The Rules
For as long as she could remember, the wall of the Apothecary showcased a melted metal plaque visible to all the witches whenever they glanced away from their cauldrons. The letters on the plaque, from the cramped a’s to the curly y’s, were identical to every other plaque on the ship. The words were the same too.
To Dylan, it read like an ingredient list in a grimoire — concise and unforgiving.
HEED THESE WARNINGS
All witches must perform the tasks assigned to the utmost of their ability during their assigned shift.
No witch shall steal any items from his or her work area.
No witch shall wander the halls of the Forge unless accompanied by a fae or an appointed guard.
A witch must obey the word of a fae.
No witch shall leave the Forge.
As a toddler, her foster mother June had made her recite an abbreviated version verbally every night before bed: work, don’t steal, don’t wander from the barracks, and obey the Warden. The last Rule June hadn’t bothered to add to her chant.
No one left the Forge.
~
The grimoire lay open on a stainless-steel griddle next to a simmering cauldron. Despite the heat and filth of the grill, the book’s leather-bound exterior remained cool to the touch and spotless, its pages impervious to the grease, blood, and questionable potion splatters of the repurposed ship galley. It held a quality Dylan had yet to see of any grimoire used in the Apothecary, which was why she wanted to steal it.
From its gorgeous illustrations and elegant descriptions of various potions and spells, Dylan surmised the witch who’d created the grimoire had been orderly and organized. She knew the grimoire’s owner was dead. She’d seen the various witches groan and moan if their stolen homebrewed spells were mass-produced on the ship, and none of them compared to the skill and thought of this grimoire. The healing potion bubbling to life on Dylan’s workbench could regrow fingers — a fact which had been demonstrated by the Warden on an elderly prisoner last week. No, the owner of this grimoire either escaped or was killed. She was far too clever to wind up on the Forge, doomed to produce monsters and weapons for the fae.
Swallowing her nervousness, Dylan waited for her opportunity to swipe the grimoire. Her t-shirt stuck to her back with sweat from the grueling ten-hour shift. Because there was only one grimoire in the Apothecary, she stood at the center cauldron rather than the one in the back she preferred. Her timing had to be perfect. If Sarai did it, then so can I. She steeled herself with the thought. She wasn’t used to taking risks. Risks were dumb. But the idea of Sarai getting caught and punished… It made Dylan’s skin crawl and the air rush from her lungs. She couldn’t lose anyone else, let alone her.
So she’d steal the damn book this time. And it’d be a million times better than the knife-crafting handbook Sarai found last time.
If only she didn’t feel so horribly out of place. As the Apothecary once had been an industrial kitchen, the pathways between the stoves and countertops where they put their potions were narrow, and the floors were slippery from old grease and potion spills. To make matters worse, the industrial lights flickered a yellow, grim light except for the center where she stood. If things went sideways, she’d be well-illuminated and surrounded.
A nearby groan caused Dylan to nearly drop her stirring rod, and she looked over. An emaciated woman at the cauldron next to hers was rocking back and forth, her face twisted in pain as she stirred her magic into a rough-looking batch of healing potion.
Get it together, she scolded herself before glancing at the grandfather clock near the enforcer’s table. Its hands read two minutes from the Morning Bell. It’s now or never. She needed a distraction, or else her next chance to take the grimoire would be tomorrow.
A witch in the front of the room stumbled and lost a few vials from his tray. Black smoke rose from where the vials shattered onto the ground.
“Great,” a middle-aged man with a salted beard barked from a couple of tables away from Dylan, “that shite stinks!”
Now. Dylan let go of her stirring rod and lifted up the grimoire. Someone gasped, and her gaze lasered on to her neighbor–the woman with barely the strength to stir. She stared at her in wide-eyed shock, her dry, crusted lips parted as if she were about to ask her what she was doing. Her eyes darted to the enforcer’s table.
Acting on instinct, Dylan dropped the grimoire and touched the woman’s frail arm, shooting enough magic into her to make her forget the last ten seconds.
She fell as if invisible strings had been cut. Together, Dylan and a grumbling, annoyed witch from an adjacent table dragged her unconscious body to the side. Witches losing consciousness throughout the shift wasn’t uncommon.
As Dylan stepped up to her cauldron, she ignored a twinge of guilt. That woman had been seconds away from ratting on her. Besides, she’d done her a favor. Because she was unconscious against her will, the wards wouldn’t punish her for not working with the usual waves of unpleasantness — nausea, dotted vision, and an increasing pressure around one’s throat.
Emboldened by her neighbor’s absence, Dylan placed her hand once more on the grimoire rather than the stirring rod like she was supposed to. Nausea twisted her stomach. She poured her magic into it to form a conduit. The creator of the grimoire had poured enough magic into it that Dylan sensed her magic.
Magic is all about intention. The mantra was an old one of her friend Micah’s, but Dylan repeated it to herself out of habit. Messing up her intention would violate the second Rule, and then she would be on the floor like the woman she’d knocked out.
Please allow me to borrow you for a bit? I’ll return you tomorrow. She thought to the book just as she rehearsed. For extra measure, she provided a mental image of her returning it to its resting place at the next shift. Magic liked deals, and any details she offered would make the request that much more desirable.
She felt the barest pulse of power pull back in response to her request. The requirements were met, and the wards wouldn’t punish her. Slipping the grimoire into the waistband of her pants, Dylan grabbed the stirring rod and started brewing. The tightness in her throat lessened, and her stomach settled.
The Morning Bell rang, and the wards’ constant pressure for her to work dissipated. Dylan turned the griddle off and set the stirring rod down. The current batch wasn’t finished by a long shot, but no witch willingly worked past hours on the ship, and the Warden could only keep track of so much.
Conversation, dull and tired, lulled over the potioneers as they exited through the staircase closest to the bow. No one spared Dylan a second glance as she stayed at her station. After all, she always walked the scenic route. Soon, it was just her and the woman she’d knocked unconscious, her snores decidedly peaceful.
“Sorry,” she whispered, knowing the other witch would wake up confused and groggy in an hour. Dylan exited through the kitchen traffic doors past the enforcer table into the abandoned restaurant.
Piles of cardboard boxes were stacked on the dusty tables and chairs, as this room served as the storage room for the Armory. That was the way it was on the Forge; each deck of the cruise ship had been repurposed to produce magical wares and monsters. The pool had been turned into the crematory, the basketball court into the garden, and, most spectacularly, the casino transformed into the armory. Of course, as Dylan had grown up on the ship since toddlerhood, she only knew these things because her late foster mother June had shown her an old passenger map, its colorful graphics jarring in comparison to the reality.
The ceiling broadened as Dylan entered the Armory, its ratty red carpets and brightly colored machines as fascinating as the first time she’d taken the route. Only the vaulted ceilings looked unaffected from the assembly lines of unfinished weapons gracing its velvet green tables. A witch, a dainty girl with tawny brown skin and a halo of ebony braids framing her face, remained sitting at her station, an assortment of swords, knives, and grenades strewn across the surface.
Dylan slowed down like she always did, admiring how calm and relaxed the other girl looked despite the long shift. Sarai was always like that—unaffected, logical, at peace. Able to create beauty from everything to her clothes to the weapons she crafted. Her shirt was charmed a vibrant blue, and she kept her hair in braids adorned with ingenuous hair pens she made herself. The jewelry gleamed under the Armory’s lights in a way they never did on the upper decks. As always, they reminded Dylan of the time she’d botched Sarai’s hair the one time she’d asked for help. Now, she was forever doomed to hate-watch as Louella turned Sarai’s hair into the gorgeous work of art it was.
Which officially makes you jealous of a twelve-year-old. Dylan cleared her throat at the thought. Loudly.
Thankfully, Sarai looked up, a smile creasing her brown eyes when she saw Dylan. “How’d it go?” She asked, wiping her greased hands off on a cloth before standing. Short, she only came up to Dylan’s chin.
“Well,” Dylan lied as she patted at her lumpy clothing, “I’m excited about this one.”
They walked to the end of the Armory and took a sharp left into the double doors of the mermaid staircase. The far less traveled path, this staircase was decidedly cleaner than its bow-facing sister, its two-way carpeted stairs lacking the stench of human waste and sweat. To top it off, murals of mermaids marked the halfway points between decks, their colorful tails and hair fun to look at.
Sarai grinned as they began their journey up the stairs. “Lou won’t be happy, you know. She’s already peeved Micah is making her take over.”
Dylan winced at the glee in Sarai’s voice when mentioning Micah. The older guy was their friend, and Dylan would always be grateful for Micah befriending her all those years ago, but… “Well, Lou shouldn’t cheat at cards then,” she said, thankful her tone stayed steady.
They fell into a companionable silence as they made quick work of the three flights of stairs and entered the lido deck, the wide expanse of space the largest the ship had to offer. The ocean breeze mingled with the morning sunshine, and Dylan and Sarai, out of tradition, walked slower to enjoy the outdoors. Not every day was this nice, and sometimes the Morning Bell rang far later depending if the Warden increased the quotas. The only negative of the lido deck was that they had to walk past the Crematory, its blue flames high and the black smoke tainting the breeze with its usual unpleasantness.
Dylan closed her eyes to enjoy the heat on her face, her feet having memorized the walk long ago. During the daytime, Dylan could almost pretend she was free if she weren’t so exhausted from being worked to the bone. Dark magic worked best at night, so nearly the entire ship was nocturnal. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d risen with the sun. A shame, really, considering how much she loved the sun. Sometimes, when the ship sailed towards colder waters, there was no sun until late in the morning, when she could hardly keep her eyes open.
They reached the entrance to the Mall far too soon. For once, she didn’t mind the departure from the lido deck too much because she wanted to open the grimoire, and that had to be away from prying eyes. Witches would rat on them in a heartbeat if that meant they could garner favor with the Warden. Dylan didn’t blame them.
Sarai dashed her hopes. “We should barter today. We’re out of herbs for those energy potions you make, and we need yarn so I can sew Lou new pants. Everything is too short on her.”
Dylan stifled a groan. Of course, even when work was done, it never truly was.
Chatter and gray, muted light from the glass overhead skylight greeted Sarai and Dylan when they entered the Mall — a wide circular atrium with two stories of rooms hugging the walls. The ground level served as the main camping ground for the majority of the witches on the ship, as it boasted a grid of tattered sleeping bags and personal items strung around whatever makeshift storage the witch could make at the time. There were a good number of blackout tents, which were large structures of black fabric that were markedly more sturdy than other tents.
About a year prior, Sarai had charmed the tents to block the sunshine out, and they’d been a resounding success for any witch with difficulties adjusting to the nocturnal schedule. It’d made bartering for Sarai, Dylan, and the others far easier, especially as other witches couldn’t seem to replicate her success on their own.
As they walked through the unofficial walkways of the campground, Sarai paused and swore. “She set up shop without us.”
Dylan followed her gaze to the walkways underneath the balconies. Traditionally, that walkway was reserved for bartering. In their usual area sat a broad-shouldered blonde girl with a cardboard sign. Dylan knew those blocky letters said ‘GET YOUR FORTUNES HERE’.
“That is not good,” she said as she recognized the slim man who paused at Lou’s booth. Liam, the Apothecary enforcer to whom she’d had to answer to for the last six months. Even for an enforcer, the man was cruel. Dylan could picture no worse scenario than that particular witch bartering for one of Lou’s fortunes. Already she could see Lou shaking her jar of chicken bones as Liam knelt to infuse his magic into them.
She and Sarai sped their pace up to where they arrived just as the bones clattered against the ceramic tiled floor. They were too late. Lou traced the air with her finger over the bones, her face scrunched in concentration.
Lie if it’s bad news, Dylan pleaded silently, willing the younger girl to understand true fortunes weren’t a good to be exchanged like Sarai’s fabrics or her potions. In actuality, no person wanted to know their future, rather they wanted reassurance their dreams would come true or their hardships were close to an end. Lou was too honest, and bone readings were the one aspect of divination she’d mastered under the tutelage of the Huntsmen coven before she came to the Forge.
“Well,” Liam huffed impatiently as Lou continued to scan the bones, “hurry it up, girl. A loaf of bread ought to buy some speed.”
Ocean blue eyes still on the bones, Lou snorted and withdrew her hands an agonizing ten seconds later. “You were born to a mother with premature gray in her hair. She was overjoyed to have a son after three girls. She was glad you didn’t inherit your dad’s webbed feet or his drinking habits.” She joked, flashing a grin of pride at having found something.
Liam was unimpressed. “Yeah, yeah. She was a real saint of a woman despite only having two brain cells. On to the future part of it. The Apothecary numbers are up ten percent. Will the Warden gift me the 25s?”
Dylan’s stomach lurched unpleasantly as she eyed the enforcer’s iron cuffs chained to both his wrists, which were lighter in color than her own. Regular prisoners were given 50% iron cuffs, while the enforcers were given lighter alloys. She guessed Liam’s were already at 35%. The lower the iron percentage, the slower the progression of magical poisoning. In fewer words, Liam was asking how long he would live.
“The bones don’t show me everything,” Lou said with a shrug, the cavalier attitude matching her age of twelve years better than her tall, muscular body did. She waved her hand over a grouping of bones. “it says here you have to return a favor for your prospects to look good. In fact, it comes up here and there too.”
Liam exploded like a keg. Within a second, Lou’s body was levitated in the air, and Liam stood poised with his hands curled into fists, his face a putrid red. “Who told you about the favor? Give names,” he snarled.
Lou couldn’t answer as she clawed at her neck in an attempt to draw breath. She did manage to kick the man in the ribs and to spit in his face, and, for a second, Dylan feared the enforcer would snap her neck.
“Let her go!” Sarai cried, running into the enforcer’s line of view before Dylan could stop her.
Dylan watched as Lou gasped for air, her mind racing to catch up to the facts. They couldn’t win this. Liam was an enforcer. He would retaliate by involving the Warden. Intervention had to be where Liam had no idea what happened. Then they would have to run and hide until the enforcer cooled off and found his next target.
As subtly as she could, Dylan held her palm outwards to allow her magic to escape and undo one of Liam’s shoe laces. She held it taunt. One little telepathic shove was all it’d take, and Liam’s attention would be off Lou.
Before Dylan could follow through on her plan, a tall, lean young man tackled Liam to the ground. They hit the floor with a smack, and the enforcer shouted as he began to wrestle his assailant. An assailant with black, shaggy hair and honey-colored skin. He managed to pin the weaselly man by the shoulders before rearing back and socking him in the face.
Liam’s head snapped back and his body went limp.
Micah let go of the enforcer immediately, his angular face flushed in surprise. He looked up at Sarai and Dylan. “He’s breathing,” he said, scrambling up to his feet as he went to check on a dazed Lou. “Are you okay?”
Wordlessly, the younger girl nodded, despite the tears trailing down her cheeks. She angrily wiped them off with her sleeve before letting Micah half-pick her up to her feet. “What a jerk,” she rasped.
“We need to get out here,” Sarai said, and Dylan realized a small crowd was forming around them. Drawing up to her full height of five feet, Sarai held her palms out threateningly to the onlookers. Some stepped back.
As they walked up the balcony staircase to the Sweet Tooth, Dylan looked back at the unconscious Liam. A witch was already tending to the enforcer, propping the enforcer up against the wall. No doubt one of his lackeys. He’d be furious when he awoke.
Perhaps it would’ve been better if Micah had killed him. Dylan thought. The Warden wouldn’t bother to investigate the death of a witch, enforcer or not. No, he’d just replace Liam with the next witch who wanted the special privileges that came with betraying the other prisoners. The Warden only saw profit, after all, and he saw no profit in a dead witch. With Liam alive, the enforcer would undoubtedly ask the Warden to punish Micah for the attack, and the Warden would oblige in exchange for better numbers.
They walked quickly to the balcony. It was quieter, though Dylan knew better than to think that the shops’ occupants weren’t spying on them through the display windows. They passed an old clothing store, souvenir shop, and arts and crafts store before at last arriving at a sign of a pink cotton candy jutting above the walkway. Painted across the pink swirls of the sign were the letters ‘Sweet Tooth Candy Shop’. The entrance and display windows were covered with pink and purple curtains Sarai had charmed so that witches were unable to eavesdrop on them.
One by one, the teens ducked through the curtain, its charms warming in welcome. They all lit their witch lights while Sarai lit the wicks of four lanterns, which in turn bathed the store in a warm, flickering light. Dylan relaxed despite the tense situation.
Out of all the places she and her friends had lived in on the Forge, she liked the Sweet Tooth the best. The candy-cane striped floors and pillars were mostly intact and devoid of dirt, and the rug Sarai had scrounged made the nights not feel so cold. The storage closet still had a working door, while the two bunk beds they’d smuggled inside didn’t creak. Most importantly, the space wasn’t so big that she couldn’t always find Lou, Sarai, and Micah right away.
This was the closest place to home she’d found since June died.
“All right,” an ashen Micah turned to Dylan, “tell me the damage. What’s he going to do?”
What little relaxation she’d managed disappeared as an old weight settled on her shoulders. That was the problem with being the one who’d lived on the Forge the longest. She was their resource, the person who always had to deliver the bad news when she wanted nothing more than to hope alongside her friends. “The Warden’s go-to is heavier cuffs. He might make you go up to the 75s.” For most witches, it was a death sentence as it hastened the effects of magical poisoning to a few months rather than a year.
Micah’s eyes went wide before he looked at the bandages on Dylan’s arms. “Will we be able to handle that?” He asked, and she immediately understood what he meant.
“Uh, yeah,” Dylan tried best to not think about their monthly ritual and how much more she might have to give of herself so the older boy wouldn’t get sick.
Micah nodded, looking guilty and concerned, “We’ll just have to hope for the best, then.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lou said as Sarai helped her sit on a bunk, her face still red and recovering. “I didn’t say the bad parts of his fortune, but I still set him off. Micah, I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you all about the fortunes. I won’t do it again.”
“It’ll be okay,” Sarai stroked a few sweaty strands off the blonde’s forehead, “even if Micah ends up with the cuffs. It’ll probably be fine. We’re immune, remember?”
Micah faked a smile, his dimples prominent on his thin face. He’d thinned out since his nineteenth birthday. “She’s right. I’ll probably just get a fever for a bit like last time. Dylan might be a little dizzy for awhile, but we’ll figure it out. No need to worry, Louella.”
Lou sniffed, the sound uncharacteristic of the usually boisterous girl. “Okay.”
Dylan frowned, but she knew better than to say anything about the physical affects of keeping them all alive. Truth was, she didn’t know how much more borrowed time they could live on, anyway. The Warden was bound to notice any day that the others weren’t getting sick. June had wanted her to hide the ritual for a reason.
But she’d been so tired of being alone.
“D, you want to show off what you found today?” Sarai shot her a pointed look with the clear message of ‘Distract them’. Micah had settled on the bunk next to Lou, his arm over her shoulders as her face crumbled.
Micah looked at her and frowned. “What is in your pants?”
Dylan remembered the grimoire in her waistband. She extracted it before holding it out towards the crying girl. “Don’t you owe us more lessons, Lou?”
The blonde stared at the grimoire with a bland face, as if trying to decide whether the chore was a better alternative to crying. “Okay. Pick a page.”
She and Sarai exchanged a happy grin before they settled onto the floor, taking turns flipping through the yellowed pages. Sarai oohed and aahed at the gorgeous illustrations, and eventually Dylan settled back and watched, letting the other girl choose which drawings to linger on. Her quiet smile made Dylan forget about the enforcer, the ritual, everything. At first, Sarai had been embarrassed about being seventeen and unable to read, but Dylan had just been thrilled that they’d had anything in common.
“This one,” Sarai said pointedly at the halfway point.
“Wow,” Dylan breathed in agreement as she saw the illustration.
The creature drawn across the pages was similar in appearance to a snake that Dylan had once seen escape the In-Between Factory, only it had four legs with deadly black talons and giant wings it held angled elegantly in a midnight sky. Like the snake, it had shiny, silky emerald green scales and a forked tongue slithered from its mouth. The beast flew over a village, fire shooting from its mouth and engulfing the cottages. Tiny, indistinguishable figures fled in all directions from the flames.
Lou scanned the page and pointed at the paragraph at the bottom. “This part isn’t so hard. Dylan, you first. Remember to sound it out.”
They started the reading lesson in earnest.