Uneventful days passed on the endless road. Few travellers ever shared the journey, but those who came across them were generally friendly and sometimes willing to exchange supplies. Petra had already bargained away two loaves of gutplug for a bag of smoked ham jerky and a qualine.

  Three days into their journey, in the early morning, they reached a stretch of open pasture that ended abruptly in a wide river. In the distance, white smoke rose from the chimneys of a sizable town, and beyond that, a sliver of open ocean glinted in the dawning sunlight. A burble of anticipation warmed Matt’s chest, and he gently flicked the reins of his horse to increase its lazy stroll to a trot.

  The town was larger and more lively than Matt had expected. Though the sun was barely an hour past the horizon, pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages dappled the cobblestone streets and open businesses hawked diverse wares from ground-floor storefronts. Petra waved and smiled at all who passed by, reciprocated by many, ignored by few. None seemed to know him, but his timid charm certainly worked its magic.

  “Anything specific we’re looking for here?” Matt asked, sidling up to Petra and pulling a small fragment of jerky from his saddlebag.

  Petra nodded. “We need a longboat.”

  Matt frowned. “A boat? What about the horses?”

  “That’s where you come in,” Petra explained with a wink. “Right down there is Amador’s Tavern. Best food in town. People gather there; sailors, travelers, farmers, sometimes smugglers. Your job is to find somebody who plans to return to Trensicourt.”

  Instinctively, Matt shied away from the request. How could he, alone, muster the courage or the charisma to converse with anyone in this strange new town?

  “I- um,” Matt gulped.

  Petra shot him an appreciative glance. “Offer them for free, if you must. You’ll be the most popular man in town.”

  “Won’t we need the money?” Matt rebuked.

  “You’re just stalling,” Petra smirked. He dismounted his horse, and with a quick, whispered command, he invited both mounts to stand stock-still until he had tied them to a sturdy wooden pillar. “Show any interested party the horses. They’re solid mounts. They’ll be out of your hair in a hurry.”

  Matt still hated the idea, but he couldn’t bear to let down his new friend. Petra was counting on him, and Matt dared not risk throwing away the best thing that had happened to him since he had left for Lyrian.

  It was just a conversation. He could do this.

  ? ? ?

  With the horses freshly pawned off and a strangely confident bounce in his gait, Matt jogged across town, generally aiming for the docks. Every few steps, he would pass a lower building and spot a cluster of masts waving like drunken flagpoles in the distance. He hoped that Petra was serious about commandeering a longboat and not just dropping him off to be rid of him. He hoped he had correctly guessed what a longboat was.

  To his relief, Matt spotted Petra haggling out on the windswept docks with a rotund redhead wearing faded canvas suspenders and a wicker hat. The fresh scent of the sea, along with its not-so-fresh counterpart of discarded seafood, invaded his nostrils much more strongly than it had in town. He shivered as he approached the duo - the wind blowing off the sea made quick work of his thin long-sleeve shirt.

  “Two months?” the stranger bickered. “Why don’t you take my whole fleet and sail it off to war?”

  “Two months at the absolute worst,” Petra replied calmly. “You know how it is. Ideally, I would have her back to you before the rains come.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “That could mean many things,” the stranger said, scratching his neck and looking out to sea. “Weather’s been strange the past few years. Rains could come tomorrow or next year.”

  Petra sniffed the salty air. “I expect they’ll arrive in three or four weeks. I hate dealing with concrete timeframes.”

  “Evidently.” The stranger noticed Matt’s stealthy approach and whipped around, a phony smile erupting across his face. “Hey, whelp! You looking for fishin’ work? Twelve drooma a day, chance of a lifetime. We’ll take the longboat.”

  “Actually, um…” Matt spitballed, trying to spin a convincing tale in his head. “I was just…”

  “Matt here is my deckhand,” Petra jumped in. “No sturdier worker this side of the Telkron, you can bet your docks on it.”

  Matt’s mouth dropped open. “You’re not seriously-”

  “Come on, then,” the fisherman huffed. “The both of you, out you go.”

  Skeptical, Matt followed Petra to the longboat. The boat in question had two masts - one in the center of the boat and one up front - and seven huge oars jutting out from each side of the hull. The hull itself was sleek and slender, reminiscent of a cheese knife slicing through the choppy water. They boarded the ship by way of a narrow gangway, followed closely by the fisherman. Somehow, Matt still trusted that Petra had a plan, not least because Petra did not seem the type to enjoy a fishing vacation.

  As soon as Matt and Petra had cleared the gangway and stood steadily on the deck, Petra switched languages and snapped a series of melodic suggestions. The fisherman obliged, spinning a tidy one-eighty and marching down the gangway as if he were in a military demonstration. Petra kept up the commands, shifting his focus to the salt-weathered wood beneath him as the fisherman left the gangway behind. Before the spell had lifted from behind the fisherman’s eyes, the oars began to flutter, then to move in unison, dipping into the water and pushing the longboat slowly away from its dock.

  “Filthy freak!” the fisherman shrieked. “I don’t make deals with your kind!”

  “This was hardly a deal,” Petra shouted back. “You’ll see your boat again. I swear it.”

  “I make no oaths with wizards!” The fisherman said wizards as if it were the most despicable word he could muster.

  Petra shrugged, then turned to Matt as the longboat picked up speed. “His loss. I still plan to honour our end of the bargain. His refusal simply makes our return less urgent.”

  “Less urgent…” Matt trailed off. “Despite the shadow monsters threatening to wreak havoc on our city, you mean.”

  “Less urgent in a metaphorical sense.” Petra led Matt to the bow of the ship, where the wind threw ocean spray across their faces. “I hate this.”

  A pit cracked open in Matt’s stomach. “You hate… what?”

  “The waiting,” Petra admitted. “The longest my wards have ever lasted is three weeks. We’ll be two weeks in before we have even a chance to find what we’re here for.”

  Matt swallowed through a lump in his throat. “What will happen to…”

  Rachel. What would happen to her? Would Tassel be able to protect her, or…?

  “I don’t know.” Petra let out a regretful sigh. “Back in the Beyond, I was a master procrastinator, especially concerning tasks I knew I would fail. When the choice came between failing now and failing later, I always chose the latter.”

  “You’re saying that no matter what, you’ll eventually fail,” Matt extrapolated.

  Petra nodded. “I am getting stronger. More knowledgeable. But there are hundreds of torivors below Trensicourt. Their growth is catching up, and will soon outpace mine. To remain as I was, refining the wards, renewing them before they could be torn down, will be to delay the inevitable while giving the torivors the maximum possible time to learn.”

  “You would rather they escape now than in a year.” Matt took a step towards the bow of the boat as it veered slightly to port, parallelling the now-distant coastline. The midsummer sun beat mercilessly down over him, forcing him to shield his eyes with a cupped hand.

  “I would rather they did not escape at all,” Petra explained. “Even now, I can feel them wailing at their confines. Their voracity knows no bounds.”

  “But we’re not there,” Matt said, confused. “Wouldn’t that quell their desire?”

  Petra shook his head. “It quells their ability. In the same way that a shark is driven mad by the scent of blood, we can essentially curb their power by removing our scent from their notice.”

  “Makes sense. I hope you’re right.”

  Petra walked back towards the mainmast, mumbling to the boat in Edomic. “So do I.”

  An idea crossed Matt’s mind then, one that he should have considered before leaving the little port town. For all he knew, Rachel and Tassel knew nothing of the torivors. If he had somehow managed to escape Petra and return to Trensicourt, perhaps he could have told Tassel in time to have him maintain the wards in Petra’s absence.

  And maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to drag Rachel back to him.