The Perilous Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

overheard whispers about agents of Atlantis being particularly active.
    To get out of the Domain by instantaneous means required documents she could not provide. But traveling within the Domain was easy enough with the student pass. By expedited highways and ferries she arrived on the Melusine Archipelago, one of the Domain’s outlying island chains.
    She had learned in the teaching cantos of the Crucible about a secret store of sailboats on the southernmost isle of the archipelago. The travel restrictions Atlantis had implemented did not prevent nonmage means of locomotion, and a good, fast sloop was sometimes just the way to make an escape.
    Her command of air and water came in handy for the one hundred and twenty miles of open ocean to Flores, one of the northwestern islands of the Azores. From there she bargained a passage on a whaling ship to Ponta Delgada, and at Ponta Delgada she hopped on a steamer to the Madeira Islands.
    She could have remained on Madeira. But when she learned, moments after disembarking, that a French cargo freighter in the harbor would be pulling anchor and setting out for South Africa in two hours, she hesitated only a minute before running to the harbor agent’s office to inquire as to whether the French freighter also took passengers.
    Titus had created a good background for Archer Fairfax, the identity she assumed when she was at Eton, by setting Fairfax’s family in Bechuanaland, a place where other Eton students were unlikely to visit. But that otherwise spell, as effective as it was at school, would disintegrate if agents of Atlantis took it into their heads to discover the exact location of the Fairfax family farm.
    She did not stay long in Cape Town, but she spent her entire time there conducting a fervent campaign of disinformation via a battery of new otherwise spells. Now, should inquisitive agents of Atlantis come through, they would be told that the Fairfaxes had just departed: a distant relative had died and left Mrs. Fairfax a decent sum of money, and the family decided to enjoy their good fortune by getting rid of the farm and taking a trip around the world—without the son, of course, who had to go back to Eton for Michaelmas Half.
    Rather pat, as a story, but then Iolanthe had always imagined these fictional parents of Fairfax’s to be the sort who were lured to Africa by romantic notions, only to become disillusioned that the agricultural life yielded little romance—or profit, for that matter. With an unexpected windfall, they would gladly take off for parts unknown, for the adventure and thrill Africa had long ago ceased providing.
    With her “family” out of the way for the foreseeable future, Iolanthe booked herself a berth on the next Liverpool-bound steamer out of Cape Town. For the next three weeks hope and fear battled for supremacy in her heart. One moment she would be ecstatic at the thought of seeing Titus again, the next minute, overcome by uneasiness. What if he did not come back to Eton? It made more sense, didn’t it, for him to be kept in the Domain and on a much shorter leash?
    The closer she was to Eton, the worse the pins and needles became. Reaching Mrs. Dawlish’s and finding no trace of him flooded her with dread. She escaped the commotion of the house by latching on to Cooper, who was leaving to put in orders for tea stuff on High Street.
    Cooper chattered happily about the other pupils who had made the twenty-two, especially West, the boy who everyone believed would be the next captain of the school team. Iolanthe heard very little of what he said. She hadn’t traveled nine thousand miles on her own for the game of cricket, no matter how enjoyable.
    â€œCan you believe there are only four months left in 1883?” said Cooper as they neared Mrs. Dawlish’s door again.
    â€œIs it 1883?” Iolanthe swallowed. “I keep forgetting.”
    â€œHow can you forget what year it is?” Cooper