The Atlantic was a fickle mistress, but for the Isabella, she remained surprisingly calm. The two-month voyage across the vast, gray expanse of the ocean became a strange, suspended reality for Faust.
Between the creaking of the ship's timbers and the endless horizon, the boundaries he had spent a century building began to soften.
One night, deep into the second month, the moon hung like a silver coin over the masts.
Faust and Lola sat in the captain's cabin, the remains of a bottle of heavy Spanish red between them.
The heat of the wine and the rhythmic rocking of the ship did what the years could not—it broke his discipline. They found themselves in each other's arms again, a desperate, silent collision of two people who lived on the edge of the world.
The next morning, as the sun clawed its way over the bow, Faust stood on deck, the salt spray cooling his skin.
He felt a nagging sense of irresponsibility.
He was a doctor, a scholar who had outlived most of the people.
Sleeping with a patient's sister—especially one as volatile as Lola—felt immature, a lapse in the "big dignity" he strove to maintain. He told himself he needed to clear the air, to stop this cycle before they reached land.
He was a man of logic, and this was an entanglement he hadn't calculated for.
He grabbed the silver necklace with his ex-wife's, Elena's, picture.
But his days were occupied by a different kind of education.
"Relax the wrist, Faust. The card is an extension of your intent, not just a piece of pasteboard," Don Francisco—who had insisted Faust call him 'Don-Fran' in a gesture of burgeoning friendship—instructed.
They spent hours on the aft deck.
Don-Fran began with the basics: the bridge, the riffle, the hypnotic rhythm of a perfect shuffle.
Then came the divination.
Don-Fran showed him how to read the symbols of the Tarot, not as a way to see the future, but as a way to understand the architecture of a soul's present state.
"You have a doctor's eye for detail," Don-Fran remarked one afternoon. "You see the symptoms in the cards just as you see them in the body."
The most difficult lesson, however, was the "Cut." Faust watched in silent awe as Don-Fran flicked a card with a snap of his fingers.
The card hissed through the air, vibrating with a high-pitched hum, and sliced a large cucumber sitting on a barrel clean in half.
The edges of the vegetable were as smooth as if a razor had passed through them.
Faust tried for weeks, his cards usually just bouncing harmlessly off the skin of the fruit. He was a master of the scalpel, but the physics of a flying card eluded him.
A week before they reached the Dutch Republic, Don-Fran called Faust into his quarters.
He held a small, weathered leather box.
Inside lay a deck of Tarot cards unlike any Faust had seen.
They were encrusted with delicate silver filigree along the edges, and the cards themselves were incredibly flexible, almost like thin sheets of ivory-tempered silk.
The hand-painted illustrations were vibrant and haunting—Major Arcana that seemed to watch you back.
"These belonged to my wife," Don-Fran said softly. "Inherited through her family for generations. They are yours now, Faust. It is the least I can do for the man saving my son. Beatriz would want it."
As Faust took the gift, Don-Fran leaned in, a mischievous, knowing glint in his eyes.
"And don't worry about Lola. A father knows when his daughter has found a man who can actually keep up with her. Though," he added with a wink, "try not to look so guilty when you walk onto the deck in the mornings."
Faust felt the heat rise to his face.
It was exactly the "immature" situation he had feared, made worse by the fact that the father was joking about it. He clutched the silver-rimmed cards, his mind already resolving to end the dalliance the moment they hit the docks.
"I'm sorry, I cannot accept your present," Faust gave them back, "I understand the value it holds. It far exceeds the price."
Don-Fran inclined his head.
"I see," he rubbed his chin, "You are truly a real man. I wish Mateus would man and grow up. He's still like a child."
Finally, the low, flat coastline of the Dutch Republic appeared through the morning mist.
The weather had held—a stroke of fortune that even a man of science like Faust couldn't help but feel was an omen.
As the Isabella glided toward the bustling port, the smell of peat smoke and old stone rose to meet them.