Zander knew what the look meant. Survive, it said. Both of you, survive.
Zander carefully picked up Yarrow’s body, draping his arms under their back and knees, and headed below deck to the orlop. He would survive, and he would get them out of this mess, and they would find Ace if it was the last thing he did.
Once, he was in between. On one side of the liminal space in which he existed was the world beyond forms, where it seemed that only moments ago, he’d been whispering soft promises to his love. On the other side was a world with which he was familiar, but within which he did not, at present, belong.
For she had been swept away again on the tides of the universe, and this time, they did not let him follow. This was her lesson. But he slipped in between anyway, and he stayed with her.
She lived a lonely life, devoid of the warmth she deserved. She had no one to which she could turn, no one to talk to who truly understood her. Sometimes she would cry out to him, and he would throw himself against the barrier between their worlds, trying to reach her. And though she could not see nor hear him, his thrashing against the insidious wall that separated them seemed to calm her down.
She began to believe, deep within her soul, that someone was coming to save her. She didn’t realize he was already there.
When she talked out loud to herself, he talked back. They carried on conversations like this quite often, and even though her ears couldn’t hear what he said, he found ways to whisper to her that went deeper. Eventually, she knew what he was going to say before he said it. Sometimes she would stop in the middle of a sentence and laugh, anticipating what he would say.
“I know, I know,” she would say. “You’re right.”
She called him her “imaginary therapist.” She wondered at times if she was mentally unstable, carrying on conversations with someone who didn’t exist. The strange thing was, she felt more heard by the fictional character in her head than she ever had from a real person.
Sometimes, she would talk to him in her head, and he would talk back. They’d run through her anxieties together while she sat listening to a lecture, and he would calm her down. She’d tell him jokes while she did the dishes, and she imagined him laughing and telling her how funny she was. And when she scolded herself for being pathetic, telling jokes to a fake person inside her head, he would tell her she had been many things in their lives, but she had never been pathetic.
And when she laid in bed at night and cried, wondering where her true love was, wondering why he hadn’t saved her, he tried to call out to her from the space between worlds.
I’m here, he would say. I’m right here. Hold on.
Eventually, his words would sink in, and she would fall asleep. The next day she would wake with renewed hope that her life would someday be filled with love.
But years went by, and no love came. Hope, like a balloon, drifted higher and higher until it ran out of air, and came drifting down.
No one ever came to save her. No grand love unfolded before her like a stage upon which she could dance. And eventually, years of loneliness and rejection made her fold in upon herself and give up.
In the last years of her life, a faint presence kept her company. A voice without sound, a shoulder without substance, a kiss without breath. And she grew comfortable with what she perceived to be her perpetual instability—perhaps, the reason no one ever gave her the love she desired.
But one day, when her body was weary and old, he found the barrier between them growing thinner. It thinned until he could push his way through, reaching across to take her hand.
And then he saved her.
When she awoke on the other side, she found the love she’d always dreamed of, waiting.
14
Zander was in a state of hyper alertness as he scrubbed the orlop deck on the strange new pirate ship. Yarrow lay nearby on a spare piece of canvas he’d found, still unconscious. He registered every breath they took, heard it even over the sounds of Theo being beaten just over their heads. They’d brought him to the gunner deck, where a small cell lay in one corner. Zander passed by on his way to the orlop just in time to see the man with the snake tattoo throw the first punch.
His heart beat wildly in anger and fear. Adrenaline coursed through his body, begging him to move, to do anything at all. But he was hopelessly, infuriatingly stuck.
The orlop of the new ship was much larger than The Valerian’s tiny storage deck, as he’d expected, but it was not well looked after. Thick layers of grime coated the corners of the deck, and some of the wood seemed to be rotting away. It was a maze of crates and barrels, some of them seemingly empty, and others that smelled as if they were filled with rotten fruit, or dead mice. A thick, musty smell overwhelmed him and made him sick to his stomach. The man guarding them either didn’t notice or didn’t mind it in his seat near the stairs.
A sharp intake of breath alerted Zander to Yarrow’s consciousness. He made his way to them quickly and quietly, mindful of the guard, whose eyes had drifted closed a few minutes prior. He put his finger to his lips when Yarrow opened their eyes, his other hand cradling their head comfortingly.
"Welcome back," he whispered. “Don’t sit up yet. You got a nasty knock to the head.”
Yarrow’s blue eyes darted back and forth, silently taking in their surroundings. After a few moments, they carefully lifted themselves onto their elbows.
“How long have I been out?” they said, their voice soft.
“Not quite an hour. How do you feel?”
Yarrow’s hand trailed to the back of their head, and they winced as they touched the point of impact. Their short blonde hair stuck up in odd places, parts of it barely matted from blood.
Zander held out his arm and Yarrow gripped it, pulling themselves fully upright.
“Where is Theo?”
“In the brig. I heard the men talking when we came down here. We’re sailing to Cadiz.”
Yarrow’s eyes grew sharper. “Then we’re headed in the right direction.”
Zander nodded. They were sailing away from Porto and Abilio’s aid, but they were headed in the direction of Ace. Cadiz was on the way to Gibraltar, and past the strait was a clear shot to the port of Malaga, just South of where Ace was being held. It was unlikely the pirates planned on crossing the strait, which would be teeming with Royal Navy ships. That meant they needed to get off this ship in Cadiz somehow and travel overland to Ace.
“Do you have anything of use?” Yarrow asked.
Zander patted his boot. “They didn’t check these, nor my inner pockets. I have my daggers, flint and steel, and Ace’s compass.”
“The satchel?”
“I saw them carry it to the brig when they took Theo. It’s probably been ransacked by now.”
Yarrow nodded. “Likely so. Anything promising down here?”
