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 match-book 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.
“But in time, the girl was discovered by her enemies. They came for her together and caught her unawares, locked in an embrace with her beloved. Still, in her wisdom, she always kept her matchbook in a pocket of her dress. Under threat, she drew it out and struck the first match, and those who came for her fell back. The flames that consumed them consumed her cottage, too. Yet still more enemies came. Match after match was struck and fire raged all around her, but it was not enough. And so the girl struck all the remaining matches at once.”
Oak glares at the storm hag, but she seems too swept up in her tale to even notice. Wren is plucking at a thread of her dress.
“The armies were defeated and the land scorched black. The girl went up in flames with them. And the boy burned to cinders before he could pull free from her arms.”
A respectful silence follows her final words. Then the captain clears his throat and calls for one of his crewmen to take up a fiddle and play a merry tune.
As a few begin to clap along, Wren stands and moves toward her cabin.
Oak catches up at her door, before her guards seem to have realized his intention. “Wait,” he says. “Can we speak?”
She tilts her head and regards him for a long moment. “Come in.”
One of her guards—Oak realizes, abruptly, that it’s Straun—clears his throat. “I can accompany you and make sure he doesn’t—”
“There is no need,” she says, cutting him off.
Straun attempts to keep the sting of her words from showing on his face. Oak almost feels sorry for him. Almost, except for the memory of his being party to the prince’s torture.
Because of that, he gives Straun an enormous, irritating grin as he follows Wren across the threshold and into her room.
Inside, he finds the chamber much as it was before, except that a few dresses have been spread out on her bed and a tray with tea things rests on the marble table.
“Is that what your power is like?” Oak asks. “A book of matches.”
Wren gives a soft laugh. “Is that truly why you’ve followed me? To ask that?”
