L. D. Lapinski - The Edge of the Ocean

Strange Worlds

Travel Agency

The Edge of the Ocean

L. D. Lapinski

Strangeworlds Travel Agency

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

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First Aladdin hardcover edition August 2021

Text copyright 2021 by L. D. Lapinski

Jacket illustration copyright 2021 by Matt Rockefeller

Map illustration copyright 2021 by Natalie Smillie

Originally published in Great Britain in 2021 by Hodder and Stoughton.

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Design by Heather Palisi

Jacket design by Heather Palisi

Jacket Illustration Copyright 2021 by Matt Rockefeller

Library of Congress Control Number 2021940380

ISBN 9781534483545 (hc)

ISBN 9781534483569 (eBook)

FOR MOLLY AND FOR EVERY GIRL WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE PIRATE KING, ELIZABETH SWANN

Dead men tell no tales.

Hiram Beakes,

Eighteenth-century pirate of Saba

PROLOGUE

P eople called them pirates. And the sailors who lived in the world of the Break wore that title with pride, because when you live on a ship, and your life includes a lot of skulduggery and skally-waggery, what else would you call yourself but pirate?

Every one of them certainly looked the part, and the crew who called Nyfe Shaban their captain were not without style. The sailors appearance was as artful as it was necessary. Prosthetic legs were carved with delicate rising waves, and eye patches were made of softened leather with the crest of the ship sewn on to them. Captain Nyfes own eye patch, nestled in the hollow of where her left eye used to be, had a spray of blue embroidered on it, a homage to her flagship the Aconite, named after the poisonous blue flower.

That night, Nyfe was engrossed in a map in front of her. She had not looked at the clock in her cabin for some time. Clocks were very important in the Break because the sunrises and sunsets were so unreliable. Nyfe had been poring over a collection of maps and charts for most of the day. A half-eaten meal had been buried under an unfurled scroll several hours ago.

Nyfe ran her hand over the map. It was circular, colored in vivid inks and sealed with varnish. The surface shone and crackled. It was a map of her entire world. The world of the Break.

A knock sounded on her cabin door.

Yes? she said, keeping her eyes down.

Captain. Jereme, the second mate, stuck his head around the door. Its getting dark and theres still no sign of the Nastur. He paused, shifting the weight of the truth he carried before dropping it. The ships gone, Captain.

Nyfe looked up from her chart. For a moment, worry flickered behind her eye. Then it vanished, replaced by her usual unreadable chill.

Tell the crew to batten down and get themselves some food. If they cant find the ship in the light, I doubt theyll find it in the dark.

Jereme nodded and excused himself.

Nyfe leaned back and adjusted one of the markers on her map. In the center of the mostly blue world was a brown island that looked like a round of bread torn open: the Break. The largest island in the waters, and the one Nyfes world was named after.

A splatter of other islands spiraled out into the blue, but none of them rivaled the land mass of the Break. A sailor would need more than a day to walk from one side to the other.

There was a time, when Nyfe was younger, that the map she was looking at had been twice the size. Over the years, the map had been trimmed down, cut away as the sea became smaller. It had been happening for so long now that Nyfe couldnt remember a month going by when the map had stayed as it was.

Nyfe Shaban took out a thin blade from the collection at her belt. She stabbed quickly into the edge of the map and skimmed the blade around the edge of the circle, shaving off a slice no wider than her thumbnail. She picked up the hoop of chart and crumpled it in her hand before dropping it into the wastepaper basket.

The world is shrinking, she said to no one. Then she took out a piece of thick recycled paper and a writing set.

She had a letter to send.

Nonot a letter.

A summons.

1

F lick twirled the magnifying glass between her fingers. The brass handle was speckled with little marks and imperfections. There was a deep scrape close to the round lens, there were little scratches running down the slender, pen-like handle, and a dark smudge of something that refused to budge, no matter how often Flick cleaned it.

She looked over the little instrument, not through the glass itself for the moment, enjoying the anticipation. Looking through the magnifier was a treat to be savored.

She spun the handle quickly, tripping it through her fingers in a practiced movement that shed spent far too many nights perfecting. She was lying on her bed, the pink glow from the agate slice on top of her old lamp lighting up the room in a way that reminded her of the gentle glow of a forest made of crystal and magic, a whole other world away. A world she had walked in.

Flick closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Then she raised the magnifying glass to her right eye, keeping her left closed. The first time she had tried this, lying on her bed, she had dropped the instrument on her head.

Because this was no ordinary magnifying glass. And Felicity Hudson was no ordinary person. The magnifying glass in Flicks hand contained glass that came from another world, and the little instrument had been made by someone who knew the nature of the enchantment.