

Thank the gods, Gabrielle thought, and her smile shone down at him, full of love and admiration. It would be hard for an Elf, she knew, to be unable to sing. But it would have been hard for her to cut into him again for any but the most pressing need.

“You’re sure?” she asked, needing to know she had not pressed her wishes upon him. He nodded.

“I’ll just put a patch over this incision then, so you can breathe easier and learn to speak again while it heals.”

She was proud of the ingenuity of the patch she had designed. She had boiled clean a length of sausage casing from the galley stores and cut out a double thickness for strength. Stuck on with a generous layer of gum mastic, it made a smooth, thin, flexible seal.

She took a moment to admire her handiwork and another moment to look over her patient. The eyes that gazed back at her were no longer those of an invalid. They were once again the deep dancing eyes of her true love, and what lay in their brilliant depths brought the blood up to her cheeks.

“Your eyes are feeling better, I see,” she said tartly. Her smile betrayed her, though—she could not keep the corners severely straight no matter how hard she thought serious thoughts.

“Much.” The word was a breathy whisper, his first awkward and uncomfortable attempt at speech.

“Shhhhh.” Gabrielle put her finger to his lips to emphasize her command. “Let your poor neck relax for a while before hurting it with sounds.” And to ensure he obeyed, she took her finger out of the way and kissed him.

MATTHIEU WAS SO restless he felt he might crawl out of his own skin. There was nothing to do on the ship but get in the way and no one to do it with. His dad spent hours every day in the sick room, attending to Maddy. Matthieu didn’t begrudge it, and he just about lived for the little time every afternoon that Madeleine was allowed to come out on deck, but it made for a long lonely day.

He was allowed to visit the sick room now, and he did, but it was stuffy and crowded, full of grown-ups, and without a chiggers board or set of counters, there was nothing to do there either but sit on a chair beside Madeleine and try to think of something to say.

She had thanked him for looking after her when she was first sick, but neither of them was ready to talk about their time as captives. Luc’s death waited there. Yet what else was there to talk about? The weather? The food? Grandma Solange’s birthday party? It all seemed silly and forced.

Too bad you couldn’t lay out reneñas tiles on bedclothes. Yolenka, seeing Matthieu’s boredom, had pulled him aside about a week ago and taught him to play. Matthieu had enjoyed the game immensely, and Yolenka had laughed and called him a “born gambler.” She had played with him a couple of times since, but he didn’t feel he could pester her for more.

Matthieu wandered to the bow of the ship and wedged himself into the lookout. The narrow triangular space at the very end of the outthrust prow was used by the Tarzines in uncertain waters, but was vacant now. Matthieu lay on his stomach and pushed his head under the safety ropes, so that he was looking straight down into green ocean. The rushing of the ship against the waves was loud in his ears, while above his head the little sail that stretched out to the tip of the long bowsprit snapped in the brisk wind. The ship rose and fell on the swell, each new surge soaking his face with salt spray. It was hypnotic and slightly scary all at once, and for the first time in days Matthieu was utterly absorbed. He wiggled forward a little more, trying to look back under the bow to the spot where the keel sank into the sea.

Three whistle blasts interrupted him—that meant it was almost dinnertime, for the passengers and whatever crew members were off duty. Dinner wasn’t much to look forward to after two weeks at sea. Surely they must be close to home by now. He raised his head to scan the horizon. Maybe he would be the first to spot land.

No land, but...he craned his neck to the left, trying to hold the place where something had caught his eye just as the ship dipped into a trough. The ship rose and—

It was sails. Ochre-yellow sails, lit up in the rays of the late afternoon sun.

Blood pounded in his ears, his heart became a fist battering at the cage of his ribs.

“Pirates!” he yelled. His voice was caught in the wind and spray and swallowed up. He tried to scramble to his feet, clipped the back of his head on the safety rope and wiggled backward, clothes and hair dripping onto the deck. Standing, he shaded his face and squinted into the sun. Where were they?

Matthieu climbed onto the second rope rail, steadying himself on the sturdy lines that anchored the forward sail to the deck. His eyes scanned feverishly.

Yes, there—it ran before the wind, bearing toward them like a great malevolent falcon.

No one heard him, or even paid him any mind. He would have to grab the nearest sailor and make him see.

Matthieu lifted his foot to step down to the deck. The ship yawed in a sudden side-swell. The rope in his hand went slack as the sail swung. He fell forward over the rail with nothing to counterbalance against.

With a lurch, the ship righted itself, and the sail rope snapped tight. But Matthieu could not hang on. Like the last child in a whip-snap game, he was flung off into the sea.