Those Fatal Flowers

Chapter 21 Now

21

Now

Outside her door, the deck is quiet. The storm has settled. I turn to Cora, my fingers tracing the side of her face, not wanting to disturb her but knowing that I must.

We’re close. Scopuli’s pull pulses inside of me, the same way birds know where to migrate for the winter, following that instinctive, ancestral path to safer havens.

I place a gentle kiss on her cheek and whisper her name into her ear. She stirs, slow to rise. When her eyes find mine, it’s clear that she’s processing what’s happened between us. She wonders what it means for her soul.

There’s nothing I want more than to reassure her, but we don’t have time.

I slide from the bed to kneel before the wooden chest at its base. Its heavy lid creaks with resistance, but I find what I seek: a large crock filled with bayberry wax.

“Do you remember what to do with this?” My tone conveys my seriousness, and Cora’s hesitation is replaced with resolve.

“I do.”

“Their song will drive the men mad. If we have any hope of ever leaving Scopuli, we need to keep them away from the whipstaff, otherwise they’ll purposefully steer the ship into the rocks.”

“I know—Emme and I will keep them away from it.”

“And Margery and Elizabeth will load the others into the longboat just in case, right?”

“Yes, Thelia.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “We know what to do. You can trust us.”

“If…if something happens to me—”

“Thelia—”

“Please, Cora, let me say this. You can trust us, too. My sisters look frightening, but they won’t harm you.”

She reaches into the chest and withdraws a small cloth bundle from its depths. Nestled inside are the dragonfly fibulae Pisinoe gave me before I left. Tears blur my vision at the sight of them—the last place I saw them was on my fireplace mantel before I lost my son.

“How did you…”

“I know what they mean to you,” she whispers, sliding them into my hair. “Please be careful, Thelia. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“Do you remember the night before the challenge, when I followed you to the beach?” she asks.

I nod.

“This is going to sound absurd, but as I listened to you singing, I could so clearly see my life with you. It seemed impossible then, but now…”

Emboldened, I lean forward to kiss her again. She doesn’t turn away. Our lips tell each other all the things we’re too frightened to say aloud.

“I’ll find you when it’s over,” I whisper against her open mouth.

She nods, quivering against me.

Her tears taste like fear on my tongue.

Scopuli’s call carries me to the main deck, dressed in only my thin linen smock. The predawn air draws goosebumps on my skin, but though I know it’s cold, I don’t feel it. The blood is rushing too quickly through my veins. Sailors gawk as I brush past them, but they’re of little concern to me now. The bow is my destination, and I stare ahead, willing Scopuli to appear in the endless blue gradient of sea and sky. The sun sits low to the east, spilling its warm glow onto the waves.

Three tiny needles appear just left of center on the horizon, and every hair on my body rises. It’s a familiar, unmistakable sight, and it leaves me breathless: the rocky formations of Castle.

I’ve dreamed of this moment for months, thought through every minute detail, but now that the time is here, I’m frozen in place.

“Thelia?” Cora whispers, and her voice shatters my suspension. I whirl around to meet her.

“Cora.” The desperation in my voice catches us both by surprise. She throws a shawl around my shoulders, always concerned for my decency. I take it readily. With my reverie broken, the chill finds my skin, and I pull the shawl tight around my frame. “Go, now.”

My tone sends her back a few steps, but I don’t have time to calibrate my reactions properly. If we can see Castle’s spires, it won’t be long before Raidne and Pisinoe discover us approaching from the south.

Cora takes off toward the gun deck, and I look north once more. The trio of rocks grows larger; there’s no denying it. I tear myself from the view and head for the Bailies’ cabin. No one answers when I knock the first time, so I knock again, louder. A few moments pass before Mistress Bailie answers, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Mother and son have both just woken.

“Lady Thelia.” Her eyes widen in surprise. Just as Emme and Margery suspected, in the fury of the storm, no one bothered to confirm if their story about Charles was true.

“We’re approaching Scopuli,” I say cheerfully. Excitement radiates off my words. The elder Bailie stiffens at the news.

“What do you mean?” Thomas’s voice is pitched, no doubt alarmed by my appearance in his doorway. “Your map says we’re still a few days out.”

Saliva pools beneath my tongue, and I laugh at this little gift from Proserpina. “Did you think I’d tell you Scopuli’s true location?”

“Go warn the men,” Agnes orders, twisting to face her son. Her tone pushes him to pull on his leather boots. “And ready the cannon.”

His expression darkens at the order, but he obeys it, stumbling shirtless from their cabin. I let him pass and then close myself in with her. The corner of her lip twitches at the sound of the door clicking into place, but even now, she’s too proud to let me see her fear for long. Instead, she moves to stand before a mirror that hangs on the wall to our right, eyeing herself in the looking glass. Gracile fingers collect her yellow hair to twist it into a bun, then she reaches for her hairpins to secure it in place. I want, no, I need to see her jaw drop, her carefully constructed exterior crumble into ash.

“You taught me an important lesson, Agnes.”

That piques her attention, and our eyes connect in the mirror’s reflection. “And what was that?”

“Before I met you, it wasn’t in my nature to wish harm upon women. So many of us have suffered at the hands of men. It seemed wrong, no, perverse, to inflict that same cruelty on each other.”

I deposit Cora’s shawl on her bed, then slide beside her and pluck the pins from her grasp. She still holds her unsecured bun with her other hand, and I slip the delicate metal pieces into those daffodil locks for her.

“But then you showed me it wasn’t simply the sex between your legs that can corrupt a person. That although we bear unimaginable burdens, women can curdle just as easily when lusting for power. Tell me, why did you kill Will?”

She turns to face me, intrigued by my candor. The smirk on her lips reveals that she doesn’t believe herself to be in any real danger. “I didn’t.”

“You know what I mean. All of this”—my hands motion to the room around us—“was your idea.”

“Will meddled where he shouldn’t have, and after, it wasclear that he was never going to do what needed to be done.”

Her voice is steady, calm, as if she’s discussing her favorite Bible verse or her preferred flavor of tea. But then her eyes narrow. “You had something to do with his body ending up outside the walls—how did you move him there without being caught?”

I ignore her question. “Why would you do such a terrible thing?”

“For Thomas, of course. He needs to be guided to greatness.”

“You’ve hurt a lot of people.”

“The world is a dark place, Lady Thelia. The weak don’t survive it.”

The back of my throat begins to tingle, although the exact sensation is difficult to describe. It’s not painful, but there’s a pressure that builds, and it begs to be released. It’s my song, trying to break free. Now that Scopuli is close, its magic has returned.

“If I wanted to, I could enchant you. I’d lead you off the ship’s edge and let you drown in the waves below. If the gods deemed you fit, you’d wash ashore alive, and I’d slit your throat as a sacrifice to them.”

Her eyes widen in disgust. “I knew something was wrong with you from the very first time I saw—”

“Most men don’t survive the gauntlet of the waves and reefs. But you’re stronger than most men. I’m so tempted to see if you’d live. I’m almost certain you would. And what an incredible offering you’d make! Proserpina would love that pretty porcelain neck of yours and the treacherous blood in your veins. But I’m tired of waiting for the gods’ approval.” I pull one of the fibulae from my hair and press its pin into my finger to test its sharpness. A tiny bubble of blood erupts from my flesh, and I smile. “When I kill your son, his death will be for me. Just like yours.”

She lunges for me, and we fall to the floor. Despite her age, she’s strong, and it doesn’t take long for her slender hands to find their way around my throat. She should call for Thomas, now that she has me in her grasp, and I think a part of her knows that. But she can’t resist the urge to choke the life out of me herself.

I anticipated such a reaction, and with a single, swift movement, I jab the fibula’s pin, Cora’s gift, into the side of her neck. Her eyes widen with surprise, and, without thinking, she pulls the brooch from her flesh. A thin line of blood sprays onto the floor, painting the wood crimson.

Agnes slides off me and fumbles around on her hands and knees for something to press against the wound. While she’s distracted, I wander to her bedside table. There, resting atop the gleaming wood, is a slender knife.

“That was for Will,” I say, straddling my legs across her frame to peer down at her. “But this is for me. For those nights you stood by and did nothing to stop your vile son from taking what wasn’t his.”

She looks for me over her shoulder, but I sink the blade into the other side of her throat before she finds me. This time, she knows the blow is fatal. She slumps to the ground, her fingers caressing the handle, too afraid to pull it out.

My hand pushes hers out of the way.

“Don’t,” she pleads. But it’s too late for that—I tug. Her blood paints me, and Agnes chokes on her own sins just like Jaquob did, but this time, I don’t feel compelled to watch. Let her die scared and alone. It’s what she deserves. I wrap myself in Cora’s shawl to hide the worst of Agnes’s mess and exit back onto the deck, into chaos.

Thomas is nowhere to be seen, but he’s clearly given orders. The men who rush past are distracted, too lost in theirassignments to notice as their captive sneaks to the helmsman’s cabin. As instructed, Emme and Cora are posted outside, waiting for the signal to begin. Once they have it, they’ll knock out the helmsman and drop Endurance ’s anchor.

“Thelia,” Cora says with a gasp, taking in the crimson on my gown. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s not mine,” I say gently, watching as their expressions shift from fear to surprise. To agree to a revolution in a quiet room is one thing, but to stand before its bloody reality is quite another. What if they change their minds?

But then Emme spits and says, “Good riddance,” and all I can do is smile.

“Are the others in place?”

“Yes,” Cora says. “Elizabeth gathered everyone, and Elyoner and Liz are sealing their ears. When it…when it starts, Rose will give us the signal before joining the others to head for the longboat.”

I nod, an anxious energy thrumming in my gut. All that’s left is to wait for my sisters to make our first move. “Do you have yours in?”

“Not yet, we—”

Emme catches sight of my expression and presses a glob of the light green substance into each of her ears before she turns away to peer through a small window onto the main deck. It’s all the privacy I need.

“Now, please, Cora.”

She looks reluctant, but she concedes.

“Can you hear what I am saying?”

Cora shakes her head no.

I lean forward and kiss her, too painfully aware of all the ways this moment could be our last. Cora’s lips tremble beneath my own.

“Thelia, I—”

“There’s no time, Cora—” I start, but my objection falls on unhearing ears.

“I love you,” she says. “I don’t care what it means for my soul.”

I press my forehead to hers and close my eyes, reveling in her roses one last time. “I love you, too.”

Anticipation carries me across the upper deck toward the longboat. Already, Castle’s spires loom larger on the horizon, and to their right, the elevated cliffs of Scopuli finally rise to join them. There was a part of me that didn’t believe I’d make it home again, and yet here I am, just as Proserpina decreed. My eyes scan the sky for signs of movement. A dark figure dips between the clouds, but it’s only a gull, and my heart sinks.

Hugh Taylor appears around the opposite side of the longboat. He stops in his tracks when he sees me, his eyes flooding with confusion.

“How did you—” He cranes his head to the half deck above, no doubt scanning for Thomas. A dog without his master, unable to create his own orders. I won’t let him ask for them. My hands dive for his arm, fingernails finding purchase in his flesh.

“You bitch!” he growls, yanking out of my grasp. My nails leave bloody trails in their wake, and though he raises a hand to hit me, I can’t help myself—I laugh. “You have no idea what’s coming for you—”

I hear them before I see them. The wind carries their melody, soft at first, over the miles that still lie between us. It’s a haunting sound, wind blowing over a glass, a loon calling across the gloaming. It stops Hugh’s hand midair, and he follows my gaze to the heavens.

Two shadowy figures approach from the north. Hugh’s eyes grow into large circles; his mouth falls agape.

He smiles like a man who’s seeing angels. I didn’t understand Jaquob’s confusion before, but now I do—witnessing their winged forms soar through the clouds is like watching a star fall. There’s an unmistakable magic in it. Before, I could see only our ugliness, but now I finally understand.

We are angels of destruction, and this ship is Gomorrah.

“No.” I laugh again, pulling Hugh’s attention back to me. “It’s you who has no idea.”

Their song grows louder, and Hugh wanders to the edge of the boat for a better look. Elizabeth appears on the upper deck, the other innocents in tow. They too stand in reverent awe at the sight of winged women in the sky.

Now’s the time.

I cross the deck to shake Elizabeth’s shoulder, and when our eyes meet, it takes her a moment to find me from behind her wonder. But then her mouth tightens in firm resolve, and with a nod, she turns to the other women and children and begins ushering them inside the longboat. Rose rushes past us, off to alert Emme and Cora.

Which leaves me free to find Thomas. How desperate I’ve been for this, and now, after all this time, it’s finally here.

Pain erupts between my shoulders, eclipsing my fantasies of revenge. I reach a trembling hand back to run my fingers between them. The skin there is too taut, stretched thin by something hard pushing up from beneath. I recoil with horror at the same time that a sickening rip interrupts the enchanting melody that filters down from above.

The sixth full moon hangs heavy in the western sky, and as dawn banishes it beneath the waves, it takes the magic of Jaquob’s sacrifice with it. Talons erupt from my bare toes, slashing the wooden planks beneath them, and agony brings me to my knees. This great unfurling, of feathers that push through skin, of wings that split open my back, hurts far worse than when my body absorbed them only a few months ago. But this time, I bear it without succumbing to the darkness that beckons, even when those magnificent black wings unfold and spray the deck with viscera—a mixture of my blood, my muscle. In the longboat, now safely lowered into the ocean, people scream.

But not because of me. They can’t see me over the edge of the ship, on all fours, desperate to keep myself from collapsing entirely. It’s because of Hugh, who has climbed over the low wall that separates him from the sea. Despite my cries, Hugh never looks at me. He’s transfixed by my sisters, and when they’re close enough that I can finally make out their faces, even blurred by tears, Hugh jumps out to them, then falls into the churning waves below.

What image was it that called him into the raging sea? Was it a kingdom of gold and a wife to own, or a different, secret wish he’ll carry to his watery grave?

Raidne and Pisinoe should lead the ship to the north to dodge the worst part of the reef. They don’t know we plan to anchor it, only that this part of the cove is vicious, and we need as many sailors alive as possible. But they spot me. Pisinoe takes Raidne’s hand, and before I know what’s happening, they crash onto the deck and sweep me into a tight embrace.

It’s Raidne who speaks first, pulling herself away just enough to take stock of me. “Are you all right? Look at you…”

I nod weakly, too overcome for words to form.

“Can you stand?” Pisinoe asks gently, and the two help me onto my feet. It doesn’t take long for the enchanted sailors to find us, driven mad by my sisters’ voices. Their eyes are glassy, their expressions hungry, as they pour onto the upper deck to find us huddled together. Terror sends me deeper into my sisters’ arms. The men are so frenzied by their proximity, so desperate for their futures, that they’ll tear us apart to look for them in our entrails. Though I’ve forgotten what I am, Raidne and Pisinoe haven’t. They open their mouths and let their song envelop them.

Immediately, the sailors stop in their tracks, swaying in sync with the melody, wearing slack-jawed grins. The notes bring tears to my eyes, and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the protection our song brings. But my heart still beats wildly in my chest. My body doesn’t trust that I’m truly safe; I can’t forget the weakness of my human form.

Raidne stretches her wings, and then Pisinoe follows, and both look to me expectantly. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with sea and salt, and close my eyes. One powerful beat is all it takes before we’re in the sky, out of danger’s grasp, and I scream once more.

This time, it’s with joy. We climb higher and higher into the heavens, twirling through the clouds and basking in the golden glow of dawn. Raidne and Pisinoe are laughing, and then I am, too. When we find one another again, we join hands to form an unbreakable ring in the sky.

“You’re here,” Raidne says, eyes shimmering with tears, voice painted with awe. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t return?”

“We knew you wouldn’t purposefully abandon us,” Pisinoe says softly. “But as the months passed…”

“…We were afraid something might have happened,” Raidne adds.

Something did happen, I want to cry. I made friends and buried a lover. I carried and lost a child.

I fell in love.

Cora.

I look for her below, but if she’s on the deck to drop Endurance ’s anchor, she’s hidden beneath the clouds.

“You must have thousands of stories for us…” Raidne says, seeing how my eyes are searching.

Before I can answer her, a loud boom cracks across the sky and a flash of light dazzles from below.

“What was that?” Pisinoe asks, alarmed. I pull them both higher into the heavens.

“A musket,” I say, unable to hide the surprise in my voice. “A weapon.”

“But how?” Raidne’s brows crumple in confusion.

Her question makes my palms sweat. But how indeed. Was it one of the women, unable to bear the sight of us bewitching their men? No, Cora would never allow that…unless she, too, was revolted by what she saw and felt compelled to try to fix it.

“Stay here.”

“Thelxiope—”

“Someone’s stuffed their ears with wax—they aren’t enchanted. Just wait here until you hear me sing.”

“But—”

“Please. I need you both to trust me one last time.”

I cling to clouds as I descend back toward the ship. The sailors still stand stupefied on the main deck, looking for any sign of us. As soon as they see me, they’ll start calling out, alerting whoever has the musket to my presence. I hang suspended, unsure how to proceed, when Raidne and Pisinoe’s song begins again, this time from the opposite side of the Endurance .

All the men turn to the south to face their sound. The distraction is enough. I drop to the side of the ship and skirt along its edges until I spot the longboat in the water. It’s nestled against the Endurance, a baby animal hiding beside its mother for protection. From here, I can read the faces of the women, and they’re terrified, including those who knew something was going to happen.

The children wail, and the din swells so loudly I fear it might mask my sisters’ song, but the damage to the men above is already done. A loud crash into the waves reveals another sailor who grew tired of waiting and took to the sea to try to reach Raidne and Pisinoe.

Little Ambrose sees me first, and when he does, he lets out a bloodcurdling scream. The wax isn’t strong enough to block it out entirely, and it doesn’t take long for the others to spot me, too. Some shriek and point, trying to warn the sailors above, but thankfully, the men don’t listen. I search for familiar faces—Rose watches me with confused, wide eyes. Elyoner makes the sign of the cross.

Elizabeth blinks back tears and holds a hand over her mouth.

But no one has the musket.

Thomas.

I hold a finger to my lips, desperately miming shh. I don’t know if he’ll be able to hear the commotion that they’re making from wherever he is above, but if he spots them all flailing, finding me won’t be difficult.

“Please,” I mouth, and to my surprise, it’s Ambrose who stops crying first. Elizabeth turns to the others, her hands finding their shoulders, their backs, though what she says to try to calm them is lost to the waves. When she finally looks over her shoulder at me, she nods ever so slightly—I nod back, and then I climb onto the ship.

I make my way down to the half deck. There below, in themiddle of the swaying sailors, is Thomas. His left arm is wrapped around Cora’s neck, and she struggles to break free of the choke hold he has her in. Emme lies in a crumpled mess at their feet. Her frizzy red hair is matted with crimson.

His bright expression reveals my worst fear. Thomas isn’t enchanted. Behind him, several of his closest allies are bound to the main mast. They writhe and demand to be released, to be allowed to seek out the otherworldly creatures who sing their fates, but Thomas disregards their pleas.

He’s too busy searching the skies. His right hand holds the loaded musket, though there’s no way he’ll be able to aim it accurately with Cora in tow. The key is to make him fire it. After the round is released, he’ll need to drop Cora to reload it. That’s time I can use to strike it from his hands, and then, finally, he’ll be mine.

Cora spots me before Thomas does; she gasps at the sight of me, unintentionally drawing Thomas’s attention to the half deck. A large grin slices across his face when he finds me, and he raises the musket.

“Think you’re so clever?” he shouts. For a moment, I wonder why he bothers addressing me at all, but then I realize—it’s because I’m not quite within the weapon’s range. He needs to draw me closer. “I’ll admit, you almost had me. But imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon Margery on the main deck trying to seal her son’s ears with bayberry wax, of all things!” His grin is predatory, vile, and my stomach churns with the realization that I never saw Margery or Jeremie inside the longboat.

“What have you done to them?” I growl back, forgetting that he can’t hear me.

“And now a young boy will pay the price for his mother’s treachery. Remember that, Margery. This is your fault.”

Only then do I find her face among the men tied to the mast. She thrashes against the ropes that bind her in place, and though her mouth is stuffed with something, her frantic screams still escape around the fabric. Thomas cocks his head to the left, and I discover the source of Margery’s panic: There, standing on the ship’s edge with a few of the other sailors, is Jeremie. Thomas must have stolen his wax, and without it, he’s not protected. The wind blows through his mousy hair, so much like his mother’s. It makes his linen shirt billow like a cloud.

There’s no time to wonder if a future version of Jeremie deserves to drown. There’s only this moment, where he’s just a child, not yet two. Instinct takes hold, and I call out to him, spreading open my wings. My voice must cut through some of the song’s magic, because he turns to look at me over his shoulder. But after the briefest flicker of a smile, he jumps.

He’s gone.

Margery’s screams shatter something inside of me, and I rush forward after him. I don’t understand the situation I’ve put myself in until I hear the musket boom.

The sound is so startling that I instinctively throw my body to the left, though I have no way of knowing where the musket ball is as it tears out of the gun’s barrel to find me. It grazes my right arm, spraying a trail of blood and feathers across the deck.

The gun kicks back against Thomas’s shoulder, and Cora uses the force of the blow to tear herself from his grasp.

“Go, Thelia! Run!”

The pain that radiates from my wound, Cora’s plea, even poor Jeremie—they can’t distract from the singular truth that this, right now, is my moment. I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate this man, not even Dis, who at least had the excuse of being a god. That hatred fuels me as I stretch out my wings and prepare to dive.

The horror of my full form erases the grin from Thomas’s lips. His fingers shake as he tries to reload the musket, but there was never going to be enough time for that. I soar down to him, my talons outstretched. Thomas abandons the gun, and Cora pulls herself along the deck to curl her fingers around its barrel. Once it’s safely in her hands, I begin my song.

This time, the notes are desperate and hurried, full of rage. They call back my sisters, who appear above. Now that they’re in sight, there’s nothing to stop the men who linger freely on the deck from jumping into the waves to try to reach them.

“You’re a monster!” Thomas shouts. “A demon!”

I beat my wings a few times to lift myself higher, surprised by how good this body feels, how natural. I missed it. My talons find him easily, an owl snatching a mouse from beneath the snow. They dig into his shoulders and flex between his muscles. Thomas shrieks with pain, and my grip tightens.

The sound is so pleasing that I toss back my head and laugh as my fingers move to claw the wax from his ears. When I speak, I want—no, I need him to hear the triumph in my voice. “You’re the true monster,” I hiss down at him. “Or your god wouldn’t deem it fit to punish you so. Tell me, Thomas—do you think he’s going to save you?”

“Damn you, damn you!” he cries. I take to the air, carrying Thomas with me. Raidne and Pisinoe circle above. I don’t hear their song; they’ve been holding their breath.

“What’s going on? Are you bringing him to shore?” Pisinoe asks, tilting her head to Thomas.

“No,” I growl. “This one’s mine.”

Thomas struggles to break free, but he can’t flail too much without causing my talons to constrict tighter. I wiggle them inside him, slicing through tendons as easily as a knife slices through butter.

My sisters nod knowingly. There’s something ugly in Thomas’s core, a rotting pit they recognize from their memory of how gods would let their gaze linger too long on our young bodies, of how Jaquob defended his actions. They didn’t see Dis or his power, but I did. Thomas shares something with him, just as Jaquob did, and as all those men did years ago. Dis might be the ruler of darkness, but there’s a darkness, a little piece of sin that can fester if it goes too long untreated, in some mortal men as well.

Some, but not all.

“A little boy jumped. I need you to save him.”

There, in the raging water below, Jeremie struggles to keep himself afloat. Raidne, my violent, vicious Raidne, doesn’t ask for an explanation: She simply dives to rescue him.

Finally, there’s nothing left to hold me back. I drop Thomas.

He falls into the sea like a stone, the force of the fall sending him deep beneath the waves. They hold him below for the span of several breaths, but I don’t panic. How many times have I seen this happen before? Sure enough, Thomas resurfaces, his arms flailing for something, anything, to keep him afloat. He unleashes a scream for help, but I’m the only one who can answer, and I let the ocean pound him. His pain, his fear, they send a victorious shiver up my spine.

The blood loss from his wounded shoulders will speed along his demise, and when he’s at risk of passing out, I lunge for him again—I need him awake for what’s coming. He screams up at me as I descend, but there’s nothing he can do to stop me.

See my strength, I think. It was here the whole time.

My talons find his back again, and a thrust of my wings pulls us both from the water. We begin rising, rising, rising, until we are a silhouette against the sun, then I turn toward Castle’s dangerous rock formations. The three spires glow red in Aurora’s dawn, covered in countless jagged protrusions, thousands of tiny blades. They’ll easily tear his body open. His blood will be the sparkling rubies in its crown.

Thomas moans, realizing what I have planned for him.

“No, Thelia…!”

I’ve fantasized about this moment since the night he took me without asking. Now I’ll take from him. My grip loosens, and I can feel his skin sliding off my claws when I look down to the Endurance ’s deck one last time. There, balancing a soaking wet Jeremie on her hip, is Cora. Her free hand points desperately at me in warning, and though I find the sound of her frantic cries amid the chaos, I can’t make out their contents.

By the time I understand, it’s too late.

A sudden pain in my side snaps my attention to Thomas. I release him in shock, but the agony tears down with him as he falls. There’s a knife in my flank, right beneath my left rib. He’s stuck it in deep, and Thomas is keeping himself from falling by holding on to the handle for dear life.

My fingers move to claw at his hands, and he releases the knife but grabs on to my waist. I growl, and he looks up at me, a mixture of disbelief and pleasure washing over his face. There’s no sight of Raidne and Pisinoe. They must be on the beach with our captives.

I throw my entire body to the left, sending us spiraling down, and then to the right, and then up on an air vent, trying to loosen his grip on me with sudden and unexpected movements, but he doesn’t relinquish his hold. I tear at his face, but he uses my fury against me and takes the opportunity to pull the knife from my side.

This time, he sinks it into my stomach.

I scream. The sound pierces the air, and Thomas howls triumphantly as he twists the blade in deeper. I feel every excruciating second as it tears through my muscle, as it punctures my organs. My fingers find his eye sockets, desperate to stop him. Thomas releases his hold on the knife as his eyes burst from their orifices with a sickening pop. Now the shrieks that fill the air are his, but this brings me no comfort.

I’ve gutted enough men and animals alike to know that the blow Thomas dealt is fatal. With willing ears and blood, we can turn back time. But we’re not immortal. He’s sentenced me to death.

I hover there, my wings beating at a steady pace to keep us aloft, my thumbs still weaving around inside his skull as my breathing slows. I think about the night I washed onto Roanoke’s shores, about my desperate plea to the gods. I asked them only to free my sisters. I didn’t ask to be saved as well—one final cruel twist of fate for the gods to revel in.

Tears pool in my eyes, blurring my vision. I don’t have much time. Already, Thomas feels heavier, harder to bear. Soon I won’t be able to hold him at all. I’ve reached the end of my thread. Somewhere below, the Fates open their shears, but where I expected to find terror, there’s only a strange sense of resignation. I fulfilled my duty to my sisters. I freed Cora from the grip of a vile man. They’ll go on to live long lives, far away from here. And gods, though I wish more than anything that I could join them, there’s only one thing left to do.

I’m sorry, Cora. I wish you didn’t have to see this.

I fold my wings behind my back. Cora screams my name from below, but there’s no way to stop this now. Thomas and I plummet through the air, gaining speed as we go, quickening us to our fates.

In the blur of sea and sky that rush past, I see Raidne and Pisinoe returned to their divine forms, finally allowed to rejoin the gods.

I see Wenefrid and Sybil laughing over ale in the abandoned ruins of the City of Raleigh.

I see the other women and children returning to England’s shores.

And finally, there’s Cora standing before the sea, on the cusp of an unimaginable adventure of her own making.

Dying for this is worth it. After all, a sacrifice has to hurt, or else it isn’t a sacrifice.

Castle’s spires grow closer and closer. My eyes flutter closed; my lips part in one last prayer.

Our bodies break upon the cliffs.