I almost ran out.

  If the Bokor were here, then I could make my report and the people would be saved. But there was something about them that felt off. The Bokor shouldn’t have a ship, not only that, but Master James was the only Master that I knew that would seclude himself in an enclosed space with that many humans with no way to escape. And I could easily tell that the men on the beach were human. They didn’t have the glowing purple tattoos of the Bokor or the glowing eyes of the Touched.

  My heart thundered in my ears. I didn’t know all of the Masters, so there was a chance that this was one of the ones that specifically handled maritime matters. I found myself hoping that there wasn’t a Bokor on board. Master James had told me that he was one of the only Masters that wouldn’t have killed me on sight. I’d learned a lot, but that last Touched had been more than Eveth and I could handle on our own. I couldn’t imagine just how much more powerful a trained Bokor Master would be.

  I moved away from the beach and followed the light of the torch. If he was going to the bunker, then he would lead me right to Fyga. I wasn’t sure what we’d do from there, but we’d be able to do it better together. While there was a sliver of hope that the Bokor might forgo judgment on me, there was no doubt in my mind that they’d execute Fyga on the spot.

  The man didn’t go very far into the woods, if it had been daylight, then the people on the beach could probably have still seen him, but thanks to the cover of darkness, the only thing that they’d be able to see was his torch. But they’d definitely be able to hear him if he started screaming, so I made sure that I stayed just hidden enough that he wouldn’t see me.

  “Hey! Slim!” The man squatted on the ground in front of a very large tree. “Boss wants that one-legged sea cow on the ship before them ghosts catch up to us again.” He stuck his feet into the ground. “Hey! Are any of you listening?!”

  I watched him sink all the way into the ground. I snuck over to where I’d seen him vanish. There was a hole in the ground that was almost five feet wide. A wooden cover had been tossed topside down a few feet away. There was a rope ladder going into the hole with a wooden platform at the bottom. It looked like the platform could be raised because of the way the braces on the sides went all the way up to the ground. I assumed that was how they got anything heavy out of the hole.

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  I glanced back at the beach to make sure no one else was coming, then slipped into the hole.

  I had been expecting light, since the man had been carrying a torch, but I saw everything in shades of purple instead of the full range of colors.

  What I saw was a tunnel that sloped downward for almost thirty feet. At the bottom, it appeared to open into a cave, which I assumed was where they were storing things. Right now, the man’s body was being stored at the entrance of the cave with Fyga standing over him with an icicle in her hand.

  “You don’t make a good lookout.” She twirled the makeshift dagger in the palm of her hand, then it exploded into snow.

  “I didn’t know you expected me to be the look out!” I walked down the tunnel to her. “I didn’t even know where this was until I followed him!”

  The shorter woman smirked and tapped me on the cheek with her cold hand. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered.” She curled her finger. “Check this out.”

  I looked around the cave. It was at least fifty feet wide with wooden platforms and shelves all over the walls. I assumed that they did that because there was water on the walls and the stone floor was damp, though that could also have been because Fyga had used ice magic and the ice had melted.

  “There’s enough food down here to feed an army.” I walked over to one of the open barrels that was filled to the brim with dried beans. “I think we solved our food problem.” I wrinkled my nose as a vaguely familiar stench hit me. “Maybe.”

  “About that….” Fyga walked over to a set of metal bars on the wall. I hadn’t noticed them because they were on the other side of a stack of boxes. She pointed inside as an ice crystal formed in her palm, filling the chamber with a soft blue light. “He says he knows you.”

  “It’s the Backer boy!” The bald man on the other side of the bars gave a sweeping bow. “Captain Jace Malvern Perrous at yer service.”

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