Celeste's Arc

Chapter 17 of 23

Celeste sat by the pool until footsteps scratched the stone outside. Slate slipped through the vines with a ball of rope in his mouth. He dropped it at her feet and looked at the empty hollow in the wall. He already knew. "Nothing left in the hull worth taking," he said. "But I believe I saw the thing you want." He paused, tail flicking. "On a shelf above the fireplace. In the tavern." Celeste jumped up. The horn was not lost. Someone had a face and a place, and the place was one she had seen. She grabbed the coiled rope and grinned so wide her cheeks hurt. "Then we go there. Right now." Slate did not grin back. He sat very still, the way he did when he decided something hard. "I did not want to tell you," he said. "You are too stubborn to leave it alone. So I will help." His green eyes held hers. "An evil spirit haunts this island. You may have felt it near the tavern already. It stays there. It does not want visitors." Celeste remembered the fogged window on her first day. A pale shape had moved behind the glass while Slate refused to look. She had backed away then. She would not back away now. "I felt it," she said quietly. "But the horn is what opens the tunnel. Nyrimia won't tell me anything without it." "I know." Slate stood. "That is why I am coming." They left the grotto together and followed the tree line along the shore. Slate stayed a step ahead, ears turning at every sound. Celeste kept the rope looped over her shoulder. The jungle noise thinned as they walked. Soon she could hear only the wind and her own breathing. The tavern rose ahead of them, leaning and gray. Its skull-and-swords sign creaked on one nail. The shutters hung crooked. Through a small fogged window near the door, soot caked the thick glass. Something moved behind it, slow and pale, like breath crossing a cold mirror. Celeste stopped. The air near the building felt heavier, as if the whole shore held still. Cold pressed against her chest. This was the presence Slate meant. It was real, and it was watching. "There," Slate whispered. He pointed his nose at the window. "Above the hearth. Look through, but do not go in yet." Celeste crept to the glass and wiped a circle clean with her sleeve. Inside, above a dead fireplace, a shape rested on a high shelf. It glowed faint purple, carved and round, marked with pale swirls. The tide song. It was there, exactly where Slate said. Behind it, in the dark of the room, two white eyes opened and turned toward the window. Celeste froze. The spirit had seen her. Now she knew where the horn was, and she knew what guarded it.