Read ARC: The Wizard's Promise for Free Online Page B

“I didn’t ask her just to repair the boat, though. She’s coming with us.”
    “What?”
    Frida straightened up from the map and brought a roll of parchment over to the helm and handed it to Kolur. I fell quiet and watched her the way I would the poisonous spiders that crept through our house. But Kolur just glanced over the parchment once, nodded, and then rolled it up and stuck it in his coat pocket.
    “Route calculations,” Frida said to me.
    “I know what they are.” My confusion spiraled out like some unwieldy plant. Why was Kolur bringing a powerful witch back with us? Why would she agree to leave her home so easily?
    What did they expect to happen ?
    “How are you going to get back to Skalir?” I said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “We’re going home to Kjora. Don’t imagine we’ll ever come back – it was just a fluke that brought us here. So how are you going to get home?”
    Frida glanced over at Kolur.
    “Make sail!” he hollered out. “That means you, Hanna.”
    “Are we coming back here?”
    “That ain’t anything you need to worry about. Make the damn sail, girl.”
    “I’m on this boat, so it is something I need to worry about.”
    “I’m the captain, and I’m telling you it’s not. So make the sail.”
    I glared at him, but I knew it was pointless; he was going to ignore me. So I did as he asked, dropping the sails down and tying them into place, my anger bubbling up under the surface. It was hard to concentrate. I kept glancing over at the helm, where Kolur and Frida stood side by side like old friends.
    “Which direction for the wind?” I shouted at Kolur, my voice snappy with irritation.
    “Oh, don’t worry, I can do it.” Frida strode to the center of the boat. My anger flared again. She lifted one hand. The direction of the wind shifted, filling up our sails and pushing us out away from the docks.
    I gaped at her.
    “You conduct through the air,” I said, my anger with Kolur vanishing. “But earlier–”
    “I do.” Frida smiled. “I find simple water charms work best when repairing a ship. I can do both.”
    Both? That was a rarity. And maybe it explained why she was willing to leave Skalir so easily. That sort of power didn’t make her typical of the north.
    The wind gusted us out to sea. Frida walked back over to the map and looked over it again, nodding to herself. So she wasn’t just a witch, she was a wind-witch. Same as me.
    Maybe that was why Kolur brought her on board: because I wasn’t good enough at magic, because I wasn’t a proper witch. Ass.
    I walked to the stern and leaned against the railing as Beshel-by-the-Sea drew farther and farther away. Their lanterns were already switching on, pale blue like the lanterns back at home. Home . Maybe when we got back, I’d convince Mama to send me to the academy to apprentice as a witch the way I wanted. I’d tell her Kolur was a liar. She didn’t abide liars.
    Frida materialized beside me, the wind blowing the loose strands of hair away from her face. A northern wind. She seemed to have an affinity with it, the way I had an affinity with the south. This fact irritated me for some reason.
    “Have you left before?” I hoped I could get some information out of her if I came at it sideways.
    “What?” She looked at me. “Oh, you mean Skalir. Yes, of course.”
    I looked down at the dark ocean water and shivered. She was so nonchalant about crossing the waters. I’d always wanted to try it, of course, but I was my mother’s daughter, and that made me different from most island folk.
    “I’m not from there, actually.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled mischievously. I wondered if I looked surprised. “I was born farther north.”
    Farther north. I looked at her more closely. Her accent wasn’t the same as mine, of course, but now that I thought about it, it wasn’t the same as the Skalirins’, either. More lilting, like a lute. And her black hair, that was unusual around