The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,47
couldn’t stop her pulse from racing, her palms sweating, feeling like too much time had passed since the Misarros had taken her brother and Sera. Vada put a hand on her shoulder and Agnes’s heart somersaulted despite her fear.
“Ambrosine is waiting for you, remember,” she said. “And now Phebe is lending us a boat. Once we get to Ithilia, we will find her. If anyone can stand up to the Triumvirate, it is Ambrosine Byrne.”
Agnes fingered the letter in her pocket, nestled beside the photograph of her mother. Vada was right—her grandmother knew she was coming.
When they reached the sloop, Vada got straight to work readying it to sail. Phebe had packed them food and extra clothes in leather satchels, and Agnes stored them in the cabin. A cloud passed over the moon, the only light from Phebe’s lantern, the only sound the waves lapping against the sides of the sloop.
“She doesn’t look like much,” Phebe said, holding up the light. “But she’s a good ship. She was my mother’s—she was the true sailor of the family.”
“She’ll be fast,” Vada said. “And that’s just what we need. What is her name?”
“The Palma,” Phebe said. “After my grandmother.”
“Thank you for helping us,” Agnes said. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
Phebe touched her cheek, a surprisingly maternal gesture. “Good luck, Agnes Byrne. You are as brave as your mother was, and I can give no higher praise than that.”
Agnes felt a tingle run up her spine at the sound of her mother’s last name and hers together. Vada helped her into the sloop—it rocked unsteadily under her feet and she gripped the side to keep her balance.
“Best if you stay seated, little lion,” Vada said as she pushed off the boat and hopped in, letting out the mainsail and angling the tiller so that the sloop cut through the waves, swift and sure. Soon Phebe’s lantern was no more than a speck of light in the distance.
“We’ve got to go back to the docks,” Agnes said suddenly.
“What?” Vada frowned. “Why?”
“Errol,” Agnes said. “We can’t leave him.”
Vada’s only answer was a pursing of her lips and an adjustment of the tiller. In almost no time at all, the lights from the port of Arbaz began to spread out over the water, tipping the waves in yellow and orange. Other ships had lights shining through their portholes but it appeared as though the crew of the Maiden’s Wail had not yet returned from the market. The sloop slid silently through the water and Agnes peered over its side.
“Errol?” she called softly, feeling a bit silly. How was he to hear her? She didn’t speak the flashing lights the way Sera did, though she could understand him to a degree—she had discovered that to her delight during the voyage. It must have been Sera’s magic inside her. She was able to sense the intention behind the lights if not the exact words.
“Errol,” she called again, and dipped her fingers into the water, wishing they could light up the way Sera’s did. She tried to get her face as close to the waves as possible. “Errol, please, we’ve got to go, they’ve taken Sera, we’ve got to get her back. If you’re there, if you can hear me or see me or . . .” She let out a growl of frustration. “What do we do, Vada?”
Vada plunged her hand into the water and wriggled it around, making small splashes. “Errol, you beautiful stubborn slippery little creature, you come with us right now, do you hear me? We need to be off, so no hiding or playing tricks or—”
Agnes let out a shriek as Errol’s head popped out of the water, his lights flashing in shades of blue, which Agnes knew meant Sera. He looked from Agnes to Vada and back again, cocking his head.
“She’s not here,” Agnes said, gesturing wildly and hoping the mertag understood. His bulging eyes turned toward the Maiden’s Wail. “Sera isn’t there. We must go get her now. We must get Sera.” She pointed. “In Ithilia. We must all go together, Agnes and Vada and Errol.”
Errol stared at her blankly, then snapped his teeth together and jerked his head in what Agnes took to be a nod. Vada steered the boat back out into the sea, and to Agnes’s profound relief, the mertag swam along beside them. His torso and scales glowed faintly green, filling the water around them with a murky light.