The Last Mapmaker: Chapters 1–7

I lingered at the back of the line, doing my impression of the shy girl: feet tilted inward, head tipped down, looking like someone who had nothing to add to the conversation.

That spring, she had been the first among us to get her lineal. She touched it now self-consciously: four golden loops hanging from a brooch pinned to her blouse.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said in the meekest version of my shy-girl voice.

I had no proud family line, no noble ancestors.

Steam billowed behind me as I burst out the café door.

“They’re readyin’ the boats,” she whispered. “I can hear ’em hammerin’ the copper to the hulls. We’re goin’ to war again.”

He had sailed all over the known world, charting more of it than anyone in Mangkon: the sheer cliffs of the Hinder Range, the puzzle-piece islands of the Padu Archipelago, the ice-clogged shores of Wilna, and tiny, distant Matchka.

He had sailed all over the known world, charting more of it than anyone in Mangkon: the sheer cliffs of the Hinder Range, the puzzle-piece islands of the Padu Archipelago, the ice-clogged shores of Wilna, and tiny, distant Matchka.

He used old-fashioned mapmaking techniques, drawing coastlines as intricate as a lace collar. This meant that he worked slowly, but in the end, each map was exquisite enough to hang in a museum.

“Windows, windows!” he chided me. “You keep this place too stuffy!”

Paiyoon’s lineal—a long chain of squarish gold links—ran from the eyeglass case to a clip on his waistcoat: a much more impressive way of wearing it than a dinky bracelet, in my opinion.

I had traced copies of other people’s charts for him before—simple things that were beneath the Master’s skills, like a chart of the fishing channel in Pristine Bay or a road map of some backwater province.

The first rule of being an Assistant is humility. An Assistant must never boast that they can do the work of their Master. I swallowed my pride and cast my eyes down at my shoes.

Paiyoon’s bushy white eyebrows furrowed to meet in one line.

HER ROYAL MAJESTY Queen Siripatra announces the Expedition Prize, a venture to extend the boundaries and glory of the Kingdom of Mangkon.

The Queen has commissioned Her Royal Navy’s finest ships for the expeditions.

Its slender body formed a perfect circle, and it held its tail clamped in its own jaws. That same symbol was engraved on all our coins and delicately stamped onto each link in every lineal in the nation.

Past the Western Gate, the solid streets of An Lung became mud, and then even the mud disappeared, melting into the marshy waterways of the Fens. The only way to get across the swamp was either by boat or along the floating bamboo walkways that snaked through the tall reedy grass.

As twelve-year-olds, all Assistants in An Lung were on equal footing (or at least we pretended to be). But the little differences in our status—the type of shoes we wore, the number of sweets we could buy at the candy shop—would soon give way to the glaringly obvious ones as we began turning thirteen and starting school.

The wealthy among us would go to private conservatories. Middle-class kids would go to public academies.

Tall wooden buildings crowded one another for space, creating a warren of tight alleys.

A single lantern cast wavering shadows onto the yellow papered walls.

I wondered if I’d hurt his bad leg during our tussle in the street.

I was my father’s spitting image, down to the inky-black flecks in our brown eyes.

Your current employment won’t be of no consequence much longer, my dear Sai. The three of us shall soon be sitting in the lap of luxury.

We’ve got us a plan, envisaged by your father and to be carried out by my good self.

Mud rolled his eyes at Catfish’s flowery language.

Catfish licked his jutting teeth and put both hands over his heart.

I had helped Mud and Catfish with dozens of schemes over the years, writing hot checks or forging letters to our landlords from fake aunts who promised so sweetly to pay our rent if we could just keep on living there.

I bugged my eyes out, exasperated.

Mud was looking at me, and the relief on his face gave me a hint at why he had been so grim. He needed this money badly.

I waited until they were gone, then I flopped down on my pallet on the floor and stared up at our water-stained ceiling.

The types of houses whose mailboxes might contain what I was looking for were locked behind high copper gates or guarded by snooty doormen.

The punishment for buying a fake lineal was prison, but that didn’t bother him. What was I expecting? That he’d save up for a real one? Take me downtown to the Hall of Records to get it stamped by the Lineage Council?

The contents of the letter were boring: it was basically a long-winded thank-you to some old admiral.

Suddenly, everything clicked. The Expedition Prize, the reason empty packing boxes kept arriving at the shop, the mysterious envelope, and the thank-you letter to the admiral in the Navy.

I could not imagine my cantankerous employer begging for anything, much less on his knees.

“We may be gone for a year. More if we get waylaid for some reason. Oh, blast, this was a foolish idea. This is far too dangerous to even bring up.”

“But I’m going to disclose all the risks to them in my letter.”

“I won’t have us setting sail under any deception.”