Despite the boat's violent rocking, she made it onto the deck. And immediately wished that she had not done so.

  The first sight to greet her was of an enormous wave, larger than anything she had seen or imagined, crashing onto the deck and drenching every person on it. The water on deck flowed past her and down the staircase she still stood on.

  The boat is flooding, she thought.

  She recalled then, that she had run through ankle-deep water on her journey to the deck. She had thought little of it then, but it could not be a good sign for them. Oddly, the sky was completely free of clouds. The sun was shining and there was not the slightest hint of rain. It seemed as if the sea itself was trying to kill them.

  As Amu had hinted, they were attempting to evacuate. Workers were trying to untie one of the lifeboats lashed to the side of the boat, while two rulers argued beside them.

  "There you are!" the guards called from behind Eluvie.

  Without thinking, she climbed out of the stairwell and onto the deck.

  The ship was remarkably stable given the circumstances, but walking on the deck was still a dangerous proposition. She opted for crawling, since some of the others were doing the same.

  Amu saw her before she had traveled far and waved her over.

  He ran toward her while she remained crawling, and they met somewhere between their original positions. When he glared at something behind her, she knew that the guards were still behind her.

  Eluvie didn't bother looking at them. They could try to drag her away, but they were likely to kill themselves in the attempt.

  "Are you truly evacuating?" Eluvie asked.

  Amu said nothing. He was staring at a new spot to his left. She followed his gaze and found Lady Mirab shooting them a murderous glare.

  Amu turned his attention back to Eluvie. "They plan to try."

  "And does Mirab want to leave me here to drown?"

  Amu shook his head. "Not exactly." He glanced in Mirab's direction again. "Look," he said, "you can stop this. Illrum can control these things." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Remember, before, when you split the ground to escape from us? You can do something similar here. You can stop the storm."

  Eluvie was shaking her head before he finished. "I can't. I -"

  She had wanted to say that she hadn't done it, that the voice had done it. But that was another secret that she had never shared.

  "You have to try," Amu said firmly. "We can typically make this journey with no danger. But when it's this bad, hardly anyone escapes. If you don't do something, we're dead."

  Eluvie considered that.

  "You'll die too," Amu said. "No matter what you transform into. This is not an ordinary storm. An ordinary storm comes with rain."

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  Eluvie sighed. As lovely as it would be to see her captors dead, she was not yet ready to kill herself with them.

  "I'll try," she said. "But I don't know how."

  She took deep breaths and thought about the voice that had helped her back in the palace. If the voice from the water was similar, she could converse with it silently. The thought scared her, however. The voice in the palace had been kind. This one sounded monstrous.

  Hello? She said, Can you hear me?

  Mirab reached the duo. Before she could speak, Amu pulled her away to speak in a corner. They thought their voices were low, but Eluvie had always had better hearing than they expected. She closed her eyes and pretended to calm the storm while she listened to their conversation.

  "Are you mad?" Mirab asked. "Because I can think of no other reason for this idiocy."

  "She can calm it," Amu said.

  "And I said, it's not necessary. The storm is only here because of her. If we leave, we'll survive."

  "And she'll drown."

  "She is an Illrum!" Mirab exclaimed. "We have fourteen more seeds to revive her from."

  "Have you ever drowned, Mirab? Would you try it if I promised to revive you?"

  "I don't know what is wrong with you, Amu, but I'm getting tired of it. It's palpable when you're merely violating my orders. But now you're helping her awaken powers that would hurt our cause. Are you a spy?"

  Amu sputtered. "What?"

  Mirab repeated the question, enunciating carefully. "Are you a spy? You worked closely with Illrum. They trusted you. Perhaps you still feel loyal to them. Perhaps you're staying close and waiting for an opportunity to rescue her."

  "Don't be absurd. They killed my family."

  "Then, are you in love with her? I could understand that. She's pretty enough when she looks human. And, yes, she looks young enough to be your daughter, but that's only an illusion. I bet if she recalled her true birthdate, she might be only a century older than you."

  "You're clearly upset," Amu sounded furious, "so I won't respond to that."

  "It wasn't a joke," Mirab said. "I want an answer. I want to know why you're doing unnecessary and counterproductive things. Which is it? Are you a spy or are you in love with her? And don't tell me you're just a doctor because I can still spot lies."

  There was a long silence. Then, Amu responded with cold fury.

  "I am not a spy," he said. "And I am not trying to sabotage you. I won't answer any more than that. If that doesn't satisfy you, dismiss me or throw me overboard. But if you go into that lifeboat, and it turns out that the storm is not related to her, then I hope you enjoy drowning."

  Eluvie sensed that the argument was over, so she turned her attention back to ending the storm.