I narrowed my eyes at him, suppressing a cutting remark.
The ship surged forward. Crew members donned their positions, hands steady on brass controls and levers. Cypher at the helm looked irritatingly calm, one hand guiding the helm with ease and comfort.
Then the portal swallowed us. Light inverted to darkness, sound collapsed into silence, and my lungs seized as though I’d been plunged underwater. For a breathless second I was tumbling through nothing.
And then we emerged.
The Gallery sprawled before us, endless black shot through with distant portals glowing like jewels. It wasn’t the starry expanse of space that contained our sun, moons and stars. This was a channel between worlds, a place of in-betweens. Only the Night-Piercer’s crystal lamps kept the deck alive with warm, quivering light. Shadows writhed at the rail.
I felt it instantly, the currents beneath us, tugging at something buried in my bones, singing in a voice I’d tried to bury for three years.
“Juno?” Kora’s hand on my shoulder stirred me from my thoughts. “You okay?”
I realized I’d edged so close to the rail I could have tossed myself into that black maw. I drew back, sweat prickling down my spine. “I’m fine,” I lied.
I could feel it. The void was alive, its whispers promising freedom, power, release. Part of me ached to answer its call, to surrender.
Cypher’s eyes were on me when I glanced up. “You feel it,” he said quietly. “The currents.”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Good. We’ll need every ounce of that power.” He returned his attention to the helm. “Welcome to the Gallery, scavenger. From here out, there’s no turning back.”
The first twoweeks in the Gallery taught me that everything I thought I knew about void travel was wrong. Sailing on a skiff was like riding a raft down a river. You could feel the current, could adjust your course with rough pushes and pulls. But sailing on The Night-Piercer was like being part of something alive. The ship moved through the darkness smoothly, her wings catching currents I could sense but the others needed instruments to detect.
Cypher kept me busy. Every day he'd drag me to the navigation station and make me identify the nearest portals, guess the strength of passing currents, and predict shifts in the void's fabric. At first I failed more often than I succeeded, my instincts unreliable and wild.
"You're thinking too much," he said, after I'd gotten three readings wrong in a row. "Stop trying to analyze what you feel. Just feel it."
"I hope you understand how unhelpful that is."
He adjusted something on the astrolabe, comparing its reading to what I'd sensed. "Rifts don't navigate withtheir minds. They navigate with something deeper. Instinct. Connection. Whatever you want to call it."
I closed my eyes, trying again. The void pressed against my awareness like water against skin. I could feel the currents moving through it, could sense the distant pull of portals like lighthouses in fog.
"There," I said, pointing slightly to port. "A portal. Maybe seventy-six hours sail at our current speed."
Cypher checked the astrolabe, and something that might have been approval flickered across his face. "Better. You're ten hours off, but better."
"Ten hours is a lot."
"Ten hours is nothing in the Deep Gallery. Most navigators would be off by days." He made a note in the ship's log. "Keep practicing. By the time we reach the zone near Nytheris, I need you to be accurate to within a second." He started to leave, then paused. "You're doing well. For someone untrained."
It was the closest thing to a compliment he'd given me.
Kora adapted to ship life faster than I did. She took to the rigging like she'd been born to it, her air magic giving her an edge when working with the wings. By the end of the first week, Knives had her helping with sail adjustments and small repairs, but the second week they trusted her completely on her own.
"I think I'm in love," Kora said one evening as we ate dinner in the galley. The crew ate together, crowded around a long table in a room that smelled like spices and salt. "With this ship. With freedom. With everything."
"Don't let Jask hear you say that," Zoya said with a grin. "He might get jealous."
Kora's face flushed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't." Zoya nudged Knives, who sat beside her. "Did you see them during watch rotation last night? Jask was teaching her combat moves."
"Very close combat moves," Knives added, her green eyes dancing.
"We weretraining," Kora protested, but her blush deepened.