Freida Waters's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Drake grew stronger every day, and that became a problem. He darted along Freida's shelves and knocked three books to the floor before breakfast. He climbed the ladder and hissed at customers. Freida needed a proper enclosure, or he would wreck the whole shop. But she still did not know where he came from. So she made a plan. She would carry Drake back to the mangrove trees, watch where he wanted to go, and learn his home. Maybe the swamp itself would show her how to keep him safe. She tucked Drake into a covered basket and rowed out past the mangroves. He scratched and whined until she opened the lid. Then he went still, sniffing the air, and pointed his nose toward a stand of thick reeds. Freida followed his stare. Between the reeds she saw metal bars. She pulled her boat close and crept through the mud. A cage sat in the reeds, and inside it dozens of amber lizards pressed together. They looked just like Drake. Purple eyes, red claws, scales like honey. They climbed over each other, too many for the small bars, and made thin frightened sounds. A woman stood guarding them. She was tall and strong, with silky blond hair and a knife on her belt. Her boots were caked with swamp mud, and her smile was the kind that made Freida's stomach drop. "Soon I'll have enough of you," the woman told the cage. She crouched and tapped the bars. "Enough to feed the beast. Then it lets me pass, and I take what I came for." Freida's foot slipped. Mud sucked at her shoe, loud in the quiet. The woman spun. "A little bookseller in the reeds," she said. She stood and crossed her arms. "I'm Corvina Blackwater. And you're carrying one of my lizards." Freida looked down at Drake in her basket. Her hands tightened. "He isn't yours. I healed him." "He's an offering." Corvina nodded toward deeper water, where something huge stirred the mud. A warty, roaring shape rose between the trees, jaws dripping, hungry for the caged lizards. "That thing eats them. I feed it, it moves, and I reach the legend it guards." Freida's heart pounded, but she saw her chance. While Corvina watched the beast, Freida yanked the cage's rusted latch. The door swung wide. Amber lizards poured out in a bright flood, scrambling into the reeds and vanishing. Corvina shouted and lunged, but the lizards were gone. Only Drake remained, safe in Freida's basket. She scrambled to her boat and pushed off hard, rowing until the reeds hid her. Safe at the shop, Freida latched her door and set Drake on his rock. She had her answer now. Drake was no lost stray. He belonged to a caged flock, hunted for a monster, wanted by a dangerous woman. Corvina Blackwater had seen her face. And Corvina would come to the swamp's only bookshop to get her lizards back.