Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Bonnie and Cali were the last ones to reach the dock leading to the ship, and their steps slowed as the pirates walked the hellkin prisoners down the splintered wooden planks lit by intermittent hanging lanterns. Before the two reached the gangway of The Cruel Mistress, Cali stopped short.
A woman stood at the end of the dock, half-turned toward the water as if she’d been watching the tide come in. Chestnut hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders, and even from a distance, Cali knew the particular tilt of the head and the shape of the profile.
Time hadn’t touched her. She looked exactly the way she had the last morning Cali had seen her all those years ago.
“Adelaide,” Cali breathed, and the name cracked something open in her chest that she hadn’t realized was still sealed shut.
The woman turned fully now, and her face broke into a smile that was equal parts joy and old sorrow. “I heard a pantheri of your description was crewing with The Cruel Mistress. I had to see for myself if it was you.”
Cali couldn’t move. She was distantly aware of Bonnie beside her, going still.
“You heard?” Cali managed, her voice ragged in a way she barely recognized. “From who?”
“The mermaids,” Adelaide said, with a small, easy shrug, as though this were the most natural thing in the world. “And the sirens.”
Cali’s mind stumbled over the words. “Why would they talk to you?”
“Because she’s a selkie,” Bonnie said quietly before Adelaide could answer.
Cali shook her head, certain the captain was mistaken.
Adelaide had crewed with her on dry land for the better part of a year, had slept under the same stars, and walked the same dusty roads.
The woman had never once shown any sign of being anything other than an ordinary human.
But Adelaide stepped closer, nodding slowly, and something in her green eyes shifted.
“She’s right,” Adelaide said.
“But how?” Cali’s voice came out thin. “We crewed together. On land. Selkies live in the sea.”
“We can live on land if we choose,” Adelaide said, her expression darkening at the edges. “Many of us do for a time to experience something new, but we never leave the sea for long. Not unless someone steals our sealskin.”
It was then that Cali noticed the glossy black cape hooked over her shoulders.
Cali’s stomach dropped. “Is that what happened to you? Did someone take your skin? Were you searching for it? Is that why you joined the crew?”
Adelaide reached out and squeezed her arm, the touch achingly familiar. “It was the head of our crew. Davos lured me from the sea with promises of adventure, but when I tried to leave, he stole my skin and hid it from me so I would keep working for him.”
Fury flared hot in Cali’s chest. “You were a prisoner?”
“It wasn’t all bad,” Adelaide said, her smile turning sad. “Especially once you joined the crew. Once I had you, it wasn’t unbearable at all.”
Cali’s heart twisted hard enough to steal her breath. “Then what happened? We talked about leaving together. I went on that scouting trip, and when I came back, you were gone.”
She remembered Davos’s fury, his refusal to give her a single straight answer, and the way he’d forbidden them to send out a search party.
He’d known she’d gone back to the sea. He’d known, and he’d kept it from her.
Probably because he’d known Cali would have killed him if she’d learned the truth of his cruelty.
“I found my skin in his belongings,” Adelaide said.
“He’d grown careless, or perhaps he simply didn’t think I’d ever find the courage to escape.
I took it while he was distracted, and I knew I might not get another chance.
” Her voice caught. “Leaving you behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Cali.
But the pull of the sea was too strong. I was never meant to stay on land.
I was never meant to love a land dweller, not for longer than borrowed time. ”
Cali’s throat squeezed, but she husked out the words she wanted to say. “I’ve been looking for you. All this time.”
It made a terrible, perfect sense now. She’d never found a single trace of the woman in any village or forest because the selkie had been in the sea. Cali had never once thought to look near the water, much less under it. She’d spent her whole life avoiding it.
“I’ve been listening for news of you for so long,” Adelaide said, “that I had nearly given up hope you would ever come close enough to the sea for me to find you.”
“I’ve never been a fan of water,” Cali admitted.
Adelaide laughed. “Oh, I know. They say opposites attract. Maybe that’s why we were drawn together. But we could never have shared the same fate.”
Cali nodded slowly. She had spent so many years searching for this woman, building a version of her in memory that never aged, never changed, and never moved on.
But now, she understood with sudden clarity how much she herself had changed in the years between.
A strange calm settled over her, easing something that had been clenched tight for so long.
She squeezed Adelaide’s hand. “I’m relieved to know you’re alive and well. ”
“And I’m relieved to know you’ve stayed alive all these years,” Adelaide said with a mischievous smile. “You loved taking risks.”
“I found a good crew,” Cali said. “They’ve saved my life more times than I can count.”
“I wish it could have been me,” the selkie whispered.
“I understand why it couldn’t be.” Cali’s voice steadied as she said it, and she found she meant every word. “Thank you for coming to me now.”
Adelaide pulled her into an embrace, fierce and warm, smelling faintly of salt. “If I could have given up the sea for anyone,” she murmured against Cali’s ear, “it would have been you.”
Sometimes you don’t know the beauty of a moment until it becomes a memory, but Cali knew as she sank into the hug that this was one of the saddest and loveliest moments of her life.
She also knew it would be the last time she’d ever see Adelaide.
That should have made her heart ache with sorrow.
Instead, it made her heart swell with gratitude.
For the first time since she’d returned to the camp to find her love simply gone, the guilt unspooled, and the time-worn ache eased. She’d done what she’d promised herself. She’d found Adelaide, and in doing so, her captive heart had been freed.
Adelaide drew back, ran a hand through Cali’s hair, pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, and whispered, “Goodbye, my lovely pantheri.”
Then she turned and dove from the edge of the dock, the water closing over her in a smooth, silent ripple. Cali watched the echoes in the water spread, and just before the surface went still entirely, a sleek black tail flicked once above the waves and vanished.
“Are you all right?” Bonnie asked quietly beside her.
Cali kept her eyes on the water for another moment before she turned to face the captain, and found, somewhat to her own surprise, that the answer came easily.
“Yes,” she said. For the first time in a long while, she truly was.