The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

challenge was in her eyes. He realized that he enjoyed looking at her—the arrangement of her features was aesthetically pleasing. But more than that, he liked the assured way she carried herself, now that she no longer bothered to be nice to him. “I do not know enough to tell.”
    At his admission, she cast him a speculative look. “We are seven hundred miles west of the Nile.”
    â€œAnd how far south of the Mediterranean?”
    â€œAbout the same.”
    That would put them approximately a hundred, a hundred twenty miles southwest of the nearest Bedouin realm, one allied with Atlantis, no less. The armored chariot must have taken off from an Atlantean installation in that realm, which would explain how they managed to arrive on the scene so fast.
    But why? Why would Atlantis come racing? Was it for the same reason that he would rather endure any amount of pain than be caught?
    He rose to his feet—and would have wobbled if he had not braced himself with a hand against the sand wall, which felt almost damp against his skin.
    â€œCan you walk?” she asked, her tone bordering on severe.
    â€œI can walk.”
    He expected her to say something cutting, along the lines of how she would gladly leave him behind if he could not keep up. But she only handed him a nutrition cube. “Let me know when you need to rest.”
    An odd sensation overcame him: after a moment or two he recognized it as embarrassment. Mortification, almost. There was still a chance, of course, that everything about her was a pretense. But it seemed more and more likely that she was simply a very decent, even compassionate, person.
    He took a bite of the nutrition cube, which tasted like lightly flavored air. “I guess this is also poisoned, like your remedies.”
    The corner of her lips lifted slightly. “Of course.”
    She excavated along the line she had made, maintaining a moving space just large enough for them to walk abreast. The air he breathed was cool and slightly moist. The sand that crunched beneath his feet had a barely perceptible sheen of wetness. Overhead and to either side of them, sand flowed backward, making him feel a little dizzy. Making him feel as if he were in a submarine vessel, navigating in the dark depths of a strange ocean.
    A quick test told him that they were ninety-three feet below the surface. A mobile dome—even an adamantine dome—could not hold up under the weight of so much sand. Only the girl’s elemental powers kept them from being buried alive.
    Her face was almost blank with concentration, her eyes downcast and half closed. Her hair was blue-black in the mage light and the cut of it made him notice her bone structure and her full lips.
    She glanced at him—he had been staring. He turned his attention to his wand instead, which he recognized as a replica of Validus, Titus the Great’s wand. Upon entering adulthood mages typically chose to commission original designs for their wands; before that, they were often given wands that were copies of those once wielded by legendary archmages.
    So nothing there, other than that he was probably still underage and that someone in his family admired Titus the Great.
    â€œDoes that tell you who you are?” she asked, her chin pointing toward his wand.
    The significance of her question did not escape him. Does that tell you who you are? She assumed that he did not otherwise know his own identity. Which was quite true but hardly the conclusion someone would come to, from knowing him for all of a few minutes, unless . . .
    Unless she also did not know that about herself.
    He handed over one of the cards from his wallet. She examined it carefully, front and back, murmuring spells to reveal hidden writing. But it was what it was, an ordinary nonmage calling card.
    â€œDo you have anything that tells you who you are?” He asked the same question in return.
    She looked up for a second, as if