a deep sleep, his face soft for the first time since I’d seen him at the gala.
The handle to the door creaked softly as I lifted it, opening the door. Clove was snoring against the wall, his legs crossed in front of him and the chest of coin under his arm.
The glow of a lantern was bobbing along the wall, and I peered over the bannister to see a head of silver hair below. Holland was wrapped in a satin robe, making her way down the corridor.
I looked back to the dark room before stepping over Clove’s legs and following the light. It washed over the floor before me as I took turn after turn in the dark, and when I reached the end of the corridor, it flickered out.
Ahead, a door was open.
I walked with silent steps, watching Holland’s shadow move over the marble, and the light hit my face as I peered through the crack. It was a wood-paneled room with one wall covered in overlapping maps, the others all set with mounted bronze candelabras. Holland stood in the corner, staring up at a painting that hung over the desk. My mother was wrapped in an emerald green dress fit with a violet gem brooch, her face aglow in the candlelight.
I pushed the door open and Holland’s gaze dropped to meet mine.
She lifted a finger, wiping the corner of her eye. “Good evening.”
“Almost morning now,” I answered, stepping inside.
Holland’s eyes fell down my wrinkled dress. “I come down here when I can’t sleep. No use in lying in bed when I can get some work done.”
But it didn’t look as if she was working. It looked as if Holland had come down to see Isolde.
She pulled a long match from a box on the desk and I watched as her hand floated over the tapers. When the last wick was lit, she blew out the match and I studied the illuminated maps pieced together on the far wall. They showed a detailed system of reefs, but this wasn’t just any chain of islands. I’d seen it before.
Yuri’s Constellation.
I took a step closer, reading notes written in blue ink along the margins of the diagrams. Different areas were crossed out, as if someone had methodically marked them. It was an active dive chart, like the ones my father would hang up in his helmsman’s quarters on the Lark. And that could mean only one thing.
Holland was still looking for the midnight.
Behind her, another large portrait of a man was hung in a gilded frame. He was handsome, with dark hair, gray eyes, and a proud set to his chin. But there was a kindness in his face. Something warm.
“Is that my grandfather?” I asked.
Holland smiled. “It is. Oskar.”
Oskar. The name seemed to fit the man in the portrait, but I was certain I’d never heard my mother speak it.
“He apprenticed as a gem sage with his father, but he’d given his heart to the stars. Against your great-grandfather’s wishes, Oskar took an apprenticeship as a celestial navigator.”
I guessed that’s where Azimuth House had gotten its name, as well as its design.
“He was the best of his time. There wasn’t a trader in the Unnamed Sea who didn’t revere his work, and nearly every navigator out on those waters was an apprentice of his at one time or another.” She smiled proudly. “But he taught Isolde the trade of a gem sage when he realized what she could do.”
The tradition of a gem sage was something that was passed down, and only to people who had the gift. My mother had seen early on that I had it. I wondered how long it had taken Oskar to see it in my mother.
I reached up, touching the edge of another portrait. It looked like the same man, but he was older. His white hair was cut short, curling around his ears.
“Odd that your mother never told you about him. They were quite close from the time she was a little girl.”
“She didn’t tell me a lot of things.”
“We have that in common.” Holland smiled sadly. “She was always a mystery to me. But Oskar … he understood her in a way I never could.”
If that was true, then why hadn’t she ever told me about him? The only explanation I could think of was that maybe she didn’t want to risk anyone knowing she was the daughter of the most powerful people in the Unnamed Sea. That would bring its own