you carry out the bread?"
As I left the kitchen, well behind Piers, Bevan saw me in the hall and said, "How did that go?"
"What?"
"I'm trying to help Piers learn how to be romantic."
"Romantic?"
"Based on that blank look, I see he failed miserably. Please tell me he at least tried to kiss you.”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Oh, for gods’ sake.”
I paused. "Maybe it was romantic, actually."
"If you only think of it afterward, it's not. I think he might be hopeless. How can he not be dying to touch you?”
"He talked to me about magic and humans and languages and other interesting things. And if he suddenly kissed me, I would have been more surprised than I am with you, but I think the surprise would make it nice. Piers is certainly different from you and Variel, but nothing else would suit him.” I tapped my lips with my fingers. “I think he is dying to touch me, if I had to guess.”
“Oh, well, at least my girl is getting a little cocky with her charms now!”
"Maybe he isn't much of a romantic, but I still feel something from him, and it’s as powerful as anything.” I added, "You've grown a little protective of Piers.”
"Must be that pretty new face of his warping my brain."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jenny
On the seventh morning of our voyage, the skies were so very dark and the wind so cold that every inch of the ship was freezing, even near the oven. I had a hard time getting out of bed to make breakfast.
When I went to feed the sea monster a few burnt biscuits (he loved them), I squinted at the horizon. It looked like the endless sea was broken by a line of dark, solid ground.
Finn was supposed to be the lookout, but he was busier clutching a warm drink and hopping around.
"Finn, is that land!?” I called.
He held up the telescope. "That's an island all right! The island, if the map is correct."
"How do you map the faery lands for sailing?" I asked.
"That's a long question for another day, dear," he said jauntily, and set off to call the others.
The sea dragon ate his biscuits quick enough, but now he was lagging behind the ship like he wouldn't go any farther. The ship kept moving along and the dragon just hovered in place in the water looking at me sadly like a dog hiding under something hoping it won’t be forced out and punished.
I cast my eyes out toward the island. The cold air whipped my hair into my eyes. The island looked like the loneliest, most forlorn outpost in all the realms, just a scrap of land under the darkest skies, and I had a heavy, sorrowful feeling rising up in me the more I looked at it.
I had this eerie feeling, as if no one had looked upon this island for hundreds of years, as if just looking at it was resurrecting some ancient, buried magic.
But if it was our magic, the magic of the familiars, we should face it.
I still couldn't shake the feeling that this was a desperate place, a sad place, and terrible things had happened there. Even if it was for a good cause, it was never pleasant to stir up terrible things.
With the island looming closer, I rushed to the kitchen and started making a quick batch of cookies he could take with him. It was a sign of my distraction that I made up all the dough before realizing that he couldn't carry a bag of cookies with him in bat form.
At this thought, I realized he was actually going to that foreboding place all alone, and I sank to my knees, barely holding back tears. I wasn't sure it was worth it to risk Bevan's life just to find the origins of familiars. I abandoned the ingredients and went back to the deck.
"The island..." Bevan came out shortly with binoculars to get a closer look. I could tell he didn't think it looked terrible. "I see the temple! Or something like a temple, anyway. It looks like something from ancient times, with white columns. Wouldn't it be amazing if the cloaks were all there? If they were just lost and forgotten out here in a strange corner of Wyrd?" He glanced at me. "What's wrong, my toadlet? You look scared."
"I'm not as scared with you here." I leaned against him. "But I don't like the thought of you going there alone."
"I'll be fine," he said. "That's why I had