moment as she continued to watch the water. “I come from a place where everyone knows everybody, and where they all think they have a right to tell you what to do. And I did not want it. I did not feel like me there. I wanted to see everything else there was. So I turned sixteen, and I left. I did not realize how hard travel would be. One kingdom and then the next, people were cruel to me. They took advantage of me, they stole from me, and I thought, ‘Oh. This is what people are like.’ And I was sure that Finnegan was no different from the rest of them. But he saw my talents. How I had learned to hide, how I knew how to observe, to read people. We became friends. And he asked me to help him.”
“So you did?”
“I can still travel, still observe people. But I do not go hungry. Far from it. And I have something like a friend. You will realize, Aurora, how valuable these things are.”
“I know how valuable they are.”
“You may recognize it, but do you know it? Before this week, you had never been hungry. You’ve never gone weeks without another person to talk to, or had people treat you like you are worthless because you dare to be from somewhere they are not. You should not judge me for accepting his alliance, or think it means I cannot care about you or want to help you.”
Aurora watched the waves rise and fall. “I don’t judge you,” she said softly. “It’s just that—” Everything was tangled in her head, her respect for Nettle, her wariness, all of the hopes and the betrayals. “Since I woke up, no one has been who they claimed to be. Everyone has had some scheme, some motive. Tristan wanted me in his rebellion, the king and queen wanted me as a puppet, and even Finnegan had a plan to help me run, as soon as I said the word. And now you. You were just supposed to be a singer. Not a puzzle, just you. And now—now I don’t know.”
“Perhaps that is the problem,” Nettle said. “No one is just anything. Everyone will have more layers than you expect.”
“More layers does not mean being a spy.”
“And being a spy does not make one bad. It does not mean a person wants to use you.”
“No,” Aurora said. “I know.” And she did. She could understand Nettle’s motivation, could see the kindness in her. But she did not know what to say after that, so she turned to look at the horizon again.
When Aurora woke up the next day, she could taste smoke on the air. Nettle was not in her cabin, and Aurora could see nothing through the porthole but water, so she climbed the stairs onto the main deck. Nettle was leaning against the side of the ship, staring at the coastline.
It was a wasteland, black and red. Smoke curled from the ground, and even the sky above seemed scorched and severe. All life had been purged from the place, leaving a charred, hollow shell. It seemed wrong, for such harshness to exist so close to the roiling water.
Aurora had never imagined that anything could look like this. That this was what waited across the water, this was the world beyond her kingdom’s borders.
Aurora crept to Nettle’s side. It felt wrong, somehow, to move too quickly or speak too loudly with the desolation before them. “What is this place?”
“Vanhelm,” Nettle said. “Once.”
Vanhelm. When Aurora had pictured Finnegan’s kingdom, she had thought it much like her own, with forests and castles and life. Not these contorted ruins, smoke and ash.
“What happened?”
Nettle looked steadily across the water. “Dragons.”
She spoke so matter-of-factly. But there was nothing left. Nothing. How could dragons have done all this?
They passed what might have been a house, close to the water. The walls had melted inward, like the building was cowering under the harsh sun.
“From the way Finnegan spoke, what Iris said . . . I did not think it would be like this.”
“It does not need to be said. And this is not the kingdom now. When they say Vanhelm, they mean the island, the capital,” she said. “A world in one city.”
Aurora stared at the home of her ancestors, all burned away. “Only one city survived?” she said. “Just one?”
“Just one,” Nettle said. “It was the only place that was surrounded by water. It was the only place that