"No," I whispered, because I knew that all those stories about the Isles were true, that I really was turning into moonlight. "No, no." I took stumbling, shambling steps, trying to work through my panic. We couldn't build a boat and live out on the water, and we couldn't stay on land, neither.
Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes, blurring my skin's light and turning it into golden dots that scattered across the beach. I stumbled over the sand. The wind picked up, smelling of brine and fish–
"Get away from the edge!"
Hands grabbed me by the arm and dragged me backward, away from the churn of the ocean. I flailed and screamed. It was only Naji, but he was glowing too. Not just his tattoos. All of him.
"We're turning into moonlight!" I screamed.
"No, we're not. You almost ran off the side of the island. Come."
His voice was stronger, the voice I remembered from that night in the desert. He led me back to the lean-to and sat me down next to the fire remains.
"What's going on?" I wailed.
Naji blinked at me. It was unnerving to see him with his bright skin and his dark eyes, the opposite of how his magic worked.
"We're fine," he said. "Do I look like I'm in pain to you? There's no danger. At least as long as you stay away from the edge of the island."
"But the stories–"
Naji reached over pulled the charm out from under my shirt. "It's keeping you safe," he said. "As far as you're concerned, this is just… an effect. A courtier's trick." His glow brightened for a few seconds.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." Naji pushed a piece of my hair out of my eyes. The movement was distracted and careless, but the minute he did it he dropped his hand into his lap and looked away. I felt myself growing hot and I realized that my own glow had brightened and turned a rich syrupy color. "I imagine it was caused by drinking from the spring. In a few days' time I should have enough strength to cast a spell to keep it from happening entirely."
I sighed as my panic mostly disappeared.
"Think of it this way," Naji said. "We won't need to worry about lanterns when we walk down to the spring."
"What! The spring! You said that's what's doing this to us!"
"It's also giving us water. Which we need if we aren't to die. Which I need if I'm ever to be well enough to track Eirnin."
"You seem well enough now," I muttered.
"I'm not." He stood up and held out his hand.
We trudged through the woods, our glow throwing off weird, long shadows that seemed to wriggle and squirm between the trees. Naji had the sword, but I had to stop myself from reaching over and grabbing it from him. I always feel safer with a sword in hand.
The spring was waiting for us, looking as normal as ever. Naji knelt beside it and took to drinking, but I hung back. His glow shimmered across the surface of the water.
"Ananna," he said, "I swear to you that it's safe."
I was thirsty. And I knew I couldn't go without water. What would be the use of coming all this way, just to die of thirst?
"Fine," I said, and I sat beside him and drank my fill.
Nothing happened on the walk back – no whispers on the wind, no flare-ups of Naji's curse. He led me off the path we'd flattened out on our trips to and from the spring to pick some nuts and berries, and I was so hungry I ate 'em without waiting till we were on the beach. This time, they seemed enough to fill my belly. The sun pushed out from behind the clouds and washed out enough of the glow that I almost got to thinking everything was normal.
"We shouldn't stay," Naji said.
"Are you hurting?"
"No. I just don't want to linger."
Stepping out on the beach eased my tension up some, the way it always did. Out in the open, my glow had almost entirely disappeared in the pale northern sunlight.
"The lean-to," Naji said.
"What about it?"
"It's gone."
I stopped in place and squinted down the beach. He was right. All I saw was trees and shadows and sand.
The fear slammed back into my heart.
"Someone knows we're here," I said. "The wizard? He's trying to scare us off?" My voice pitched higher and higher. "He ain't gonna help you after all? We got stranded here for no reason?"
"I don't think that's it." Naji pulled away from me and marched to the place where our lean-to had been. And that's when I saw it: the smear of ashes from our fire. The lean-to had been replaced by an enormous bone-gray tree, twisting up toward the sky.
"Curse this island," Naji said.
I couldn't speak. The best I managed was little gasping noises in the back of my throat.
"It's the magic," Naji said.
"I know it's the magic!" I shouted. "This island ain't nothing but damn magic!" Desperation welled up inside of me. He wasn't never gonna get better and the wizard wasn't never gonna cure his curse and we were gonna die here just cause of some glimmer of hope Lelia had nestled inside him. "What if we'd been inside?"
Naji turned toward me. Even though the glow was mostly washed out by the sun, his eyes seemed much darker than normal. "We should be grateful that we were not."
I turned away from him and walked over to the fire ashes. Kicked at 'em with my boot. The tree that had been our lean-to rustled its branches at me and showered down a rain of gray, twisting leaves. Everything about the island was gray. The sky, the sand, the shadows, our home.
I was becoming more and more convinced that the rest of my life would be nothing but gray.
We spent the next few days sleeping in fern tents that I built out on the beach. A storm rolled in one afternoon and soaked through all the wood and our tent, but Naji had gotten enough of his magic back that he was able to build a little fire afterward. It must have exhausted him, though, cause he stretched out on the sand afterward and slept, the glow of his skin and the glow of his tattoos fighting it out in the dark.