He notes the careful way she’s holding herself. Stiff, her back upright. She seems wary, yet underneath there’s a hunger in her. A spark of desire she cannot mask, although whether it is for him or power, he cannot say.
“You seem more like yourself than ever before,” he says.
He can see her considering that but not misliking his words. “So we are agreed. We delay the exchange of vows. Your sister will have a reason to send me back north with a kingdom of my own, and we will let her believe that her plan to separate us has worked. You can take up with any number of courtiers to drive the point home. Drown whatever lingering feelings you have for me in a new love, or ten.” She says the last bit with some asperity.
He puts a hand to his chest. “Have you no feelings to drown?”
Wren looks down. “No,” she says. “Nothing I have would I ever want to give away.”
After a dinner of kelp and cockles, which the cook serves up in wooden bowls with no spoons, the captain invites them to sit on the deck and tell tales, as is his crew’s tradition. Wren arrives with Hyacinthe by her side, settling some distance from the prince. When her gaze meets his, she tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear and gives him a hesitant smile. Her green eyes shine as one of the crew begins to speak.
She loves a story. He remembers that, remembers their evenings around the fire as they traveled north. Remembers her talking about Bex, her mortal sister, and their games of pretend. Remembers how she laughed when he retold some of his own antics.
The prince listens as crew members speak of far-off shores they’ve visited. One tells of an island with a queen who has the head and torso of a woman and the appendages of an enormous spider. Another, of a land so thick with magic that even the animals speak. A third, of their adventures with merfolk and how the captain wed a selkie without stealing its skin.
“We avoid talking politics,” the captain qualifies with a puff on a long, thin pipe of carved bone.
In a lull, the storm hag clears her throat.
“I have a tale for you,” says Bogdana. “Once, there was a girl with an enchanted matchbook. Whenever she lit one—”
“Is this a true story?” the Ghost interrupts.
“Time will tell,” the storm hag answers, giving him a lethal look. “Now, as I was about to say—when this girl struck a match, a thing of her choosing was destroyed. This made all of those in power want her on their side, but she fought only for what she herself considered right.”
Wren looks down at her hands, strands of hair falling to shield her face. Oak supposes there’s going to be a lesson in this, one that no one will like.
“The more terrible the destruction, the more matches needed to be struck. And yet, each time the girl looked in the matchbook, there were at least a few new matches within. To have such vast power was a great burden for the girl, but she was ferocious and brave in addition to being wise, and shouldered her burden with grace.”
Oak sees the way Hyacinthe is frowning at the storm hag, as though disagreeing with the idea that Wren’s “matches” are so easily replaced. When Oak thinks of the translucency of her skin, the hollowness beneath her cheekbones, he worries. But he believes that Bogdana very much wants to believe this is how Wren’s magic works.
“Then the girl met a boy with a shining brow and an easy laugh.” The storm hag’s eyes narrow, as though in warning of what is to come. “And she was struck low by love. Though she ought to fear nothing, she feared the boy would be parted from her. Not wisdom, nor ferocity, nor bravery saved her from her own tender heart.”
Ah, so this isn’t going to be about Wren’s magic. This is going to be about him. Great.
“Now, our girl had many enemies, but none of those enemies could stand against her. With a single match, she caused castles to crumble. With a handful of matches, she burned whole armies to the ground. But in time the boy tired of that and persuaded her to put away her matchbook and fight no more. Instead, she would live with him in a cottage in the woods, where no one would know of her power. And though she ought to have known better, she was beguiled by him and did what he wished.”
The ship goes quiet, the only sounds the slap of water against wood and the luff of the sails.
“For some time they lived in what passed for happiness, and if the girl felt as though there was something missing, if she felt as though to be loved he must look through her and not at her, she pretended that away.”
Oak opens his mouth to object and at the last moment bites his tongue. He would only make himself seem like a fool, and a guilty one at that, to argue with a story.