Chapter 563: Joan
The mist came up from the sea like breath, and then there was nothing left — not Snowwave Island, not the horizon, not even the sky’s edge. Only whiteness, and the rhythm of water against the hull.
Margaret kept one hand on the railing. She had learned long ago that sailors who lost their bearings in the Fjords fog could find themselves anywhere — or nowhere — by nightfall. The sound of the water hitting the keel was the only proof of motion, the only proof that they had not simply dissolved into the cloud.
Sailors called it a taboo, sailing blind like this. The usual response to a captain who gave such an order was to bind him and tip him into the sea.
For Thunder, they stayed.
He was not merely the captain of the Chase. He was the most celebrated explorer in the Fjords, the man who returned from places others named impossible, and somewhere in that legend was a quality that made people follow him into fog, into volcanic smoke, into the dark beneath water where charts ran out of language. His daughter Lightning had some of it too, Margaret thought — that particular flavor of fearlessness that made danger feel like a puzzle rather than a wall.
“Captain! Dark Reef ahead!” The shout came from the sailor who knew this water by memory rather than by sight.
“Lower the sails! Slow her down!” Thunder clapped his hands once, sharp as a starting gun. “Listen. All of you. This is what we came for. Eyes on the water, ears open.”
“Yes!”
Thunder had not wasted a day since his meeting with Roland in the king’s city — not a single one. The third voyage to the Shadow Islands required the right ship, the right crew, and above all, a witch who could see what lay beneath the sea’s surface, who could read the hidden language of tides. He had known for years who he needed.
Joan. Margaret’s childhood friend. A witch who had lived in the water for more than a decade.
“Are we going to find her here?” Molly balanced on her Magic Servant’s head, squinting into the white. “There’s nothing.”
“Joan only comes when a ship is in trouble.” Margaret’s voice was low, as if the mist might overhear. “She won’t ignore a vessel heading into a danger zone.”
“She’s turned into a fish?”
“When I last saw her, only her legs had changed. A fishtail. But that was over ten years ago.” Margaret shook her head. “I cannot say what she looks like now.”
“Her ability is a kind of shapeshifting — she can take the form of any sea creature.” Camilla Dary, Chief Chamberlain of the Sleeping Island, spoke after a moment of thought. Her manner was precise, the manner of someone who had learned to classify everything she encountered. “If she has lived in open water this long, she almost certainly passed her Day of Awakening successfully. But after all these years — can we be certain she is still in this sea?”
“Trust us, my lady.” Thunder’s smile was in his voice. “Joan’s singing is the signature of Snowwave Island. Merchants have been drawn to it for years — some of them have tried to take her. A shipwreck put an end to that.” He blinked at Camilla. “Nobody has tried again. I can promise that.”
“Did you arrange the shipwreck?” Camilla raised an eyebrow.
“The sea arranged it. I merely failed to warn them about the rocks in time.”
“Thank you for protecting the witches,” Camilla said, hand over her heart.
“Thanks, Uncle!” Molly added cheerfully.
“Uncle.” Thunder stroked his beard with a wounded expression. “It’s not that long.”
Margaret, standing at his side, watched the witches warm to him with a familiar resignation. On any island of the Fjords, Thunder was the most popular man alive. She had known that when she fell for him herself. She had known it even more clearly when Lightning was born and he closed the door on the thought of another marriage. She could not say she blamed him. She just noticed.
“Boss!” A shout from the stern. “I hear singing! Northwest — singing!”
Thunder moved before the echo faded. The witches followed. Margaret ran.
They gathered at the stern and went still.
At first — nothing. Then, thread-thin, the voice. It did not reverberate the way sounds do in fog; it came from one direction, clean and deliberate, the way a lighthouse beam cuts rather than floods. It was guiding them, Margaret realized. Not drawing them in blindly but directing them to something safe.
“Reef the sails. Drop anchor.” Thunder’s voice had dropped to its command register — not loud, but absolute. “Lower the landing shuttle. We go to her.”
Joan had spent her years avoiding being seen. She guided ships by voice alone, remaining hidden, showing herself to almost no one. Thunder’s plan was sound: leave the Chase at anchor, take a small boat, trace the voice through the mist. The Magic Servant dove beneath the surface and pushed the shuttle forward without sound or oar.
Ten minutes.
Then Margaret saw a shape in the water — green, half-submerged, motionless at the surface.
“Joan!”
The voice cut off.
A girl floated there, showing only her upper body above the water. She stared at them with wide, startled eyes — pale skin, barely touched by sun, hair hanging down in loose dark streamers like waterlogged seaweed, concealing half her face. Where the hair parted, Margaret could see markings along her cheek and neck, fine and overlapping, the texture of scales under skin.
“It’s me — Margaret! Do you remember me?”
The girl’s mouth moved. What came out was not words — “Yih-yih-yeh” — the mechanism of speech half-forgotten, the mouth no longer practiced in the shape of language.
“Leave it to Lady Camilla,” Thunder said quietly. “She’s been in the water too long.”
Camilla placed her hand on Margaret’s shoulder, and the world between Margaret’s thoughts and Joan’s opened like a door.
Are you bringing them here to catch me?
No. I came to ask for your help.
“Speak it in your heart,” Camilla said softly. “She hears sincerity better than words.”
Margaret swallowed. Let the noise in her chest settle. Thought clearly, carefully, the way she had learned to navigate fog.
You saved my life once, Joan. Do you remember? I came here because I need your help.
A long pause. Then:
I remember you, Margaret. We used to play together.
Margaret felt something shift in her chest — not quite grief, not quite joy — and turned her thoughts deliberately toward the present before Camilla could hear more than she intended.
This is Camilla Dary, who is helping us speak to each other. She is a witch, like you.
The sailors — they don’t hunt witches anymore?
The Church has been destroyed. Witches live openly now. There is an island built by witches — the Sleeping Island — and you would be welcome there, if you wanted to go.
Joan’s excitement traveled across the connection before any words did.
What has been happening? Someone tried to spear me with a harpoon not long ago. I thought it must be for the Church’s bounty.
Nothing like that will happen again. Thunder has made certain of it.
Thunder? The greatest explorer of the Fjords?
The same. He is behind me now. I joined his expedition after I left the fishing village.
Tell me everything.
So Margaret told her — everything she could hold in her heart at once, everything that had changed. She felt Joan receiving it, turning it over, considering it with the long patience of someone who had spent years alone with the slow thoughts of the sea.
After a long time, Joan said something — a single sound, clear and certain.
“Yeah.”
Then she dove.
The water closed over her without a ripple. Only the slow circles spreading outward marked where she had been.
“Well?” Thunder asked.
Margaret turned around, and smiled. “She’s accepted.”