Chapter 23
Ophelia lay on her cot, staring up at the ceiling just as she’d been doing for the last few hours. Tired. Empty. Numb. Battling with herself over what to do because she’d spent the last eight years running, and instinct didn’t want her to stop. Not when everything was going so wrong. But where would she even go? Did she really even want to?
The only thing she did know was that she’d cried herself dry, and only stopped to lie there quietly because she didn’t have anything else in her. It’s what she intended to do for the rest of the night, and she was so intent on doing it that, when there was a heavy thunk from somewhere outside, she ignored it. At first, anyway. But then there was the clatter of rolling glass, a shuffle, and another thunk, and as much as she wanted to keep sulking, her curiosity got the best of her.
She rose from her cot and crossed the infirmary to the door, and then swung it open to step outside. She regretted it instantly when she was met with Carolina, who sat sprawled out on the ground and leaned back against the captain’s cabin door next to a fallen bottle of rum.
“I can’t,” Carolina slurred, reaching up with one hand to try and get to the door handle. “I can’t open the door.”
“I can’t deal with this right now, Carolina,” Ophelia told her, but she paced over anyway and opened the door. Carolina fell backward into the entrance of her cabin, but Ophelia didn’t stay to help her up, and immediately turned back for the infirmary.
“I know,” Carolina mumbled, unmoving from where she’d fallen onto her back. “I just needed to be numb because it’s all over.”
She stopped halfway through her own door, and looked back at Carolina to ask, “What’s all over? ”
“This,” Carolina flopped her manacled arm around in gesture. “My freedom. I can’t make you Ascend. I can’t do it.”
Ophelia hesitated for a moment before letting out a deep sigh and pulling her door shut. She paced back over to Carolina, grabbed the mostly empty bottle of rum off the floor, uncorked it and took a big swig, shoved the cork back in, and then dropped it again. “Get up.” She reached down for one of Carolina’s arms, hauling her off the ground and putting that arm over her shoulders. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“Where are we going?” Carolina slurred.
“To the bulwark,” she answered. “I’m going to sober you up a bit and you will vomit.” When they reached the bulwark, she shoved Carolina’s arm off her shoulders and directed her overboard. “Lean.”
Carolina listened, and once she’d leaned herself overboard, Ophelia set a hand on her back to begin working the alcohol out of her system. She didn’t do all of it — too much too fast could give Carolina poisoning — but she guided Carolina’s body to process as much of it as she could so they could have an actual conversation. And Carolina did vomit. Twice.
“Better?” she asked.
Carolina groaned as she straightened up. “I need to lie down,” she said, staggering back toward her cabin and leaving Ophelia to follow. She stumbled through her dark room and to the bed, where Ophelia heard her drop onto it. “That’s the thing about alcohol, isn’t it?” she asked. “You got to drink the right amount to be numb, or else you’ll just feel everything all over again and worse.”
Ophelia didn’t say anything to that as she lit a few candles — just enough to be able to see — and then she wandered over to the bed and lowered herself to sit on the floor beside it. She sighed and set her chin on the edge of the mattress, asking, “What do you want from me, Carolina?”
Carolina inhaled deeply and then let the breath out quickly as she lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Before saying anything, she sniffled and lifted one hand to wipe at tears that Ophelia couldn’t see from where she was, and then dropped her hand back to her side with another deep inhale.
“I knew the moment I saw you at Breezeport,” she finally said. “I knew you were the answer at the same time as I knew it didn’t matter, and every second since then I’ve been stubborn. I’ve been faking it. I’ve been trying to act like my freedom is all that matters because I wasn’t ready to admit that the moment I saw you again…” She sniffled and shrugged. “All that mattered was you.”
Carolina reached up again to wipe at a tear, but it didn’t help anymore, because tears came streaming down her temple. She lay there for a quiet minute as she cried, and Ophelia didn’t know what to think or say because she’d never seen Carolina cry. Nor did she know how she should feel. She was still angry. Still hurt. Still afraid that there was some part of Carolina that loved freedom too much, and that she’d be forced to Ascend anyway. But every time Carolina sniffled, an ounce of her frustration faded. Every time a new tear slid down the side of Carolina’s temple, her chest ached. She didn’t want to be angry. She didn’t want to be afraid. All she wanted, the only thing she’d wanted since the moment she’d first seen Carolina at Breezeport was a fresh start.
A minute passed without Carolina saying anything else, and then a second minute was gone, and Ophelia didn’t want to sit there in the silence for nothing. “You could’ve avoided all of this, you know?” she asked. She pursed her lips as a fresh wave of sadness rolled through her, and she forcefully swallowed it down. “If you’d rescued me just because you cared.”
“I know,” Carolina whispered. “I know that whatever healing we’d done, I set it back.” She sniffled again and then exhaled a long, shaky breath as she covered her eyes with one hand. “I thought you still hated me. I thought you’d still be furious, no matter how desperate you were for rescue, and so I thought there was nothing else to do but respond in kind.”
“I was happy to see you, Carolina.”
Carolina swallowed hard, clasped her hand harder over her eyes as if that would stop any more tears from falling, and nodded. “By the time I realized it, everything was already in motion, and it was so against my expectations that I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know how to take it back after seeing how deeply it cut you, and anytime I tried to bring up the past, you shut me down. So I told myself if you’d never forgive me, or trust me again, then at least I might have my freedom.”
Ophelia sighed and shook her head. “How could I, when I’ve been all but a prisoner here?”
“I know,” Carolina said. She was quiet for another half minute while she steadied her breathing, and then finally lowered her hand from her eyes. “I’m not saying that anything I’ve thought or done was right, but I can’t keep pretending like my freedom matters to me more than you do.”
That was the second time Carolina had said that, and it tugged at some deep place in her just as strongly as it did the first time, and she didn’t know how to respond to the words or the feeling they stirred when she was still as hurt as she was. “What do you want me to say, Carolina?”
Carolina sighed heavily, shrugged, and said, “You don’t have to say anything, I guess. I just hope you know that all of this was because of my own extravagant stupidity rather than any maliciousness for you in my heart.”
And, if Carolina was putting aside her pride and was sincere in surrendering her freedom, then what else could Ophelia do but accept that? “Yes,” she said with exaggerated exasperation, “you’re an idiot, I know.”
A smile touched the corner of Carolina’s lips, and she glanced sideways at Ophelia and then let out a soggy laugh as she wiped at the tears it squeezed from her eyes. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
Carolina laughed again, which tugged at the corner of Ophelia’s lips, but though they shared a smile for several more seconds, it didn’t last much longer than that. Because Ophelia didn’t know where to go from there. She understood Carolina’s actions, and while she couldn’t bring herself to resent them like she had before, it still hurt, and she couldn’t say that there wasn’t more lingering in the air between them. So her smile faded, and the sadness returned, and they both stayed there in silence for a couple more minutes while Ophelia tried to figure out what that lingering thing was.
“Can I ask you something?” Carolina said eventually.
“Yes,” Ophelia answered.
Carolina rolled onto her side, her soggy eyes meeting Ophelia’s. She took in a deep breath before saying, “Would you have done it, if I’d asked?”
And Ophelia knew what she meant. Knew she wasn’t asking about Ascension, or any other recent thing. It was the question. The single question that would’ve saved them both from eight years of heartache. The question that she’d asked herself almost every day of those eight years.
“No,” she answered, but at the hurt that answer put on Carolina’s face, she added, “not at first.” She sighed and propped her elbow on the bed to rest her chin in her hand. “I would’ve wanted to finish my training first. But… if you’d have waited, if you’d have promised to come back for me, then, yes. I would’ve run away with you.”
One corner of Carolina’s mouth pulled into a sad smile. “I knew it would, but that hurts more than if you said no.”
That admission replenished the tears Ophelia thought she’d cried, because that was it, wasn’t it? That was the thing she was trying to figure out. The sadness that still lingered between them, because while she understood all of Carolina’s actions since Breezeport, it didn’t explain why she’d left in the first place. And it hurt as if it was yesterday, and she couldn’t hold it back. “Why didn’t you ask me?” she said as tears stung her eyes. “Why did you leave without me?”
“I was afraid,” Carolina said, her mouth turning into a deep frown. “I was afraid of the disappointment if you said no.”
“Why would I have said no?” she asked, her throat tight as she struggled to keep her voice from breaking.
“We talked about it once,” Carolina answered. “You said you’d never get to see your parents again.”
“When we first met, Carolina?” she asked, dropping her forehead into her hand. “We were together for a year, and you changed my entire world. Why would that not have changed too?”
“I don’t know,” Carolina whispered, blinking a few more tears free from her eyes. “I left my mother and Rue, and I had every intention of going back for them, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t feel guilty for it every day.” She wiped her fingertips across her cheeks as her face contorted with agony. “You wouldn’t have been able to go back, and I don’t know what I was more afraid of — you saying no, or you saying yes and then resenting me for it if you felt as guilty as I did.”
Ophelia’s already moist eyes flooded as her heart filled with regret, as she finally got the answer to an eight-year-old question. And it wasn’t the why or the what-for or the how, and the answer wasn’t in what Carolina had said. It was on her face. It was in her expression that leaving had hurt Carolina just as much as it had hurt her. And while her understanding and acceptance of that couldn’t undo eight years of heartbreak, it did wipe out the rest of her anger in an instant, so that all she felt was sadness at what they’d become.
“I hated you, you know?” she said, wiping at her own cheek while Carolina nodded. “I wished I did, at least, because that was easier than just being heartbroken. ”
“I deserved it,” Carolina murmured.
“No, you didn’t,” she said, and reached up to tap the manacle, “and you didn’t deserve this either.” And she meant it, because even if she’d meant all the things she’d said earlier that day, she wouldn’t go back to ignorance with Sovereign. She’d take all the heartbreak and fear all over again if it meant that her eyes stayed open. She sniffled away the rest of her tears and breathed deep to lighten the feeling in her chest, and then said, “I’m sorry the reversal didn’t work.”
“How could it?” Carolina asked with a shrug. “I was holding Ascension over your head.”
Ophelia hummed, because she couldn’t exactly argue with that, and then they both fell quiet. A minute passed without either of them shedding a fresh tear, and the silence between them wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been earlier. It was light enough, in fact, that Carolina’s eyes had drifted closed, and her breathing was slowing with exhaustion from the day and the alcohol.
“Goodnight, Carolina,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Carolina mumbled. “Do you want me to stay awake?”
“No, get some sleep.” She used her magic to put out one of the few candles she’d lit, dimming the room as she stood. “Come by in the morning if you want something for the hangover.”
Carolina was too drowsy to do anything else but hum, so Ophelia stood and made her way to the door, dousing the other two candles on her way out. It had been an exhausting day for her too, so when she reached her own cot and tucked herself under the blankets, it didn’t take her long at all to fall asleep.
She woke sometime the next day to the pale morning light coming through the frosted glass in the infirmary’s door. She stretched her arms toward the ceiling as she cracked her eyes open, listening to the bustle of crew outside on deck and thinking about how normal the morning sounded. She felt more normal too, and though she wasn’t entirely certain how she and Carolina would pick up that morning, what she did know for certain was that she was hungry.
She tossed her bare feet over the side of her cot and slipped them into her boots, then stood up and paced toward the door while she released her hair from its bun, but stopped short when her boot landed on something. She finished shaking out her hair as she took a step back, and looked down at a piece of parchment. She bent over and picked it up, unfolded it, and scanned the writing .
At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, even though something about it sparked a sense of familiarity deep within her. But then all at once she realized what it was and why it was familiar, and she gasped as her other hand came to her mouth.
It was her warrant letter, but the writing looked so much like her father’s that her eyes dropped immediately to the signature. Lawrence Baker. Baker . The same sentimental family name that she’d used to enroll at university. The writing was her father’s. Her father must’ve been the one to send the bounty hunters, and her heart was suddenly racing.
What was she supposed to do with this information? Who had even given her this information?
At that thought, she threw open the infirmary door to look outside, but of course there was no one there. The letter could’ve been slipped under her door at any point in the night. But why? Did the person who’d delivered this want her to run? If that was the case, then did they choose to slip it under her door last night because of her fight with Carolina? Or did the bounty hunters tell her father that she was traveling with Omen, and he'd found one of Carolina’s crew who’d take money in exchange for the warrant’s deliverance?
She had so many questions as she stepped back into the infirmary and closed the door. Her heart ached at the idea of seeing her parents again, especially now that she knew they were searching for her, but she couldn’t act on this information. There were too many uncertainties. She didn’t even think she should tell Carolina about the warrant’s connection to her father, because what effect would that have? Especially while they were on such shaky ground with making amends.
A knock on her door pulled her from her thoughts, and she shoved the letter into her pocket as she called, “Come in.”
Carolina opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind her before turning to Ophelia and saying, “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Ophelia greeted. There was a hesitant beat of silence, so she filled it with, “Hangover?”
“Mild,” Carolina answered, and another hesitant moment passed before Carolina said, “I meant what I said last night, about ending the search for Ascension.”
“I believed you,” Ophelia told her.
“Good,” Carolina said, and filled the next silence with inhaling a deep breath to say, “If you’d finally let me, I need to apologize for-”
“Oh, no,” Ophelia said, “it’s fine, you don’t have-”
“ Yes , I do,” Carolina interrupted. “I owe you a thousand apologies, Ophelia, and I need you to not just say it’s fine so that we don’t have to confront all the ways I’ve hurt you. Alright?”
Ophelia inhaled to argue, but then stopped when she realized that was the problem. So she took a deep breath and nodded instead, bracing herself just to listen.
“Thank you,” Carolina said, but then she hesitated again. In the silence that followed, she gave a pursed-lip smile, blew a hard breath through her lips, shuffled on her feet, and took the hat off her head to stare down at it and wring it in her hands. It took her almost a minute to work up the nerve to say, “I’ve done wrong by you at every turn.” She finally looked up from her hat. “And I don’t know that there will ever be words to express to you how truly, deeply sorry I am. For leaving you. For abandoning you to Sovereign. For rescuing you with selfish intentions.”
Ophelia couldn’t hold Carolina’s gaze after that, but she didn’t interrupt even though her eyes dropped to the floor.
“But I am,” Carolina continued. “I’m sorry, and my selfishness ends now, because you deserve your freedom independent of how I feel about you, and I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go to enjoy it. And you don’t have to forgive me before you go, but if you could find it in your heart to do so, then I’ll live off that single freedom for the rest of my life, and I’ll do it happily.”
A full apology was the only place they hadn’t gone last night, and the only place left to go, but Ophelia still hadn’t expected it to hit as hard as it did. She knew she’d been holding on to it all, even after all the resolution from the night before, but she never realized how much relief she’d feel being so close to letting it go.
So close.
“Say it again,” she said, blinking away the tears threatening her eyes, “but this time, say it like you haven’t been rehearsing it all morning.”
Carolina let out a shallow huff of laughter, but it was only a mask for the emotion she was feeling, because her eyes flooded as she looked down. She dropped the hand holding her hat to her side as her other set on the pommel of her dagger to pick at the pattern on it, and she stared at her feet for almost another minute.
“I’m sorry for everything,” she finally said, “and I-” She stopped, swallowing hard as her eyebrows met, and she watched the toe of her boot kick at a knot in the wood floor for a few moments before she gathered the courage to look up again. “I still love you, Ophelia,” she said, her tear-filled eyes meeting Ophelia’s, “with all my heart, I do, and if the only good thing I can ever do for you is to let you go, once and for all, then I’ll do it. Whether you forgive me or not.”
Ophelia couldn’t keep her eyes from finally filling with tears too, and she didn’t know how else to express what she was feeling. She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around Carolina’s neck, pulling her into a long, tight hug as Carolina’s arms circled her waist. She cried her relief, and Carolina cried hers too, and she hadn’t felt so light and so full in such a long, long time.
And when she’d finally composed herself enough to speak, she said, “I forgive you.” She pulled away, and they released each other from the hug and she took a step back. “I couldn’t honestly say that before yesterday,” she admitted, wiping the moisture from her cheeks, “no matter how badly I wanted to, because I couldn’t forgive you when I didn’t feel like you knew exactly what to be sorry for. But I said everything I had in my heart. All the resentment I was holding on to, I got it off my chest, and I forgive you, Carolina.”
“Thank you,” Carolina said, sniffling and wiping the back of her hand under her nose. She gave something of an embarrassed smile, and they both stood there to compose themselves before Carolina asked, “Can we start over? I want more than anything to be your friend again.”
“Yes,” she answered. “I’d like that.”
Carolina took in one final, deep breath to reset herself completely, and then smiled and held out her hand. “Carolina,” she said. “Carolina Trace.”
“Ophelia,” Ophelia replied with a tearful laugh, taking Carolina’s hand in hers. “Ophelia Parker.”
“That’s a beautiful name, Ophelia.”
“Thank you,” she smiled. “It was my grandmother’s.” She made a show of glancing around the infirmary, and then looked at Carolina’s daggers and gasped. “Are you a pirate , Carolina Trace?”
Carolina laughed, “Merchant, actually.” Ophelia made a disbelieving hum. “And you? A nurse?”
“Good guess,” she said. “Surgeon.”
“Impressive,” Carolina praised, and the act was so ridiculous to keep up at that point that they both laughed and dropped it. “Ryland is taking us to Chestwil,” Carolina told her, “but if there’s another island, any other island you’d like to go to, all you have to do is name it. ”
“No.”
Carolina’s brow furrowed. “No?”
“Why would I want to run again when I could be here, among friends?” Ophelia shook her head. “No, for now, I’m exactly where I want to be.” Carolina didn’t seem to know what to say to that, but her smile said everything it needed to. “Why are we going to Chestwil?”
“I need to write to Kala,” Carolina answered, “to tell her about the governor trying to stop us from leaving. And I know the rebellion is important to you. I figured you’d want to write to Lia and Izaak about the laibralt.”
“Thank you,” she said, and Carolina nodded. “Then what? If we’re not searching for Ascension, what will you do next?”
“I’m not sure,” Carolina said. “I guess go back to pirating, depending on what Kala says about our intruder. And you have a spot on this crew for as long as you want it.”
“May I make a suggestion?” she asked, and Carolina nodded again. “I suggest we keep searching for Ascension.”
Carolina blinked at her in shock. “I, um, what? I thought you didn’t want to Ascend?”
“I don’t,” she answered. “But maybe Lia Kane would. If we could find it, and then tell Izaak about it, I imagine it would secure Freedom in Shadow’s victory over Sovereign. And I’m certain Lia would break the curse for you.”
There was a long beat of silence as Carolina stared across the room and considered that, looking both shocked and fascinated at the same time. “Wow,” she murmured. “That’s not a bad idea. Brilliant, actually.”
“Thanks,” she said, “I had a lot of time to think yesterday.”
“I’ll get Berkeley and Rue,” Carolina suggested, and she nodded.
Carolina hurried out the infirmary door, returning less than a minute later with Berkeley and Rue in tow, and when she came back in, they all gathered around the treatment table.
“You two look,” Berkeley said, gesturing his hand in a circle at each of them, “not sad. Or mad. Or whatever it was you were at each other.”
“We had a good talk,” Carolina said.
Ophelia nodded her agreement. “We’ve sorted it all out.”
“That’s good,” Rue said. “So, no more Ascension? Can we get back to pirating now?”
“No,” Carolina answered.
“No?” Rue asked .
“There are several things we need to see to first,” Carolina said around the table. “Ophelia is going to write to Izaak about the laibralt. I need to write to Kala and tell her we won’t be coming back, and ask if she can find out what the governor wants with us. I’ll also be writing to John, to let him know we’ll be coming back to see him.”
“The archives?” Berkeley asked.
“Oh, I’d love to see the archives,” Ophelia added.
“Why are we going back there?” Rue asked.
“To search for another lead on Ascension,” Carolina answered.
Berkeley’s eyebrows shot up, but Rue’s brow furrowed with something very much like irritation as she said, “I thought we were done with that.”
“Ophelia won’t be Ascending,” Carolina confirmed. “But if we could find it and present it to Lia Kane, she might be interested. It would help the rebellion and I’d hope for her to undo the curse as well.”
“Oh,” Berkeley drawled, “that’s brilliant.”
“I thought so too,” Carolina said, passing Ophelia a proud smile. “When we get to Chestwil, tell the crew they can disembark for the week. We’ll use the time to restock and let them have some rest.” There was a brief pause, and then Carolina said, “Rue?”
All three of them looked at Rue, who was staring down at the desk with that annoyed look still on her face.
“Right, no, I have to say it,” Rue murmured to herself, and then she looked up at the rest of them. “I think this search for Ascension is dangerous and shouldn’t continue.”
“It’s the only way I’ll ever be free,” Carolina said.
“I know, Carolina,” Rue sighed, “but at what cost? Have you even stopped for one second to think about what would happen if power like that fell into the wrong hands?”
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t,” Carolina told her.
“You’re passing it off to the first witch you could think of,” Rue said, throwing up her hands. “You don’t know anything about Lia Kane.”
“No,” Carolina agreed, “but it could be what Freedom in Shadows needs to end Sovereign once and for all.”
“Look,” Rue argued, “if we want to join the rebellion instead of pirating, sign me up. But this…” She shook her head. “I can’t support it.”
“What does that mean?” Carolina asked .
Rue shook her head again and drew in a deep breath to sigh heavily as she set her hands on the desk. “Nothing, I guess. You’re going to do what you want anyway; you always do.”
Carolina glanced at Berkeley, and then over at Ophelia like she was looking for help about how to respond. Neither of them knew what to say, and though Ophelia couldn’t deny that Rue had a point, she also couldn’t think of another solution. She wanted Carolina to be free of her curse, and the more she used her magic and realized how much of a drain it was on her stamina, the more she wanted to be free of it too.
“I can’t stop searching for it,” Carolina said, “but, if we find it, we won’t reveal its location unless we know it’s safe. Is that good enough?”
Rue shrugged. “I guess it has to be.”
“Good,” Carolina said. “Then let’s find the impossible.”