Morning light streamed past the curtains when Alina woke to the anchor dropping and the ship coming to a halt.
"Rise and shine, we've got a meeting with a witch."
Alina threw her pillow at Nikolai, only for it to pass him several inches too far to the left.
"Sorry, Starkov, you're going to have to try harder than that."
She rolled her eyes and leapt to her feet. "Too bad, then maybe I could become the Captain."
"What a quick turn of events, Miss Starkov!" Nikolai laughed. "First you save my life, then you want to throw me to the bottom of the ocean—truly, you are a siren after my heart."
"You're a terrible flirt." Alina pictured Commodore Oretsev, looking and flirting with other girls as he was negotiating a marriage contract with the Governor. "You're almost as bad as my fiancé."
Nikolai wrinkled his nose. "If you wanted me to stop, you could have just said so, Alina."
She blinked at the use of her first name. "I—I did not mean it that way. I was teasing—playing the game. I really, do not mind it so."
She felt heat rise in her cheeks as she said this, and averted her gaze. Still, she caught Nikolai grinning in his peripheral vision.
"Well, I suppose now is not the time for games of love and war anyway," he said as he checked his revolvers. "We're about to meet the witch, Vasilissa."
"Is she a good witch, or a bad witch?" Alina had heard stories about the helpful sort and the hurtful sort alike in her pirate novels.
"Somewhere in between, just like the rest of us." Nikolai shrugged. "But she doesn't practice the dark magics, if that's what you're asking."
"I see." Alina nodded, and her eyes drifted back to the map, the beautiful, marred map. She could hardly picture returning to Port Keramzin when this was all over. Not with the knowledge of all this magic and wonder that existed in the world.
"You know, you wouldn't have to leave," Nikolai added, softly. "You could stay here."
"I'm no sailor," Alina said simply.
"You could learn."
"And I'm no fighter."
"Says the woman who went up against the ferryman of the dead and won." He was still grinning, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. There was something more vulnerable, there. Something that scared Alina.
She shook her head.
"Well, that's a damn shame, Genya's rather fond of you, and because she's fond of you, nearly half the crew is." Nikolai turned toward the door just as Genya, Zoya, and David entered.
"Captain, ready to disembark?" Zoya asked.
"As we'll ever be." Nikolai adjusted the lapels of his teal coat.
They were docked on a misty peninsula to the north of an island, surrounded by eclectic plants Alina did not recognize. There was a cottage in the middle of the plants, and waiting in the doorway was a woman wearing a red kirtle over an olive green shift, her dark hair pinned to her head.
There was something about her face and eyes that were familiar to Alina.
They were as blue as the ocean, and they seemed to shift in color and mood, through shades of silver and green and back to blue again.
"Vasilissa!" Nikolai swaggered forward and embraced her. The witch did the same. It was the sort of embrace old friends shared. Still, Alina couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy, even if she did not know why.
"Sturmhond, you sly old sea-dog!" Vasilissa clapped him on the back before they parted, her expression now colder, more serious. "I see that the curse has not broken. I thought you had tracked down Starkov's daughter?"
"I have." Nikolai gestured toward Alina with a flourish. "We even paid back the medallion and her blood. But the Darkling cheated us."
Vasilissa's eyes flashed, and Alina noticed storm clouds gathering around. Her hands curled into fists, and she murmured something to herself, although Alina could not figure out what it was that she said. The syllables were alien, ancient.
Not a tongue the Governor's orphans would have learned, then.
She then smiled, sunny as anything, like she had never been angry at all, and she looked to Alina. There was now something maternal about her, as she approached the daughter of Captain Daiyu, clasping her elbows.
"Alina Starkov, is it?"
"Yes." Alina could barely speak, the aura of magic around this witch was so strong. "You are Vasilissa, then?"
"One of many names." There was now a hint of mischief in her eyes. She reached out to a lock of Alina's moon-white hair. "Such lovely hair, I have only seen its like few times. You have come into contact with the Darkling's power, have you not?"
"Twice, I believe."
She smiled knowingly. "The first time was when you were a child, wasn't it?"
"How do you know that?" Alina tilted her head.
"I know many things." She let go and turned her back to the party. "Come along, I may be able to help more than I'd previously believed."
With that, she strode in the cottage, leaving the representatives of the Volkvolny no choice but to follow.
The inside of the cottage was neat and clean, but filled with shelves of jars of eclectic ingredients and strange artifacts.
As she passed one of them, without even looking, Vasilissa pulled a notebook of leather with jewels encrusted in the shape of a constellation, then led them to sit in a circle of armchairs and loveseats, made from an assortment of different sets that mismatched.
Genya and David took one of the loveseats, while Zoya took the chair closest to Vasilissa's.
"Tea, anyone?" Vasilissa lifted a silver pot in a style that Alina had not seen, outside of illustrations from a history book.
"Yes, please." Nikolai smiled. "As long as you don't poison it like last time."
"Nikolai," Zoya scolded through clenched teeth.
"I make no promises." Still, Vasilissa poured it for them all. She then adjusted her cup. Despite it being daylight outside, a waxing gibbon moon appeared in her cup. "Just as I thought—we're getting closer to the full moon. My power is growing."
She then looked out one of the many windows of the cottage. "Maybe soon I will be able to see my love again."
"Your love?"Alina asked.
"It is a long story." Vasilissa slammed her cup down, despite her unwavering smile. "It is a story of generations that have failed yours. It is the story that will be your salvation or your undoing."
Nikolai and Alina shared a glance. Clearly he had no idea what this was about, either.
"Please, tell us, then, good lady." Nikolai leaned forward, chin balanced on his fists. "We're all listening."
"I am sure you have heard of the Lady of the Water, one of the many gods of the New World, and of the seas," Vasilissa began. "Her name was Luda. She was the goddess for pirates, the one who favored the Court of Piracy. She carried a trident stolen from Poseidon, had a companion of a sea-serpent, a dragon with scales and breath of ice, once a prince some say."
"I have heard the stories," Alina said.
"Yes, but you have not heard this one." Luda smiled. "For she had a lover, with a love that would last forever. He was her ferryman, the one who was to take care of her dead courtiers and vassals, who would forever roam the seas, representing the dark nights and those who were lost."
"The Darkling?" Nikolai squeaked.
"Yes, but he has another name, for he came originally from a lineage of Old World Gods who walked the Earth." Vasilissa, smiled, as if to herself. "But I shall not share that name with you. Just know that Luda knew it, and she loved him very much, and he loved her more than he could love anything. After all, what better lover is there, than Death?"
Vasilissa then grew serious. "But then the Pirate Court grew more distant, from the Lady of the Water, more greedy—-and they decided they wanted her magic and treasure."
Vasilissa got up, and strode towards the window. "All twelve of the pirate lords but one, their King, decided that they would bind her, steal her power and seal her into a mortal shape, then force her to give up all the treasure and gold they'd sacrificed or lost to their depths."
She looked back to Alina. "All but the Pirate King, Captain Daiyu of the Volkvolny."
"Wouldn't she be the Pirate Queen?" Alina asked.
"No, the titles of the Court of Pirate are the masculine noun, but really they can refer to both men and women in the position—" David was stopped by Genya touching his arm. "What?"
"Nothing." Genya smiled, cupping his cheek with her hand. She glanced back to Vasilissa. "Sorry about that, continue."
"All is forgiven, Daughter of the Tide." Vasilissa took on that maternal look about her once more. "Luda's trident was taken from her, as was her dragon. Her power sealed away, and she was reduced to shape of a mortal woman, who would take on a new name. Her power would wax and wane with the moon, she would learn the magics of other gods and mortals to extend her life so that she might be immortal once more."
Her eyes then met Alina's. "Then Captain Daiyu came to her, when she was expecting, something that should have been impossible, given her curse. She asked for the goddess to have mercy on her child—and so she gave the child her blessing, and with it, a semblance of the power Luda once wielded."
"You're Luda!" Nikolai rose from his chair, then to sink onto his knees. "My Lady, I did not know—"
Luda smiled. "Rise, Pirate King—for you are a pirate, and kneel before no one."
She surveyed the representatives of the Volkvolny. "If my love will not play fair and release you from the curse because of my fate, we shall simply have to reverse it, won't we? The Court of Piracy has changed—and it is time you assemble once more, at the End of the World to restore my shape and end my love's curses once and for all."
"Big task," Alina muttered.
"It is—but you are my chosen, Alina." Luda walked up to the table and lifted the book. "I will come with you, to aid you—but you must use this, a gift from your father that he left here for you."
She then placed it in Alina's hand. There was a ruby embedded at the bottom, the rest of the stars forming the sailor's favorite constellation: the Southern Cross.
She opened the pages to see that it was a codex, a series of notes, and even maps inside.
"My father made this?"
"Yes, and he chose to leave it with me—it was as if he knew that on that next trip. . . Well. . ." Luda trailed off, looking remorseful. "When I am restored to my true form, I will make sure they are ferried to the paradise I give all my vassals in the Land of the Dead."
"Thank you." Alina was surprised at how genuinely she meant it.
"For now, you must find my trident and my companion, and gather the Court of Piracy," Luda said. "We will sail to the World's End, and there I will become the Lady of the Water once more and be able to end your curse."
"Yes, Mother Ocean," Genya said reverently. "I would do anything to help your plight—"
"As would any of us," Nikolai added. "Well, maybe not all of us, and not everything, but—"
Zoya punched in him in the arm.
"The abuse I take from my own crew!"
Zoya rolled her eyes.
"We'd better get moving, then," Zoya said. "If we have to do it by the full moon, we don't have much time to lose."