"Enough Rope to Hang By"
"Four Points"
"Navigate Harsh Waters"

Gale stared out over the endless stretch of water before her. Usually, she found the sight of the ocean, so ceaseless and infinite, to be comforting and invigorating. At this moment, though, her eyelids felt heavy, and so did her heart. She loved the ocean for the ocean itself, but right now, she hated the view for what it meant, for the secret it silently screamed into her face, the truth she didn’t want to see.

Denner Fabellian had lied.

“Well, Sailor?” A stern voice demanded from beside Gale, who winced inwardly at the sound. She tore her gaze away from the water to look over at Captain Valerie, whose expression was anything but pleased. “You vouched for him, as I remember. So tell me, Gale. Where is the Tower?”

Gale swallowed. She hadn’t felt like this in front of a captain since she was first learning her ropes. “It should be right here, Captain.”

Valerie looked around at the featureless whitecaps surrounding the Mourning Reign, then back at Gale. “Well, it isn’t. It isn’t here, Gale, where Denner Fabellian said it was, and where you promised it would be after he vanished like a bubble from the boat you two were in!”

“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted that man,” Aurélie Cerveau said, leaning against the doorframe leading into the navigation room.

“At least no one seemed to catch anything from him,” Josette, the Mourning Reign’s first mate, commented absently.

“He did say it was poison, not a plague,” Aurélie said.

“At least he wasn’t lying about that,” Valerie said, her lip curling up in a slight sneer. “We should have come here first. Damn his spiders.”

“He wouldn’t have come,” Aurélie reminded her. “He was adamant. Even a knife against his back didn’t persuade him, if you remember.”

“Then at the very least, we should never have let him take one of our boats.”

Josette shrugged. “Gale was with him, Captain,” she said, trying to soothe Valerie a bit. “And how was Gale to know that he could just vanish like that?”

Captain Valerie took a deep breath and nodded, then focused back on Gale. “Nonetheless, when you came back aboard, you showed us the chart Fabellian had marked, and you swore to us that the Tower was there.” She caught herself, then gestured to the sea. “Here. You said you believed him.”

“I did, Captain,” Gale said, her jaw set. “Why would he lie?”

“To get aboard a ship,” Aurélie said flatly. “We weren’t going to take him if he couldn’t give us anything in return, and the tower was the only thing he had to offer.”

“But we know he could find things,” Josette said. “I was there in the Splintered Oar when you made him prove himself with that ring, and he certainly led us directly to the Corsair Spiders, didn’t he?”

“Maybe he could find everything but the Tower,” Aurélie ventured.

“But then why mark the map at all?” Gale asked the revolutionary. “What did he have to gain from that? He was already on board, and since you, Captain, had already agreed to go for the spiders first, he knew he could get one and get away, if that’s what he wanted.”

“That’s a good point,” Valerie conceded. “Unfortunately, that still doesn’t explain why there’s not a tower here. Or anything that even vaguely resembles a tower. Or anything that even approaches something that could support a tower! So, if Fabellian wasn’t lying, where is the Tower of Tears?”

Gale hung her head. “I don’t know, Captain.”

Valerie glanced at the other two women. “Well, what do we do now?”

Neither Josette nor Aurélie could think of a suggestion, and for a long moment, nobody said anything. Finally, Gale spoke. “Captain, may I see the chart?”

“Hmm?” Valerie said, distracted. “Oh, sure.” She had been carrying the chart with her, bringing it out on deck from the navigation room once it became clear that the Tower was not where they thought it would be. She handed the chart to Gale, who scanned it quickly. After a few moments, she pointed out a small section of the map to her captain.

“With your permission, Captain, I would like to make for this atoll.”

Captain Valerie looked where Gale was pointing. It was a small, uninhabited atoll just northeast of their location. “Why?”

“To check our position, Captain. It is possible we have drifted off course somewhere.”

“That’s highly unlikely, Sailor,” Valerie said with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I know that, Captain. Believe me, I’ve been at the helm most of the time. But as you say, there is nothing here, and that atoll is the closest landmark we have.”

“Besides, Captain,” Josette added. “What have we got to lose? Maybe that atoll can give us some clue about the Tower. Goddess knows, it could even be there, for all we know.”

“It wasn’t there last time I went by it,” Valerie said, then sighed. “But fine. We’ve got no better options for the time being. Gale, how long do you think it will take to get there?”

Gale glanced down at the chart again, then tossed her head upward, to catch a feel of the breeze. “In this wind, Captain, about two hours should bring us in sight of it, assuming we are where we think we are.”

Valerie frowned, but nodded. “Alright. Take us there. In the meantime, Josette?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Fetch Camille. You, me, and the navigator are going to have a long talk about where we go from here.” She took the chart back from Gale and stormed into the navigation room behind Gale and the ship’s wheel. Josette hurried to obey her order, and Gale spun the ship’s wheel and barked a few quick orders to the deckhands about the sails. Once she was done, Aurélie approached her.

“Do you really believe he was telling you the truth?”

Demons of doubt danced across Gale’s eyes for a moment, demons with the faces of Raiker Venn and Vasco’s “little pearl,” and for a moment, they almost overwhelmed her. But Gale did as she always did. She set her jaw, she tacked into the wind, and she listened to the song as it sang around her. It was a song of passion, of hope, and of trust, even if it did skip an odd beat there for just a moment. Gale smiled at the strange song of Thorneau’s ocean before she remembered that the other woman had asked her a question.

“Yes,” Gale said suddenly, “I do.”

“Why?” Aurélie asked, surprised by the answer and the certainty it carried.

“I don’t know,” Gale said, but immediately knew she was wrong. “It was his voice. It was cracked, broken, and pained, like waves crashing against the rocks, but there was a song to it.” She looked over at Aurélie. “An honest song.”

Aurélie stared back at Gale for a moment, before shaking her head and laughing slightly to herself. “It takes a great liar to perfect an honest song.”

Gale smiled. “And an honest song can perfect a great liar.”

Aurélie shook her head and walked away down toward her cabin. But Gale grinned. She could not quite put her finger on it, but something about the song Thorneau was singing to her whispered of a truth in Gale’s own words, and those of Denner Fabellian. He had given her his promise that, if he lived, he would return, to bring her home. Even when Raiker Venn had made a similar promise, even shown her a glimpse of the oceans she mourned, she had not heard in his words what she had heard in Denner’s. Raiker’s voice had been sweeter, his face more pleasing, but his song was not an honest song. Denner’s was.

Just over an hour later, Pierrick’s voice rang out from the crow’s nest. “Land, ho!” A few moments later, Gale heard the door behind her being flung open, and then Captain Valerie was there.

“What does he mean, ‘Land, ho?’ I thought you said two hours. Did the winds shift?”

“No, Captain,” Gale said, a look of confusion tarred on her face. “Steady winds, steady course. We must have been off course.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, Sailor,” Valerie warned, though the ire in her voice had faded somewhat to puzzlement. She unfolded the chart again and set it against the ship’s wheel. “First of all, are we sure it’s the atoll?” Before Gale could answer, Valerie removed her spyglass and looked for herself. There was no mistaking what she saw. “Yeah, that’s the atoll, alright. No tower there, but there shouldn’t have been.”

“Captain,” Gale began, “with your permission, I would like to turn her around and go back the way we came.”

“I think we would have seen the Tower, Gale, even if we were an hour north of it,” Valerie’s voice betrayed her as her uncertainty was as audible as her words.

“I am not suggesting we look for the Tower, Captain,” Gale said, pointing at the chart, “but rather a second reference point. Here, southwest of us. The chart indicates some hazardous rocks. If we could find them…”

“I see…” Valerie interrupted her. She licked the tip of her finger and held it up into the wind. “Reposition the sails and we could probably do about the same speed, if we’re lucky. What would you say, about five hours?”

Gale nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

Valerie shrugged. “I don’t know what we’ll prove with all of this, but make it so, Sailor.” She placed her finger on the chart at the atoll, and traced a straight line down toward the rocks, right across Denner Fabellian’s mark of the location of the Tower of Tears. Then she traced her finger back to the small ink circle the Delver had drawn. She tapped the circle twice and clicked her tongue. “There’s something strange going on here.”

Just over four hours later, Captain Valerie’s suspicions were validated when they reached sight of the rocks shown on the nautical chart. She ordered that the Mourning Reign drop anchor while she, Josette, Camille, Gale, Aurélie, and Henri le Douce met in the navigation room. Once they were all assembled, Valerie slammed her palms down on the table and looked around the room at the others.

“Somewhere, somehow, we are losing an hour when we pass through these waters.” She glanced over at Gale. “And if I had to guess, I’d say we’re losing it right here,” she pointed to the circle Denner had drawn. She again cast her eyes over the assembled. “What I need from you, from any one of you, is an explanation of how, and some solution to stopping it.”

“Magecraft,” Camille said. “It must be magic, Captain.”

“You’re a mage,” Valerie said to her navigator. “Have you sensed any magic? Anything strange that might give us an idea of what we’re dealing with?”

“No, Captain,” Camille admitted. “But then, I’ve never been able to sense magic other than my own,” as she spoke, she nodded to the lantern above the navigation table, lit with an eternal flame of Camille’s conjuration.

“What about any of the other mages aboard?” Josette asked.

“I don’t know,” Camille said.

Valerie frowned and stood up straight. “Find out, would you? Something is bewitching my ship, and I don’t like it.”

“So you think the Tower of Tears is actually there, where Fabellian said it was?” Aurélie asked Valerie.

“I have no idea,” the Captain said, “but I’m starting to think it’s likely. As Josette pointed out, we knew he was able to find things, and as Gale said, he already had what he wanted, so there was no reason to lie.” She turned to face Aurélie. “And Lucienne did tell you the tower was enchanted against detection. I think we might be seeing that first hand now.”

“So what do we do about it?” Aurélie asked.

Valerie thought for a long moment, then shifted her attention to Gale. “You always seem to have an uncanny knack for knowing precisely where we are.” She drew a knife that she kept hanging at her side and laid its tip against the chart, just barely southwest of the circle Denner had drawn. “Can you bring us to this exact spot?”

Gale glanced at the chart, smiled, and nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

Valerie nodded. “Do it. Josette, Camille, I want every mage on deck when we get there.”

“Yes, Captain,” the two women said, almost in unison.

“Every mage?” Henri asked suddenly, a flash of worry crossing his face. He glanced at the nearby window, where sunlight was streaming in. It was past midday, but the sun would still be up by the time they reached their destination.

Valerie took his meaning immediately. “Let me rephrase. Every mage on the crew.”

Henri just nodded, and Aurélie shot him a look that he pretended not to notice. Valerie glanced at Josette, Camille, and Gale in turn, then nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

When they arrived at the spot Valerie had indicated, Gale ordered the deckhands to drop anchor, and every mage aboard, as well as the majority of the rest of the crew, gathered on deck. Valerie spoke to each of the mages in turn, but none of them could sense anything. They each tried their own magic, but nothing revealed any hidden trick, and certainly not any hidden tower. And so, they all just stood there, once more staring out at an empty ocean, and wondering what to do next.

As the Captain and her crew were pondering, an idea struck Henri le Douce, and without a word, he slipped away from the others and went to the cabin door of Elise LaRoux. He knocked with a bit more volume and urgency than he usually did, a bit more than he had intended to, and winced inwardly when he heard a metallic creak from behind the door before it was unlatched and opened partway. Not surprisingly, it was not Elise LaRoux’s pale and pretty face, but the stern, severe countenance of Sir Ruth that greeted him.

As usual, Sir Ruth was dressed in her full armor. Henri had never understood why she bothered to armor herself up each and every day, even on the high seas. He had briefly considered the possibility that she feared a pirate attack on the Mourning Reign and felt determined to be prepared for it, but something always told Henri that it was something else. Sir Ruth was the chevalier to the Comtesse of Mont-sur-Mer, and if Henri knew one thing about the woman, it was that her title was far more than a job to her. A part of him suspected that she didn’t feel like herself outside of her armor.

“Yes?” Sir Ruth said, drawing Henri out of his brief contemplation.

Henri gulped. “I need to speak with Elise…” When a look of displeasure crossed the chevalier’s face, Henri hastened to add, “…please.”

Sir Ruth looked about to say something when Elise’s voice rose softly from behind her. “Let him in, please, Sir Ruth.”

Sir Ruth frowned, but opened the door wider and stepped aside. Henri hurried inside and approached Elise, who was sitting in her favored chair in the center of the room. Henri smiled as he saw her, and his smile widened as he saw she had been reading one of the books he had given her. That smiled vanished again when he saw it was Raiker Venn’s collection. But still, the Revolutionary shook it off and dropped to one knee in front of the pale woman, which seemed to surprise her.

“Elise, forgive the intrusion, but I must speak with you.”

“Of course, Monsieur le Douce. Sir Ruth, would you be so kind as to wait outside while I speak with the Monsieur?”

“She can stay,” Henri said suddenly, which surprised Elise even more. Sir Ruth was downright shocked that Henri would abide her company, and even Henri seemed surprised at himself. “Elise, I…I need to ask you a favor.” He lowered his eyes slightly. “A favor I do not like to ask.”

“What is it?”

“I would like you to, if you’re willing, that is, to, um...”

“Yes?”

Henri sighed. “Elise, will you conjure some fog for us?”

“You... you wish me to make fog?” Elise asked, her surprise renewed yet again. “But why?”

“I’m not sure,” Henri said, shaking his head. “The Captain thinks we’re near the Tower, but nobody can see it. It’s like it’s not there. She thinks it’s hidden with magic.”

“Well, if that is the case, then I doubt fog is going to make it any easier to see…” Elise said with a slight, teasing laugh.

“Probably not,” Henri admitted. “But the other mages aboard have tried everything they can think of, so I thought maybe you might succeed where they failed.”

Elise stared at him for a while before turning her head away. “The other mages aboard this ship are far more experienced than I am,” she said sadly. “I have only the one spell. I do not see how it will help.”

Henri brought his right hand up and laid it atop hers, and she smiled. Henri could hear Sir Ruth shift slightly behind him, but in that moment, he didn’t care. “I am only asking you to try, Elise. That’s all.”

She stared him in the eyes for a few long moments, then nodded slightly. “Very well, Monsieur le Douce. I will try.” Elise took a deep breath, and she almost seemed to be steeling herself for something. "Just how much fog should I make?"

Henri smiled. “Not too much, I suppose. As you said, I think that would only hide the Tower from us further. I was thinking, perhaps, a light fog, low to the water, but as spread out as you can manage without over-exerting yourself.”

Elise looked uncertain. “I am not sure I have much say in what the fog does, once it has come into being.” She caught Henri’s look, and smiled slightly. “But I will try.”

“Thank you, Elise.”

“You are welcome. Would you please,” she hesitated, glancing at Sir Ruth, “go on deck and watch? To see if the effect is what you had hoped.”

“Of course,” Henri said, standing again. As he turned around, he saw Sir Ruth was standing with her gauntleted hand resting on the door handle, the door held wide open for him.

“Sir Ruth, I would like you to go with him,” Elise said, quietly. “There is little you can do to help me, here, and, if I am to do this, then... well, I would prefer to do so alone." Her voice was apologetic, almost, and even as Sir Ruth averted her eyes deferentially, Elise, too, looked away. "Besides," she said, "if you are above deck, then you can let me know what happens.”

“Yes, Madame,” Sir Ruth said with a stiff bow, then glared at Henri and indicated toward the open door. Henri glanced back once at Elise, then walked out, with Sir Ruth only a step behind him. Henri expected Sir Ruth to say something to him as they walked out onto the deck, and he equally expected not to like it, but the chevalier remained silent, apart from the clanking of her armor. Somehow, Henri did not find her silence any more comforting than her expected words.

Henri rejoined Aurélie, Captain Valerie, Josette, and Gale on the quarterdeck. They were still discussing ways to proceed and brainstorming what to do next when the fog began. It started rising slowly from the surface of the water, curling off the waves like tufts of smoke. At first, the fog was so light that it burnt off in the sun after only a few moments, but as Elise’s spell grew, so did the fog. It grew thicker and further out from the ship, but stayed low against the water’s surface, not even reaching the rails of the Mourning Reign.

Gale noticed it first, and Captain Valerie followed her gaze. At first, there were surprised murmurs from the crew on the main deck, but they calmed down quickly. Valerie had always welcomed mages aboard her vessel, and so the crew was far more accustomed to magical happenings than most people in Foraine. Also, the crew had been at port in Mont-sur-Mer when Elise’s fog had first descended on them, and even if they did not know who was causing it, they knew it likely had to do with their passengers.

“LaRoux,” Aurélie said simply, a hint of displeasure in her voice. She looked over at Henri. “What is she doing?”

Henri shrugged. “We’ve tried all the other magic aboard this ship. I thought asking Elise to try was at least worth the effort.”

Aurélie glared at him for a moment, and seemed about to say something further, when Gale spoke first, pointing forward. “Captain, look at that.”

Captain Valerie followed Gale’s direction to a place in the water just a few ship lengths ahead of their position. There, she saw one of the strangest sights she had ever seen. In every other direction, the fog spread out evenly around the ship before dissipating gradually about nine or ten ship lengths away. Directly in front of them, however, the fog stopped short. It did not dissipate, it simply stopped, as if crossing some invisible line and ceasing to exist. Captain Valerie was dumbfounded, and the rest of the crew followed her example.

Finally, Valerie turned back to the others and threw up her hands. “Well, I guess we found our tower.”

“But, how…” Josette began, then stopped, not even able to decide on an accurate question.

Valerie shook her head, her red hair catching the slight breeze. “I have no idea. And it still doesn’t get us to this Tower, but I’m willing to bet my next cargo that even though we can’t see them, they can probably see us right now.”

“So, what should we do, Captain?” The first mate asked.

“All we can do is wait, it seems. Run up the greeting flag, station a watch, and hold our position. Let’s see if they’re willing to invite us in.”

Josette hurried to fulfill her orders, and Henri, smiling to himself, returned to the main deck, planning to go tell Elise that she had succeeded and that she could stop now. As he climbed down the stairs, however, Sir Ruth was standing there, her arms folded over her chest. She stared at Henri with hard eyes, then nodded once in a gesture that was anything but warm.

“I’ll inform the Comtesse.”

Without another word, Sir Ruth spun around and marched back toward Elise LaRoux’s cabin. Henri sighed heavily, then turned around to see Aurélie standing at the railing above, staring down at him. Henri turned away and sighed again. This was going to be a long wait.

As it turned out, though, the wait was not nearly as long as Henri or anyone else on the Mourning Reign had feared. Just before sundown, moments before the sun caressed the watery horizon, the very air began to ripple in the precise spot where Elise LaRoux’s fog had vanished. The ripple was a cascade of concentric circles, like rain falling on standing water, assuming that water was somehow vertical like a mirror. The effect increased steadily until something other than sea and sky appeared behind it. In moments, the cascade ended, and the crew stared in wonder at the fabled Tower of Tears.

The Tower was still a bit in the distance, and the darkening sky made it difficult to make out details, but the mere fact that it existed, and in a place where mere moments ago it had not, was beyond anything the crew of the Mourning Reign had seen before. Captain Valerie took out her spyglass and stared at the sight. The tower was massive, easily fifty stories or more, and wide, too. It was an unsettling, perhaps even frightening, sight.

And at the top of the tower, barely visible in the dying light, there flew two flags. One was a flag of greeting, mirroring the one the Mourning Reign flew. The other was a white glove.

Captain Valerie stiffened a bit at the sight, then glanced to her right, where Aurélie Cerveau was waiting expectantly. Valerie handed the Revolutionary the spyglass. “Look at the flags,” she said simply.

Aurélie complied, and Valerie could see her set her jaw as she spotted it. “Lucienne’s personal marque.” She handed the spyglass back. “Now what?”

“They’ve run up the greeting flag,” Valerie said. “And revealed themselves to us. We didn’t spend all that time finding our way here to stop on the doorstep.” She turned to Gale, who was standing at the wheel. “Take us in, Gale.”

“Yes, Captain,” Gale said with a smile. Within moments, the anchor was lifted and the Mourning Reign lurched forward. As the Tower grew ever closer, the crew was increasingly distracted by the imposing and unbelievable sight, and Valerie and Josette were forced to threaten increasingly severe discipline until the crew finally focused on their duties. Aurélie, on the other hand, who had no duties to attend to, was free to stare in wonder and trepidation at the gigantic structure they were approaching.

Aurélie had expected that, as they grew closer, she would see the island on which the tower was built, but she never did. If there was any island at all, it had either become submerged, or it was smaller around than the tower it supported. The black stone of the Tower of Tears seemed to rise from the depths of the water itself. There seemed to be no land whatsoever, only a large dock built off of the main entrance that seemed supported by floating pylons. Even more amazing, though, were the walls. As the ship drew close, Aurélie could see that water was flowing down the walls, sometimes in trickles, other times in torrents, but always flowing. Undoubtedly, this was where the Tower of Tears got its name.

Gale expertly piloted the Mourning Reign up to the dock, where several figures stood waiting for them. The foremost of them was a woman with long, graying hair, but a strong face and a severe look. She wore a black uniform, complete with a ceremonial cape, and a broadsword hung at her left side. The woman’s right hand rested on the pommel, as if she were preparing to draw the blade already. Behind her, there were several cloaked figures, most with their hoods drawn up over their heads, and several carrying large torches. Night was falling, but Aurélie suspected the torches were more a message than a source of light, particularly as they were glowing with green flames.

As the galleon was moored to the dock, the gangplank was extended, and the uniformed woman approached, along with her companions. On deck, Captain Valerie, Josette, Aurélie Cerveau, and Henri le Douce lined up to meet her. The woman stopped short of the gangplank, and instead remained on the dock, just short of it. Captain Valerie, therefore, stepped to the edge of the gangplank on the ship’s side, and the other three gathered around her.

The uniformed woman cast her eyes over ship and the crew, then focused on Captain Valerie. “We don’t receive many visitors here, Captain, so you will have to forgive us.” She looked down the length of the ship once again, toward the bow. “The Mourning Reign, eh?” She looked back at the redheaded woman. “You must be Captain Valerie then.”

“I’m impressed,” Valerie said, looking surprised. “How did you know that?”

“This is the Tower of Tears,” the other woman said. “A prison for mages. And word gets around the mage community of the only captain who will hire on mages.”

“I doubt I’m the only one,” Valerie said.

The woman shrugged. “The most famous, anyway. And I daresay, there may be a few of your former crewmates taking up residence with us even now.”

“That might upset me,” Valerie said with a slight smirk, “if I thought this were actually a prison. But you and I both know it’s anything but.”

This time, it was the other woman’s turn to look surprised. “What…” she began, then caught herself. “Whatever gives you that idea?”

“Let’s just say I have it on good authority.”

Before the woman could respond, Aurélie spoke up from next to the Captain. “Are you Nadia Deval?”

The woman’s attention snapped toward Aurélie. “I’m afraid I must repeat your captain’s question. How did you know that?”

Aurélie stepped boldly onto the gangplank and walked toward Nadia. She slipped her hand into her pocket, but her eyes never left the other woman’s. “It was…suggested to me…that I give you this.”

She pulled her hand out of the pocket and offered Nadia the small, golden ring with the raised image of a bird in flight on it. Nadia gave her a suspicious look, but took the ring and held it up to the green torchlight from behind her. Aurélie watched in silence as Nadia’s expression changed completely, first to one of confusion, and then softening to one that Aurélie could not quite place. Finally, though, the older woman looked back to the Revolutionary.

“When did you…When did you last see Lucienne?”

“Several weeks ago now,” Aurélie said.

“Was she…well?”

Aurélie stared at Nadia for a while, then shrugged. “Our conversation did not touch on the matter of her health.”

Nadia smiled briefly, then seemed to collect herself. She looked past Aurélie and back to Valerie. “Forgive me, Captain. Obviously, you and your women are most welcome in the Tower of Tears. Please, make yourselves at home. We have fresh food and water we can share with you, and proper beds for any of your crew who wishes them.” She looked back toward Aurélie. “You and I, I think, have much to discuss.” She slipped the ring into her pocket and nodded. “When you are ready, ask to be shown to my meeting room.”

Aurélie nodded. “I’ll have a few others with me.”

Nadia smiled. “If Lucienne wishes me to speak with you, I shall be happy to entertain as many of you as is required.”

Without another word, Nadia turned around and walked away, down the length of the dock and through the large wooden gate of the Tower of Tears. Aurélie rejoined the others on deck, and Valerie leaned in close. “So what now?”

Aurélie glanced at Henri, then looked back at the Captain. “Now, Vocal Henri and I do some negotiating, and we find out if this trip was worth the effort or not.”

Valerie was about to respond when she noticed several members of the crew watching her expectantly. She smiled. “For you and for me, only time will tell. But it seems like for my crew, it already is.”

The Captain turned to face her women and spoke out loudly, projecting her voice so that everyone could hear her. “We have been offered the hospitality of this Tower, so it looks like you have all earned yourselves an unexpected shore leave.” The crew erupted with a burst of cheers, but Valerie quickly held up a hand to silence them. “As you can no doubt see for yourselves, this is no seedy wharf district or tavern brothel! I expect each of you to be on your best behavior. If they offer you alcohol, you may drink, but if I have to admonish even one of you for drunkenness, you will all be paying for it for the rest of your time aboard my ship, is that clear?”

“Yes, Captain,” the crew responded, almost in unison.

“Very well,” Valerie said. “Enjoy yourselves. This is a sight that few in Foraine will ever see, a sight you will tell your granddaughters about, though they will never believe you. But above all, do the Mourning Reign proud.”

The crew cheered again, and prepared to disembark. Captain Valerie turned back to Aurélie one more time. “Whoever you can convince to come with you, I will welcome aboard. But remember this, Aurélie Cerveau. My promise to you was that I would get you and your people to safety, which I assumed would be back in Fleche. But this place looks pretty safe to me.”

Aurélie narrowed her eyes. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” the Captain said, “that if you don’t conduct yourself as I would want my crew to conduct themselves, you might be waiting here for the next ship to pass by. Are we clear?”

Aurélie exhaled slowly as she met the other woman’s gaze. Finally, though, she nodded. “Perfectly.”

“Good,” Valerie said with the barest hint of a smile. Then, without saying another word, she moved past Aurélie, past the cloaked figures waiting for her, and into the vast stretches of the Tower of Tears.

While Aurélie, Henri, Remy, and Beatrix met with Nadia Deval to negotiate her aid and that of the mages, and Captain Valerie and Josette were given the grand tour of the Tower by Nadia’s second in command, the crew of the Mourning Reign was allowed to explore the Tower themselves and speak with the mages there. Dozens of mages lived in the Tower of Tears, and most seemed thrilled to receive the rare visitors. Undoubtedly, it was not a common occurrence, and both the crew and the mages found the experience fascinating.

One of the last of the crewwomen still aboard the ship was Gale, who was still trying to decide what to make of the gigantic structure of the Tower. She had been at sea for nearly all of her life, and she had never seen anything like the tower before. What’s more, it was filled with mages, and while Gale’s time aboard the Mourning Reign had introduced her to some good ones who she liked and respected, she could not shake her distrust of them. After everything that had happened with Raiker Venn aboard the Autumn Crane, and with Vasco’s “little Pearl” aboard the Blazing Star, she just couldn’t.

“Gale!”

The sailor turned at the sound of her name and smiled slightly as she recognized the shock-white face of Elise. If there was any mage on any world that could have helped Gale believe that they had some goodness in them, it was Elise. The two had spoken several times, always at night and sometimes at length, on those rare occasions when Elise had ventured out of her cabin to get some small share of the fresh ocean air. At first, Gale had kept her company merely because she happened to be on deck anyway, but the more time she spent with the pale woman, the more she had taken to her.

Now, though, the mage was walking hurriedly up to Gale, an uncharacteristic grin on her face. Behind her, the armored chevalier Sir Ruth almost jogged to keep up.

“Hello, Elise,” Gale said pleasantly.

“Gale!” Elise repeated, her eyes slightly wild. “Are you…are you going?”

“Going? What do you mean?”

“Into the Tower? Sir Ruth tells me that the crew has been allowed to go there and meet the…um, the people there. So, are you going?”

Gale shrugged. “I hadn’t decided.”

Elise glanced back at Sir Ruth, then smiled at Gale. “I think I would like to see it. Would you like to come with me?”

“I’m not sure,” Gale said.

“Please?” Elise said. “I have never been given a 'shore leave' before, and I would very much enjoy your company.”

The hopeful look in her pink eyes made Gale smile. “Alright. I’ll come with you. It should prove…interesting, if nothing else.”

Elise grinned and thanked her, and together she and Gale made their way down the gangplank and toward the Tower of Tears, with Sir Ruth following a few steps behind. All three were silent as they walked through the tall, thick wooden door. On the other side, they found themselves in a large, cavernous, stone hall. It was not richly decorated nor lavishly furnished, but the room was awe-inspiring if only for its size. At least three stories tall, the seamless stone reached upward imposingly all around them. And, though they could barely see the far wall over the distance to it, there wasn’t a single pillar or column to support the ceiling.

Throughout the massive chamber, groups of people were standing around and talking, most of them made up primarily of crewmates of the Mourning Reign talking to one or two denizens of the Tower. Gale had no idea if those denizens were mages or not. They looked no different from anyone else. Though night had descended outside, the massive room was well-lit by floating, dancing spheres of light near the ceiling. Gale stared at them for a moment before saying, mostly to herself, “what are those?”

Elise followed her gaze, squinting and shielding her eyes against the light they were so unaccustomed to. “Will-o’-the-Wisps, I believe. I remember reading about them in a book I had as a child. I did not think they would be so bright.”

Elise looked down at the dark stone floor to give her eyes something easier to stare at. Gale glanced over at her. “Sorry.”

“What?” Elise asked. “Oh, no, please do not…” she paused, uncomfortable. She decided to change the subject. “So, do we wait for a hostess or a guide or something like that?”

“Their captain said to make ourselves at home,” Gale noted, looking around. To their right, she noticed a small group of crewwomen heading up a staircase that disappeared into the wall. Gale gestured in that direction. “Why don’t we explore a bit and see what we find.”

Elise nodded and grinned, and the three set off in the direction of the stairway. As they walked, they marveled at the construction of the Tower of Tears. There did not seem to be a single break or seam in the stone, not in the walls, the floor, or even the stairs as they began to climb them. It was as if the entire thing had been carved from one singular, utterly massive stone and carefully hollowed out into a hall nearly as grand as an aristocrat’s chateau. At first, it was difficult to believe that the Tower, at one time, could have been a prison. Until, that is, they reached the second floor.

After several turns of the staircase, they emerged from the stairwell into a long hallway stretching off in three directions lined with wooden doors. The hallway was darker than the main hall below had been, and was lit not with the dancing Will-o’-the-Wisps, but with evenly spaced torch sconces flickering with magical fire. Some of the doors were open and others closed, but all of them were crafted of strong, thick wood. Each of them also had a small, semi-circular window in it, covered by a sliding metal trapdoor and, behind that, steel bars. Elise shivered as she saw them. All of the doors latched from the outside.

“You get used to that,” a voice sounded from beside them, “when you live in what used to be a prison.”

The three women turned and saw, walking toward them, a large woman with a wide grin on her face. She approached them and gestured toward the door they had been looking at. “This is my room. Would you like to see it?”

Elise looked over at Gale for a moment, her eyes twitching slightly in concern. Gale was about to say something when the woman laughed. “I promise you, it’s much nicer on the inside than it looks from here.” Then she indicated toward Sir Ruth. “And your friend here can stay at the door and make sure it doesn’t close, if you’re concerned.”

Elise nodded slowly, thoughts about being locked in the tiny cell beyond dancing like madwomen across her mind. Sir Ruth stepped up beside her and leaned in. “I swear, Madame, you will be safe.”

“And I’ll be with you, too,” Gale said, smiling down at the shorter woman. Finally, Elise nodded.

“Yes, I would love to see your…room. I am Elise LaRoux.”

“I’m Laure Pierrat,” the woman said, stepping past them and to her door. “I know it must seem strange, living in a prison cell, but we are not prisoners.” She smiled as she pulled the door open. “And some cells are nicer than others.”

She opened the door to reveal a room much larger than Elise had expected. It extended only a short distance to the wall, but it also spread to the side, clearly long enough that three or four of the cell doors must have opened into it, rather than simply the one Laure had opened. Even as she stepped cautiously into the room behind her guide, she could not see these other doors, as they were covered with bookshelves and tapestries that made the cell look very much like a proper room. The room was not richly decorated, but enough that Elise could feel comfortable there. With an even wider grin, Laure turned to her and Gale.

“You see? Long ago, this would have been a prison like any other, but we’ve done what we could to make it home. We cleared out the walls between some of the cells to give us a decent living space, and they try to get us what they can from the mainland when we want something like artwork, or books.”

She walked over to the outside wall and winked at her guests. “And, of course, we’re free here to use our gifts as we choose.” She laid a hand against the wall and, after a moment, the stone seemed to peel away, opening a wide, circular window. Elise gasped, and Laure laughed softly. “Sometimes, I like to get some fresh air! Go ahead, try it.”

Elise slowly ventured over and, at Laure’s urging, stuck her hand through the hole in the wall, where she felt the water that constantly cascaded down the outside of the Tower. She drew her hand back quickly. “It is real!”

Laure nodded. “Mine is the magic of stone. I like stone, and it tends to like me. So when I ask it to move aside, it’s usually willing to do so for me.” She laid her hands on either side of the new window and, moments later, the stone seemed to reconverge, and the wall was as it had been, with no sign it had ever been changed.

“I take it you helped reshape the cells?” Gale asked.

Laure smiled and nodded. “Nadia brought me along when we first came here,” she said proudly. “I’ve been helping her ever since, trying to make this a safe place for all mages, no matter who they were back on the mainland. We’re all sisters and brothers here.”

“That sounds lovely,” Elise commented.

Laure glanced from Elise to Gale and back again. “So, you two are mages, then?”

Both women were taken aback. Gale shook her head. “No, just Elise.”

Laure stared at Gale for a long moment, then shrugged, and focused on the pale woman. “Are you thinking about staying with us? You would be welcome.”

Elise seemed too shocked to speak. She tried, but she stumbled over her words until she simply stopped trying. Finally, Laure laughed gently again. “I’ll tell you what, Elise. Why don’t you let me show you around, introduce you to a few of us, tell you what it’s like to live in the Tower. Then you can decide if you’d like to stay.”

Elise looked over to Gale, who simply shrugged. She turned back to Laure and, slowly, nodded. “I would like that, Laure Pierrat.”

The larger woman smiled again and ushered both of them out of her room before leading them down the hallway. As she, Elise, and Sir Ruth started walking, though, Gale stayed behind. Elise stopped then, too. “Are you coming, Gale?”

“You three go ahead,” Gale said. “I think I would rather just explore on my own, if that’s alright.”

Elise nodded, and Laure shrugged. “Feel free. We don’t get many visitors, so I think you’ll find us a friendly lot, for the most part.”

“I will see you later, Gale,” Elise said with a small smile.

Gale simply nodded, turned around, and disappeared into the stairwell.

Laure’s tour was incredible. She showed Elise several other rooms and introduced her to a few of the mages who had not ventured out to greet the visitors. Each room, though approximately the same size and shape, looked vastly different, each colored by the tastes and decorations of its inhabitant. The mages seemed happy there, and all welcomed Elise in a way that she had never known strangers to welcome her in the past. They did not stare at her white skin, her colorless hair, or her pink eyes. They simply looked at her. Many asked her about her magic, as casually and nonchalantly as if they were asking her what she preferred for dinner. The first time it happened, Elise could swear she heard her mother’s voice echoing in her ears, demanding that Elise not speak about it. But as the tour wore on, she came to hear her mother’s voice less and less, and more and more she heard her own.

Laure took Elise to the kitchens, where the more talented chefs amongst the mages volunteered to cook for the rest of them, or people were free to cook for themselves, if they wished. She showed her to a large dining room where they could all eat together, and stressed that they could eat alone in their rooms if they preferred. She took Elise to rooms that functioned like university classrooms, where the most studious of the mages studied and taught everything from magic usage to classical Foraine Literature to art classes. All throughout the tour, Elise felt dizzy, and overwhelmed. She had never seen anything like this place before. She had never dreamed it could exist, let alone fathom that she could be there. That she could live there.

Near the end of the tour, though, Laure showed Elise something that nearly made her heart burst out of her chest. On one of the topmost floors of the Tower of Tears was the library. Elise had loved books for as long as she could remember. She had vague flashes of memories of her father’s voice reading to her, before she had been taught her letters. She remembered with broken-hearted lamentations the books she had been allowed to keep in her room in the chateau of Mont-sur-Mer, books she would read and reread and read again until she had even the placement of the words on the page memorized. She found herself smiling as she recalled the small bag of books back in her cabin aboard the Mourning Reign, which she knew, even though he had never said it, Henri le Douce had risked his freedom and his life to obtain for her.

But in all of her life, in all of her most beautiful and hopeful dreams, she had never seen or even imagined a library this large. The library took up two stories of the tower, and some of the walls were so stacked that they almost appeared constructed of books. Though the ceiling was lower than the chamber they had entered the Tower of Tears through, the library seemed to stretch even further into the distance. It was impossible to know for certain, though, because of the veritable labyrinth of bookshelves that dominated both floors of the library. Just scanning her eyes across the sight, Elise could feel her heart beating faster.

Laure led Elise and Sir Ruth through the library toward an open area on the other side, where several reading tables and comfortable-looking chairs were placed for the mages to read. As they moved through the bookshelf maze, Sir Ruth tried, and mostly failed, to be quiet in her heavy armor. At first, Elise was horrified by the noise, but as she realized that nobody else was in the library anyway, she eventually found it more comical than anything, and had to resist the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it. Laure, fortunately, either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

The reading area was like a paradise to Elise. It was open and welcoming, well-lit with soft light emanating from glowing orbs fixed to the walls and shelves around them. The far wall was the only place in the massive library clear of books and bookshelves. Instead, it was dominated by a huge window extending from the floor to the ceiling, two stories worth of window looking out over the vast ocean surrounding them. At times, the water of the Tower of Tears flowed down just beyond the window, making it look like it were raining outside, or perhaps like Elise were standing just inside a waterfall and looking beyond. Other times, the water stopped for a bit, and Elise felt as though she could see eternity stretching out in the waters beneath the tower. She could never come here during the day, perhaps, but at night, she doubted she would want to be anywhere else.

Elise had been staring out the window for some time when she was suddenly distracted by a soft cooing from somewhere nearby. She turned around, but could not locate the source of the sound. Confused, she looked to Laure for an answer.

“What was that?”

“Oh, that?” Laure asked with another pleasant laugh. “One of the birds.” She indicated to the right of the window, where there were several birdcages Elise had failed to notice. They looked large, and were set on stands of various heights and styles, and each of them was covered by a large, silken shades. Laure walked up to the one nearest the window. “I suspect it was Berté,” she said, drawing the cover away. “He never seems to want to sleep when the others do.”

Sure enough, in the cage was a single white dove, and was very much awake. Laure stepped aside and held the cover open to give Elise a better view, and the pale woman stepped forward. The bird seemed interested in her, and hopped over to the cage door, still cooing softly. Elise found herself staring at the little thing, her mind reeling off a hundred different thoughts. The cage that Berté was in was large and beautiful, with food, water, a mirror, a perch, and even a few little toys if he were so inclined. But still, even with everything he could want, Elise had to wonder if he were truly happy. If he were truly free.

“So, what do you think, Elise LaRoux?” Laure asked suddenly, her usual wide smile plastered on her face. “Do you think you would like to stay here with us?”

Elise looked over at the friendly mage and smiled, even as she imagined feeling a shade pulled over her.

After the mage had led Elise and Sir Ruth down the long hallway, Gale had returned to the stairwell and ventured upward. The Tower of Tears was an interesting place, and one that Gale would likely never see again, either it or anything like it. But there seemed to be little here for her. Even though the tower seemed to stretch upward out of the ocean itself, the tower felt very much like dry land to the sailor. She had only been within the tower for a short time, but she was already itching to get back aboard the Mourning Reign.

So, after half-heartedly exploring a few of the floors of the Tower, Gale decided it was time to leave. She made her way back to the stairwell and headed down, hoping she could find her way out of the labyrinthine corridors. It seemed as though not all of the stairwells ran up and down the entire tower as Gale had originally assumed, which was no doubt a hold-over from the Tower’s days as a prison. After all, they couldn’t make it too easy to get back down to the main floor, even if the inmates would still find themselves surrounded by an entire ocean. Still, Gale was much better at navigating the waves than stone hallways, and eventually, while she hated to admit it, she found herself hopelessly lost.

Cursing sailors’ curses to herself, Gale wandered the halls for quite some time until she heard a small voice from behind her.

“Hi! Are you lost?”

Gale turned around to answer, but even before she saw who was speaking, he spoke again, his voice pleasantly surprised. “Oh! I love your marks!”

For just a moment, before registering anything but the words, Gale couldn’t believe what she had heard. Since being flung from her own world, she had never heard anyone refer to them as “marks.” They were always “tattoos” or “images” or, perhaps most commonly “that,” as in “what’s that.” For just a fraction of a moment, hearing them called “marks” made Gale feel welcome. It made her feel at home. A moment later, her eyes fell on the speaker. He was a big man for having such a small voice, standing nearly a head taller than Gale. He was wearing a simple shirt without sleeves, and up and down his arms, he was covered in marks. Gale scanned them quickly, but found she couldn’t read them. They were foreign to her.

“I like yours, as well,” Gale said, “Though I’m sorry to say I don’t know what they mean.”

The man laughed. “Nor should you! They’re mine, after all! I’ve always figured everyone who used them used their own.”

Gale decided not to comment on the absurdity of that statement. “So, I take it you live here?”

The man nodded, and indicated the door to his left. “Right here, in fact! My given name was Gaspard, but everyone around here calls me Marco.”

Gale cocked an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

Marco scoffed. “Because they think they’re clever.”

At that moment, another mage came up from behind Gale and moved past her. As she did, she rolled her eyes at the tattooed man. “You’re the one who insists on being called ‘Marco,’ Marco.”

The man hung his head a bit as the woman walked by him and on her way. After a moment, he looked up at Gale again and smiled. “Alright, she’s right. I guess I think I’m clever.”

“Where I come from, the name you’re given is not as important as the name you take for yourself. I’m Gale.”

“Gale, huh?” Marco said, idly scratching the back of his neck. “I like that!” For a few moments, the two of them stood there, until Marco apparently grew tired of the silence. “So, are you a mage too, then?”

“No,” Gale said. “I sail on the Mourning Reign.”

“Oh,” Marco said, looking and sounding disappointed. “I thought that maybe with the marks, you were like me.”

“What do you mean? Marks are just marks. They’re no more magical than yours are.”

Marco grinned. “Ah, but see, that’s the thing! My marks are very magical! I’ll show you, if you want?” Before Gale could respond, he had opened the door into his room and indicated for her to join him inside. When she did not move, he smiled again. “It’s alright, I won’t bite.”

Gale laughed. “If you tried, I’d bite you harder.” She moved forward and past him, pausing when she was closest to him. “And I’ve been told a shark’s bite is weak compared to mine.”

Marco gave an exaggerated gulp as he moved to follow her inside. He decided it was best to leave the door open. “Would you like something to drink, Gale?”

“No. Tell me about your marks.”

“Right down to business,” Marco mused. “I can appreciate that.” Without another word, he slipped his shirt off to reveal a muscled chest and abdomen, both of which were covered in marks. He spread his arms out slight and did a little twirl. While his front and arms were nearly covered in ink, his back was almost entirely bare apart from what appeared to be a crude shark fin on his left shoulder blade. “As I said, these marks are magical. Here, let me show you.”

Marco looked up and down his arm until he settled on the mark of a crow in flight tattooed on his left bicep. Nodding to himself, he gently touched the mark with his right hand as his eyes fluttered shut. He stood there like that for a short time before Gale felt a sudden burst of wind spring up in the mage’s room. The next moment, a bird materialized into being, a storm crow that flew around the room as well as it could before fluttering up to Marco’s now outstretched arm and resting there, waiting.

“How did you do that?” Gale asked, staring at the bird who, by all logic, shouldn’t be there.

“Magic!” Marco said, giving the bird a small pat on its head. He held his left arm up and flexed, showing the bird mark. It was still there, but the ink had faded, and was barely visible, compared to the thick, black ink it had been before. With a smile, Marco nodded to the crow and, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished again. When Gale looked back at the man’s bicep, she saw the mark was once again inked in deep black.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Gale said, staring. When she looked over to Marco’s face, she saw it was set in an oddly serious expression, a sharp contrast with the one he had worn throughout the short time she had known him.

“Each mark is a reminder, Gale. A memento of the promise they made to me to help me when I need them, and of the promise I made to take care of them when they did. See, a lot of mages only know one or two spells. Some don’t know spells at all, they simply do something, like levitate, or move stone.”

“Like Laure.”

“Oh, you’ve met her? Yes, like Laure. She casts her spell, but until she came here, she never even knew that’s what she was doing. When I cast my first summon, I didn’t know what was happening. I just knew I was in trouble, and all of a sudden, my family dog was there, even though he should have been half a queendom away.”

He lowered his arm and took a step toward Gale. “I was frightened. I knew it meant I was a mage, and that meant that I would be hunted, but I didn’t know anything more than that. I ran, and I kept running. As I went, I would meet new animals, and they seemed drawn to me, even protective of me. But the more I ran, the more I would forget about my friends. It was strange, but sometimes, especially after I would summon one, I would find I just couldn’t remember them anymore.”

There was a distant look in his eyes as he talked now. “So you wanted a reminder,” Gale prompted, causing the man to refocus on her. He nodded once, sharply.

“I finally met another mage, one who knew what she was and what mages are, and mercifully, how to help me. She explained grimoires to me. See, like I said, most mages, or at least most that I’ve met, only know one or two spells, so it’s easy for them to keep it in their minds. But each creature I befriended, each creature I summoned, was its own spell, and I couldn’t keep them straight. My teacher, she told me that some mages keep a grimoire, a sort of reminder of all their spells. Often, this is a book, or a collection of trinkets or something. But I didn’t think that was enough. My spells aren’t tools or weapons, they’re my friends, the only friends I’ve ever had, until I came to the Tower.”

“I think I understand,” Gale said, her hand gently caressing her shirt above her breast, where her angel sat, an eternal reminder of the ship she had rescued, the lives she had saved.

“I think you do,” Marco nodded. “That’s when my teacher helped me develop my enchanted ink, and I started marking myself.” He started running his hand down his left bicep. “This crow’s been with me since I first learned to make the ink.” Then he pointed at his right shoulder, where he had the mark of a crab. “I found this crab while running from some noblewoman’s guards along the shore. Twice as tall as I am, and no lie. It saved my life then, and several other times, too.” Then he pointed to his side, and his largest mark, that of a giant tentacled creature that must have been some kind of squid or octopus. “And this friendly fellow found me when the ship I stowed away on cast me adrift. He brought me here, right under that teleporting barrier and up to the front gate.” He seemed to consider something, then smiled. “Probably best I don’t show him off to you.”

“Probably,” Gale agreed with a slight laugh. “It’s interesting. You say your marks are your friends. Mine are me.” Absently, she raised a hand to her cheek and brushed her fingers along her first mark, the one that denoted her as a Speaker. “But, I think, it’s sort of the same. My marks are promises, too. They’re promises about the things I can do, the things I will do, the person I am.”

She glanced down at her own ankle, where the names of two people she had loved rested just above the bone. She smiled as she remembered them. Once again, she touched her cheek, and her smile widened as she remembered the song of the wind and the waves of her home waters, and how that song would whisper its promise that it would always return. That she would always return to it. And then she saw another image in her mind, the image of Denner Fabellian and the promise he had made to her. The promise that, if he lived, he would come back for her, find her, and lead her home. And suddenly, she was promising, too. She was promising herself, Denner, and the world, all the worlds, that she would return home. There was no more doubt, no questioning, no uncertainty. There was only a promise, waiting to be fulfilled.

Gale looked up into Marco’s eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was low, barely above a whisper. “Marco,” she paused, staring intently. “May I have some ink?”

Marco blinked twice, confused. “Ink?”

Gale nodded. “And a needle, if you can spare one.”

Henri le Douce felt like he were going to die. Or fall asleep, which, judging from the looks Aurélie Cerveau shot him every time Nadia Deval wasn’t looking, was likely the same thing. They had been in Nadia’s meeting room for hours, talking endlessly about Nadia’s history, the Revolution, and her potential involvement in it. The meeting room was sparse, featuring only a single long stone table and a dozen or so of the most uncomfortable chairs Henri had ever been forced to use. There were no decorations, not artwork, no features to break up the monotony of the seamless stone walls apart from the singular door they had entered through. There was nothing to distract Henri.

The majority of the conversation had been taken up merely trying to convince Nadia that joining the Revolution was what Lucienne had wanted. Henri couldn’t blame her. The Revolution was against the aristocrats, after all, and the Queen was, by definition, the pinnacle of the aristocracy. Henri had long since lost track of how many times Nadia had said that she just couldn’t believe Lucienne would ask her to do this. And every single time, Aurélie’s response was the same. “But she does.” Every single time. Henri was beginning to grow tired of watching this rehearsal play out over and over again.

For a while, Aurélie had switched tactics, and rather than appeal to the older warrior on the basis of Lucienne’s request, she tried to convince her of the necessity of the Revolution itself. She spoke with her usual passion, something she seemed to save for this topic and this topic alone. She spoke with conviction, with animation, and with feeling. Beatrix and Remy looked like they were on the verge of tears as she spoke. Henri felt like rolling his eyes at them, until Aurélie recounted the travesty at Mont-sur-Mer, at which point he felt more like joining in. Still, for all of Aurélie’s passion and conviction, it did nothing to sway Nadia.

Then, for a time, the two just seemed to scream and yell at one another, one about freedom and the other about murder, one about tyranny and the other about decency. Both of their faces flushed red as they worked themselves up, and both pulled back to smug smiles when they made a statement the other could not answer. At one point, it seemed as though Aurélie were ready to pull her knife on their host, and at another, Henri was certain Nadia would call down the full force of every mage in the Tower of Tears on Aurélie.

Now, though, and surprisingly suddenly, too, the room was silent. Nadia sat at the head of the long table, staring down at its stone surface and the golden ring that belonged to Queen Lucienne II. Aurélie was standing in the corner, staring down at the wall, doubtlessly planning her next verbal attack against Nadia’s defenses. Remy was leaning back in one of the chairs, his eyes shifting between the two warring women. But it was when his eyes fell on Beatrix that Henri’s breath caught in his throat. She was staring directly at him, her own eyes pleading.

Henri wanted to hang his head, but he forced himself to stare back at the most trusted scout of the People’s Revolution, and most likely the next Spymaster, after Patrice’s death at Mont-sur-Mer. Beatrix was not like Aurélie and Remy. Oh, she believed in their cause every bit as much as they did. She was just as willing to risk her life for the freedom of the people, and just as willing to kill to protect the movement. But Aurélie and Remy had been there from the very beginning, from the moment Aurélie had begun putting everything together. Beatrix had joined later, after hearing Vocal Henri preach for action. She believed in Vocal Henri. And, for just that moment, Henri couldn’t stand the thought of shattering that belief.

So, without truly knowing what he was doing, Henri pushed himself away from the table, stood up, and turned to face the commander of the Tower of Tears.

“Nadia Deval, your Queen needs you.”

Nadia looked up at Henri, who hadn’t spoken a single word during the entire meeting. Her brow was furrowed in confusion, but before she could respond, Aurélie spoke, her voice cautious, and warning.

“Citizen Henri, I do not think…”

“No, Citizen Aurélie,” Henri cut her off. “I know that you asked to conduct this meeting, and your passion has reflected well on the cause, but I cannot sit by any longer while the land we both love, the people we both love, are threatened by my inaction.”

He turned back to Nadia, who seemed surprised at his words, but there was something else in her eyes, something that Henri had seen ever since making his deal with Raiker Venn. There was a willingness to listen. Henri set his jaw for a long moment, then continued.

“Nadia Deval, do you not eat the wheat of the fields, yet reject the grass of the meadows? Do you not eat the meat of the pheasant, yet shun that of the dove?” Although it was a barely perceivable motion, Nadia nodded in slightly confused agreement. Henri nodded once. “One thing need not be another merely because of the similarities between them. The aristocracy has all but outlawed magic, and yet you protect mages. The aristocracy built this place as a prison, and yet you have made it a haven. The aristocracy takes freedom, and yet you fight to return it. You do not fight for the aristocracy, Nadia Deval. You fight for your Queen.

“And it was Lucienne II, sovereign of Foraine, who came to us, not we to her. It was Lucienne II who asked us to succeed where she could only fail, who unshackled our hands because of the shackles on hers. Her Majesty did not stumble across us by happenstance, did not blunder around in the dark and find us there lurking. She sought us out, deliberately and under the bright sun of day, and asked us to help her make her queendom the land that she dreamed of. And her dream, Nadia, is our dream. It is a dream of freedom, of justice, of peace.

“The People’s Revolution was never a revolution against Lucienne. It was never even a revolution against the aristocracy. The People’s Revolution was, is, and shall remain a revolution against oppression, against injustice, against tyranny. These are traits that many aristocrats have taken for their own, and that alone has made them our enemies, not because of the positions they were born into, but because of the actions they have committed in those positions. Not because of the people they support, but because of the people they choose to harm.”

Henri stepped closer to Nadia and reached down, softly picking up Lucienne’s ring. “I do not pretend to know what significance this ring has for you or for Lucienne, but I know what significance it has for me, and for the people of Foraine. Upon this ring sits the figure of a bird in flight, neither bound to the ground nor enclosed in a cage. This ring represents freedom, not from the aristocracy, but from oppression, not from the laws, but from their subversions, not from those in power, but from those who misuse what power they have.”

Henri set the ring back down and stood up to full height, his eyes locked on Nadia’s, his voice soft, but passionate. “Queen Lucienne II came to us because we were in a position to do what she was not. To begin to cure the sickness that is infecting Foraine. She needs us. But she came to us also, Nadia, because she was wise enough to see that we needed her. We have the passion needed to do what must be done, but not the skill. We have the people, but not the training. We have the will, but we do not have the knowledge. The Queen needs us, Nadia. And we,” Henri paused, dramatically, “need you.”

Nadia stood up to face the Revolutionary. She stared intently at him for a long, tense moment, then nodded. “I can see why Lucienne chose you. But before I give you an answer, I need to know something. Who leads this Revolution? Is it you?” Slowly and deliberately, she shifted her focus to Aurélie, still standing in the corner across the room. “Or you?”

Aurélie pushed herself away from the wall and moved to stand beside Henri. He could feel the tension in her body as she reached up and placed a hand on his shoulder. Although it must have appeared that way to everyone else, the gesture was anything but gentle. “Citizen Henri is the voice of the Revolution,” she said simply.

Nadia looked back at Henri and waited. Henri glanced at Aurélie, who was expressionless. He glanced at Beatrix, who was hopeful, and at Remy, who was staring daggers at him. Henri looked back at Nadia, and shook his head.

“I am the voice of the People,” he said sadly. “But I am not their leader, any more than your voice leads your body.” He looked over at Aurélie and indicated in her direction with a nod of his head. “Aurélie Cerveau led this Revolution when I was just a voice in the crowd, and I…” he glanced back once again at Beatrix and Remy, both of whom looked utterly bewildered, “we…trust her to lead it still.”

For a long moment, there was silence in the room. Finally, though, Nadia Deval nodded, and stepped up to Aurélie. “Very well, then. I will help you. I will train your people to fight the way the soldiers of the aristocracy fight, to survive against them. I will help you free your people, and mine.” She extended her hand to Aurélie. As Aurélie moved to accept it, Nadia continued. “If…” Aurélie froze before grasping the other woman’s hand. “If you swear to me that no matter what happens, you will not depose Queen Lucienne II.”

Aurélie stared at Nadia, her pale blue eyes as hard as glass. After too long of a pause, Aurélie shook her head. “I cannot make that promise.”

Nadia pulled her hand back and turned away. “I knew it.”

“Now, hold on a moment,” Aurélie said, beginning to anger again. “What you ask may well be impossible before this is over! It is as Henri says, we fight for the people! If the people howl for Lucienne’s abdication, who are we to deny them? Who are we to dictate what the people get and what they don’t? I will not replace the tyranny of the aristocracy with something that is merely a different brand of tyranny!”

Nadia reeled back around at Aurélie, but she stopped short. “And what if they howl for her blood? What if you win this Revolution of yours, and the very people you fought to free become the tyrants themselves, demanding the life of the very woman who helped save them? Will you give them everything they want, even if it is as wrong as what has been done to them?”

Aurélie looked away, but Henri did not. They were too close. “We cannot promise to protect Lucienne’s crown,” Henri ventured cautiously. “But as long as Lucienne remains our ally, we can promise that her life is safe from us.”

“Hardly the noble gesture I was hoping for,” Nadia commented.

“What do you think Lucienne would prefer?” Aurélie asked her suddenly. “To live in a land of peace and freedom, the same as everyone else, or to rule over a world of constant chaos and war?”

Now it was Nadia’s turn to look away. Henri spoke again, his voice even softer now. “You know Lucienne far better than we. But if she was sincere when she spoke to us about what she wanted for the Queendom, then the choice is easy.”

Nadia looked back again, her eyes locking on Aurélie’s. “Do you swear as Henri does? Do you swear that Lucienne’s life is safe from you, even if her throne and her crown are not?”

Aurélie glanced over at Henri, who was watching her uneasily. She looked back to Nadia and, very slowly, nodded. “I swear. If you help us, and if Lucienne does not betray us or the People, I swear her life is safe from us.”

Nadia quickly withdrew a small dagger from her belt and, before anyone could stop her, cut into the flesh of her palm. As the blood began to well up, she extended her hand to Aurélie. “A blood oath, then,” Nadia said. “I swear on my blood that I will help you. I will make your women ready, and you will have the aid of as many of the mages here and in Foraine as wish to fight for you.”

Aurélie did not even hesitate as she drew her own darkened knife from its secret sheath. As Nadia had done, she cut her own hand. “And I swear on my blood, and the blood of the People of Foraine, I will use the skills and talents you offer to forge a better land for all of us, and that, if she and you stay true to your word, Lucienne will lose not a drop of blood from me, or from any I lead.”

With that, the two women clasped hands. And, as their blood mingled in the palms of their hands, so did their purposes mingle. As he looked at the determination in their eyes, for just one sliver of a moment, he believed that the People’s Revolution might one day succeed.

Elise LaRoux could not sleep. She was lying atop her bed, still dressed in her day clothes, as she stared up at the ceiling, where the guttering glow from the oil lamp cast long and shifting shadows across her darkened cabin as it swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the skipping ship.

Elise closed her pink eyes, and she sighed.

Even after many long weeks at sea, she still had not mastered the art of sleeping aboard a moving ship. When the seas were calm, and her bed was as close at it ever came to lying still, Elise could wrap herself tightly in the bedsheets – with the corners tucked beneath the straw mattress, always, for extra security – and, on those occasions, the Comtesse could doze. But she dreamed fitful dreams, and her sleep was not restful.

As soon as the waves rose, however, and the ship began to sway beneath her, Elise’s pink eyes would shoot open again, and she would find herself gripping the linens with white-knuckled fingers, and her teeth gritted together, as though seized by a momentary concern that the ship was about to roll itself over, and her with it.

So, as she lay there, then, not sleeping, Elise’s thoughts flashed back to the Tower of Tears, with its warm, comfortable, stationary rooms, and their warm, comfortable, stationary beds. In her mind’s eye, she found it so easy to imagine herself seated in the cozy little alcove above the grand library, with a mug of steaming cocoa in one hand, and a book of poems in the other, and, for just a moment, as Elise pictured that scene, she felt a thin pang of regret.

But then the moment passed, and Elise opened her eyes again, to stare once more at her cabin’s low ceiling, where the oil lantern swung from its short chain, and the shadows danced and played.

Giving up on sleep, Elise LaRoux slid out of bed and crept across her cabin. She moved silently atop bare feet, taking care not to disturb Sir Ruth, who - somehow - slept even more lightly than Elise did. With the Mourning Reign now full to bursting, thanks to Nadia and her volunteers from the Tower, Sir Ruth had been forced to share Elise's cabin. This was a state of affairs which Elise knew that Sir Ruth feared was terribly overfamiliar, and no amount of assurances from Elise that she did not feel put out seemed to assuage the chevalier's concern.

But Elise could move as quietly as a mouse when it suited her to do so, so the chevalier did not so much as stir when Elise crept out of her cabin, and climbed up the narrow stairs to the ship’s deck above.

Outside, the nighttime sky was brilliant. The moon was high and full, so that it lit the heavens like a beacon, while all around it stars streaked the sky in great, shimmering bands. With an outstretched finger, Elise traced the outlines of the constellations, whispering their names beneath her breath. And, for a moment, her mind drifted back to fond memories of nights spent out on the terrace at the chateau, when she and her father had looked together through their telescopes, and had charted the stars.

Her mother had not approved, Elise knew. She had declared astronomy to be a scholar’s work, not suitable for the daughter of a Comtesse.

So Elise’s father had interceded on her behalf. The Comte had explained that she was learning the movements of the constellations only so that she could draw astrological charts. And that, at least, seemed to have mollified the Comtesse; astrology was, after all, an acceptable pastime among the titled classes, and a horoscope was always an appropriate gift on the occasion of a marriage, or a coming-of-age – provided that the predictions contained within were suitable ones, of course.

So Elise’s stargazing had been allowed to continue, and, on clear nights, with her father there to guide her, and Brigitte present to lend the occasional hand, together they had mapped the constellations.

There was the Wolf, Elise knew, which yearned to swallow the moon. And the Snake, with its green and white stars for eyes. And the Angel, which chased after the day on shimmering wings.

Now, as she gazed up at the clear, endless sky, Elise found herself wishing for her telescope, and her star journal. Most of all, though, she found herself wishing for her father, and for her sisters – for the company of the dead.

“Ahoy below,” called a voice from above Elise’s head, which startled her from her reverie.

Looking up, Elise could barely make out the figure of a woman seated at the end of the yardarm, with the outline of her body silhouetted against the moonlit sky. Even just seeing the woman perched up there among the skysails, while the swaying ship pitched and yawed beneath them, made Elise feel a twinge of vertigo.

“Ahoy to you, too,” Elise called back, raising her arm up above her eyes, as though, somehow, that would help her to see. “What are you doing up there?”

“Enjoying the view,” Gale said, and the sound of the sailor’s voice somehow reminded Elise of her father’s violin. “Yourself?”

“The same,” Elise said. “I was admiring the sky.”

“You should join me, then,” Gale said, and Elise thought she saw the sailor slide a bit to one side, as though to make room for her at the end of the yardarm. “The skies are calm tonight. From here, you can see for miles.”

Elise glanced nervously at the rope netting which rose up the side of the mast, then down at her small, bare feet, then back up at the swaying mast again, and she felt her stomach tighten.

“You are most kind,” she said, looking down at her hands, “but, I think that, perhaps, I had better not, if it is all the same to you.”

From far above her, Elise heard the sailor’s laugh, like the chime of a bell.

“Don’t worry,” Gale said. “I’ll come down to you.”

Then, before Elise LaRoux could open her mouth to object, the sailor stood up atop the yard, and, like a diver leaping into the sea, she pitched herself forward.

Elise felt her heart catch in her throat as she watched the woman plummet – the dark outline of her body was moving so fast against the distant backdrop of the starry heavens that Elise felt for sure she must have slipped and fallen. It was only when the woman was within yards of the deck that Elise saw the rope she held in one hand, with her legs coiled around the same line, so that her descent was not a freefall, but rather a practiced, and carefully-controlled, motion.

As the sailor slowed herself at the last possible moment, so that she alighted upon the ship’s deck with the lightness of a feather, Elise found herself strongly in mind of the acrobats she had seen on her one trip to the carnival, where they had hung from the tented ceiling on ropes of silk, and spun in one-handed circles above Elise’s awed head.

Elise realized that she had been holding her breath, then, and she forced herself to exhale.

“Do you always climb down like that?” she asked, hearing a slight tremor in her own voice.

The sailor grinned a wicked grin.

“Only when the captain isn’t watching,” she said.

It was only then, as Gale freed her legs from the slackening line, that Elise first noticed the bandage wrapped around the inside of the sailor’s right calf.

“But you are injured!” Elise said, a note of concern in her voice as she stared at the blood which stained the bandage rust-red. “We must wake the surgeon!”

To Elise’s surprise, the sailor laughed.

“The surgeon has already seen to me, at Captain Valerie’s behest,” Gale said. “I think she wanted to throw me in the brig, for rendering myself unfit for duty.”

Elise scratched her head in confusion.

“You are saying that you injured yourself?” she said, feeling as though she were missing some crucial fact.

“Not injured,” the sailor said. “Marked.” And she peeled back the edge of the bandage to reveal a newly-inked tattoo in the shape of a sextant, with a name written beneath it in stylized script.

“Denner?” Elise said, feeling even more confused as she read the name aloud. “The poor, sick man, who directed us to the Tower?”

Gale nodded her head.

“I am not sure I understand,” Elise said, and she leaned in closer for a better look. “Why would you write his name on your body?”

“The mark is a reminder,” Gale said, as she wrapped the bandage back around the reddened patch of skin. “It’s a reminder of a promise that Denner Fabellian made to me – a promise I intend to see him keep.”

For a moment, then, Elise studied the tattoos which covered the sailor’s body from head to toe, and her confusion only deepened.

“Did a dolphin make you a promise, too?” she asked, pointing to the tattoo on Gale’s arm. Then, after pausing for a moment to count hash marks, she corrected herself: “Did a dolphin make you eight promises?”

Gale laughed, before shaking her head.

“Not exactly,” she said. Then, motioning with her hand, she led Elise over towards the railing, where the two women stood next to each other, and stared out across the rolling blackness of the ocean waves.

“What brings you above deck tonight?” Gale eventually said.

Elise sighed.

“The same as most nights,” she said. “I cannot sleep.” She shook her head. “Not with all that is happening, and certainly not with the ship moving about so.”

The sailor’s grin widened.

“The sea is gentle tonight,” she said.

Elise smiled back.

“I do not think I would wish to see a rough one, then,” she said.

“I’ve ridden seas that tipped seasoned sailors from their bunks,” Gale said, “and sent captains tumbling down the gangway.”

“And did you sleep on nights like those?”

“Like a newborn babe.”

“How?” Elise asked, feeling a bit unsteady even with her hands on the railing. “How can you do it, with the ship always moving about?”

In reply, Gale took one of Elise’s hands in her own, and she pressed it against her chest, just above her diaphragm.

“My body,” the sailor said, turning to face Elise as she did, “does it lie still?”

Elise could feel the other woman’s chest rising and falling with every breath she took. Slowly, she shook her head.

“No,” she said.

“And your body?” Gale asked, moving Elise’s hand so that it rested atop her own chest. “Is it silent and still?”

“No,” Elise said, feeling the rhythm of her own breath, and the beating of her own heart.

The sailor shrugged her shoulders, and she let go of Elise’s hand.

“We are living things, you and I,” she said. “And so is the sea. She lives, she breathes, she has a rhythm all her own.” Gale closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, as though trying to fill her own lungs with the sea’s breath. “It’s only on land that we confuse stillness with rest, because the land is stone, and rock, and rock does not breathe.”

Gale opened her eyes again, and, in the moonlight darkness, they almost seemed to sparkle.

“The sea reminds us to live,” she said. “Whether our eyes are open or shut.”

Elise shook her head, and she sighed.

“I fear that the sea and I are not yet of one mind,” she said.

“If it helps, think of life aboard ship as a dance,” Gale said, switching to a different tack. “The ship leads, and you follow in time.”

Elise smiled a tiny smile.

“I never was a good dancer,” she said. “In spite of all Margot’s efforts to teach me.”

The sailor shook her head, but she smiled back.

“In that case,” she said, “my advice to you is to get a hammock.”

“I shall petition the Captain for one tomorrow,” Elise said.

“We’ll make a sailor out of you yet,” Gale said.

The two women returned to staring out at the stars then, and they spent the next minute or two in quiet, companionable silence.

Enough time passed without either of them speaking that it almost took Elise by surprise when, suddenly, she heard Gale ask: “Why didn’t you stay?”

Elise turned to face the other woman, whose own eyes still looked out over the sea.

“Pardon?” she asked.

“The Tower of Tears,” Gale said, her voice quiet. “I know that you could have chosen to stay there. I know that the mages there wanted you to stay. And, from the look on your face, I know that you wanted to stay there, too.” Gale turned to face her, then. “So why didn’t you? Why didn’t you stay?”

Elise LaRoux sighed. She closed her pink eyes, and she tried to find the words to explain.

“My whole life,” she said, softly, “I have lived inside cages.” She opened her eyes, and she stared down at her pale hands. “Some of the cages have been nicer than others, I will grant you. Some of them were very comfortable, and I felt very loved inside of them.”

Elise looked up at Gale, then, and she fought to keep her voice from breaking.

“But they were cages,” she said. “All of them. I have never really lived in the world. I have always been kept apart from it.”

Elise’s mind flashed back to Berte, to the little white dove crying out from beneath his silken shade.

“When I was a child, my parents kept me inside with the best of intentions,” she said. “They feared that, were I allowed out, the world would frighten me – that it would misunderstand me, that it would try to hurt me. They wanted me to be happy. They wanted me to be safe.”

Elise took a deep breath before continuing.

“But I am no longer a child,” she said. “I have been thrust out into the world, and I have found that the world is everything that I always feared. The world does scare me, and it does wish me harm,” Elise said. “But it is also full of wonders. And it offers me a gift. It offers me the chance to live without bars.”

Elise glanced up at Gale, and she saw a look of understanding on the sailor’s face.

“The Tower of Tears was wonderful,” Elise said. “I hardly have words for it. From the moment I set foot in its halls, I knew that I could be happy, there. I knew that I could make it my home. I could live there, and it would be safe, and it would be comfortable.” Elise LaRoux sighed. “But it would also have been a cage. A very fine cage, perhaps. But a cage, nonetheless.”

Elise balled her fingers into fists, then, and she could hear the conviction rising in her own voice.

“I want to live in the world,” she said, “as frightening as it may be. I will not go back. I will live in a cage no longer.”

Elise looked at Gale, who was smiling a knowing smile.

“You have grown wings,” the sailor said. “And now you must fly.”

Elise LaRoux looked to the heavens, where The Angel sparkled above her head.

“Yes,” she said. “I believe that I must.”