Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Sofie
Iblinked away my dream-like state, almost relieved the Bride was nowhere in sight.
I’d defeated her. Still, it would be a while before I shook off the feeling of her power, of her dark presence and death magic.
Even now, the opal wedding ring remained on my finger. I was almost afraid to try removing it.
Instead of the Bride, Jax’s face swam into view, with Safira behind him. Her expression was dour. His was stony, except for one thing…
Why did his eyes look so sad?
“What’s happened?” I asked, my words slurring slightly. Curse them all. They must’ve put me under Safira’s siren magic again so I wouldn’t cause trouble as we sailed closer to Dewspell. “Why did you—”
“You’re free to go now,” Jax said. He straightened, satisfied I was lucid again. He turned to dismiss Safira with a nod. “You’d best go check on Omar,” he told her.
“Free to go where?” I asked as Safira slipped out of the room like it was water. “Are we still at Dewspell?”
“We are.” Why did Jax look so stiff?
I rolled my eyes. “I see. You need me to negotiate with them so you can disembark. What are you after? Do you think they’ll compensate you for my burning your treasure? Or am I a prisoner in truth now, and a hostage, too?”
Jax’s eyes were dark and almost unreadable—but I couldn’t shake the sense that he was carrying sorrow behind them.
“The negotiating is done,” he said, his voice flat. “You have four minutes to join your professors on deck.”
I felt as though I were sinking. “What do you mean? What have you done, Jax?”
He couldn’t look at me. Not really. His gaze was fixed just above my eyes, like there was something on my forehead besides my dwarvish red eyebrows, which were pitched high.
I stood, swaying a quick second before I tensed every muscle in my body. I wouldn’t appear weak in front of him. Not ever again.
“Your professors can explain our bargain to you,” he finally answered, “if they so choose. You’re not my problem now. Not for the next year, and maybe not ever again.”
I was so used to growing hot and my cheeks burning around Jax, it was a shock when I turned cold. “What in Aestas’s name did you do?” I rasped.
“What needed to be done.” He crossed his arms, muscles flexing beneath the black ink that marked them. “You of all people should understand.”
“You really are heartless, aren’t you?” I laughed bitterly. “You’ll never forgive me for destroying your precious treasure.”
Jax’s eyes lightened just a shade as he arched a challenging, scarred brow. “Would you want me to?”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
I huffed, turning to collect my things—only to discover I had little else but the clothes on my back, and ones borrowed from the other women on the crew during wash days and for sleeping. Those, I left where they were. There was nothing of mine here but my sorceress’s “go bag.”
Nothing at all.
But once, I’d thought Jax might actually be mine.
“What a fool I’ve been,” I muttered as I slung the little bag over my shoulder. I brushed by Jax as I turned towards the cabin door. That little bit of contact left me cringing.
Still, I stopped as he grasped my arm gently, keeping me from leaving the captain’s cabin.
“I thought you were falling for me once,” Jax said. “But if you were in love with me, you never would’ve destroyed the Queen of the Sea. You would’ve understood everything it meant to me. To all of my crew.”
“So you choosing the treasure over me was just a selfless act, was it?” I sneered at him.
“How could I ever have fallen for you? You never trusted me. You never let me feel like part of your crew. Maybe that’s so you’d never have to consider what I needed from you.
I’m sorry I’m last in your thoughts, Jax, and I’m even more sorry that I was starting to feel glad we’d met. ”
His expression was pained, but I didn’t believe it. Even now, all he was thinking about was that stupid treasure. Even now, he thought like a child that there was some way to have both things he desired.
Because that’s what was in his eyes, mixed with sorrow. He wanted me to beg him to change his mind and stay with me. He wanted me to be his. But I was not a toy.
“You aren’t last in my thoughts, Sofie,” Jax said, his voice quiet. “But you aren’t the only one with a difficult duty to carry out, either.”
“Then this is for the best,” I said, wishing my lower lip would stop its foolish quivering. “Goodbye, Jax. I hope we never meet again.”
He removed his hand, letting me leave. But at the last moment, he spun, pinning his arms on either side of me so my back was against the door. It all happened so fast, I barely managed a squeak of surprise.
His face was so close to mine, pitched down as if we were two lovers about to kiss. But we’d always been something more and less than that. So much less.
“For what it’s worth, Sofie,” he said, his eyes dark as they pinned me in place against the door, “if it’s worth anything.
” He paused, laughing softly, removing one hand from beside me so he could rake it through his hair.
“The man I was before the curse would’ve sailed with you for the rest of his life.
He would’ve chosen you over the treasure, too.
But we aren’t meant to be. Not in this lifetime. ”
“Gods help you, you’re more of a coward than I thought!” I snapped, for once not thinking before I spoke. My own anger took me by surprise, clenching my hands into fists and reddening my face. “It was still your choice to make. You didn’t make the right one, and you can’t even admit it!”
He said nothing to that, only stepped back, removing the cage of his arms. So I wheeled and threw open the door before he could sweet talk me with something even more painful to hear.
But that wasn’t Jax’s way. He always had to twist the dagger.
Just before I could slam the cabin door shut behind me, I heard his voice one final time.
“You deserve better than to be their villain.”
I shut the door before he could say anything else, then tromped across the deck, pulling up short only when I saw the three faces that greeted me.
“Dean Andaren, Professor Elkin—Lis!”
All three smile brightly. Lis touched the front of her cap. “It’s Harbormaster Lis now, Sofie. Welcome home.”
I ran forward, pulling my friend into a huge embrace that was equal parts relief and congratulations. As soon as I released her, Professor Elkin offered me a cordial half bow, and Dean Andaren patted the top of my head.
“Nice to have you back, Dar’Vester,” Andaren said, flashing one of his brilliant but mischievous smiles.
I wasn’t even on the quay yet, and already I felt at home.
But as I turned toward the ship’s rail, ready to follow them down the ladder, a high, keening wail stopped me.
I spun, only to find Safira pleading with Violet and several members of Temerity’s crew. They were carrying Omar and Oasis from below deck.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “They shouldn’t be moved!”
A hand was on my arm again. This time, it belonged to Lis.
“It’s alright, Sof. It’s part of the bargain. Captain Bluebeard wants us to heal his injured crew in exchange for giving you back to us. Do you know them?” she asked of Omar and Oasis as the crew ferried them across the deck on stretchers.
But I didn’t. Not really. No one on the ships of Carabosse allowed me to be truly close to them, maybe because they thought I would fail. Because they thought there was no point in getting close with another doomed bride.
“I’ll take it from here,” Professor Elkin said, lifting a palm to stop the stretchers’ progress. His brow barely twitched as he summoned air magic to lift Omar and Oasis from their stretchers, ferrying them toward the side of the ship.
“Stop—you can’t take him!” Safira shouted, trying to grasp Omar’s arm. It was stiff at his side, wrapped in invisible bonds of air.
I slipped away from Lis so I could face Dean Andaren, not daring to break Professor Elkin’s concentration. “This woman is his wife,” I said. “She has to go with him.”
Dean Andaren gaped back at me, puzzled. “Dear girl, that wasn’t in the bargain. I don’t think Captain Bluebeard would take kindly to us stealing a capable member of his crew.” He lowered his voice. “I’m also not in the habit of admitting unvouched-for sirens onto Dewspell grounds.”
“I’ll vouch for her,” I said, straightening. “Please.”
“She cannot stay.”
“Then at least let her see him settled in the infirmary.”
Dean Andaren’s furrowed brow smoothed. “Alright, Sofie, if that’s what you wish. But be careful. We cannot compromise the terms of this bargain and risk losing you.”
Why? I wanted to ask. Afraid no one else will do this realm’s dirty work?
But that was my bitterness talking. It was for the best that I kept my mouth shut.
I hurried to Safira’s side to tell her the news.
Watching Safira walk away from Omar was the most heart-wrenching thing I’d ever witnessed.
Stealing her through the halls of Dewspell, meanwhile, was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done.
I broke the enchantment on my old rooms without a thought—keys were for novices—and whisked Safira inside. With a flick of my hand, my lanterns and candles sputtered to life. There was no time to fuss with the heavy draperies over my window, which were coated in dust by now.
So was my desk. I sneezed once and began pulling apart the threads of the locking enchantment on the kneehole mahogany desk, trying each drawer as I fumbled through my memories.
I knew exactly what I needed.
“Sofie,” Safira said in warning, “I don’t think I should be here.”
“These are my rooms,” I replied. “I say who can or can’t be in them.”
“If the captain sets sail without me—”
“He won’t,” I said resolutely, only to find I actually believed that. He was unfailingly loyal to his crew…as long as he didn’t believe they’d betrayed him.
I rifled through the middle drawer of my desk, not caring that I was ruining my system of organization. Where was that fool thing?
Then I remembered: This drawer always stuck. I yanked the handle with both hands, nearly dropping the entire thing on my foot. I caught it just in time. Minor magical objects clanked and collided, and still I didn’t care.
There, against the back. It didn’t look like much more than a bauble, just a small two-inch amethyst sphere with a few citrine inclusions. Known as ametrine, the mix of two translucent crystals made a strong medium for enchantments.
I wrapped a few threads of my chaos magic around the stone, gently coaxing them inside the sphere. It glowed briefly as the enchantment set.
I held it out to Safira. When she met me halfway with an outstretched hand, I dropped it into her palm. “Keep it on you at all times,” I said. “It’ll allow me to find you. I’ll send paper messenger birds with regular updates on Omar’s condition.”
Safira’s hand closed around the sphere, her eyes still on it. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry I can’t do more.”
She didn’t even manage a weak smile as she turned to leave.
“Safira?”
The siren paused.
“I should’ve been your friend,” I said. “I know it doesn’t help, but I wish I’d done a lot of things differently. That’s one of them. I should’ve tried harder to get to know you all—even if you wanted to keep me at arm’s length.”
“I offered,” she said, then stopped. One shoulder hitched up, as if she considered rebuking me further. My words felt so silly and empty, even to me.
I just didn’t know what else to say but the truth.
Temerity was about to sail away, leaving me ashore. And I was filled with nothing but regrets.
“If things were different, if you weren’t a captive bride I helped capture, and if you’d made different choices along the way, maybe we could’ve been friends,” Safira continued.
“That’s enough maybes to fill a small sea, and yet it adds up to nothing.
There are plenty of regrets to go around, Sofie.
Plenty of them. And the captain has more of them than all of us combined. ”
Even now, she was taking his side. Advocating for him.
“He’s made his choices,” I said stiffly. “And I’ve made mine.”
What more could be said after that?