Chapter 14 Breathing
Chapter fourteen
Breathing
Bash
A captain’s heart is carved into the timbers of their ship. To love her is not a choice—it is a bond older and truer than any vow spoken on land.
— From The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
The Sea Wraith was still as beautiful as I remembered her.
She was standing strong with her masts repaired and wooden deck polished to perfection.
I missed the sea air and the sound of seawork.
Woodwork mixed with the idle chatter of sailors.
Even the seagulls that squawked overhead were a welcome presence.
“You really are a pirate, sir!” Kit said beside me.
He was staring up at the ship with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open.
I didn’t know much about the boy, but I knew enough to know he wouldn’t have made it out of Newgate alive.
Pickpockets who made it out ended up right back within a week.
Survival demanded their continued profession, and by the way he’d been caught, he probably wasn’t very good at it.
I sighed. This felt like a mistake. Taking a boy on a notorious pirate ship currently wanted by the Navy.
I still felt the dirt and grime of Newgate clinging to me despite washing up last night. There were some things that never got scrubbed away. Even still, it would be nice to have my own clothes back, even though they probably wouldn’t fit right.
“How are we going to get up there, Sir, with your–”
He eyed my arm as if that was somehow better than saying it out loud.
I sighed and made for the ladder. This was probably going to hurt.
I grabbed the rope with my hand and pulled up, using what was left of my broken arm for leverage.
My muscles ached and protested the movement, and if it hadn’t been for the decent meals Edmond’s provided, I wouldn’t have been able to make it.
As such, sheer determination saw me to the top of my own damn ship.
Having lost my arm and then being taken prisoner, I’d failed to consider the ramifications of my injury.
How much harder it would be to live on a ship.
Except I wasn’t supposed to be living on a ship.
I was meant to be awaiting trial and destined for the gallows.
By the time I made it to the top, sweat poured down my face despite the crisp December air.
There were few things crueler than the human mind because as I crested the top, I half expected to see Billy’s smiling face coupled with an ‘about time’.
It was a bullet to the gut, and I forced down the image of him lying with a fatal abdominal wound coupled with a bullet to the head.
“Welcome back,” Val said, coming down the stairs. “I half wondered if I was going to have to haul your ass up.”
Her voice was a strange comfort, and emotion I didn’t care for pricked at the edges of the barrier I’d spent months erecting. Her wide smile and telltale braid over her shoulder were exactly how I remembered.
“Once of that was enough for me,” I said, recalling how I never would have made it back onto the Wraith back in the Glass Sea without her.
She chuckled and crossed the distance between us, wrapping her arms around me and slapping my back. I choked out a cough and half hugged her. Affection wasn’t something Val and I did. Years spent on the sea together, she was more of an annoying sister than a friend.
“You acquired a friend in prison?” she said, releasing me.
I eyed Kit, who was staring at the Wraith like he was in a dream.
“The boy–his name is Kit,” I said.
“You smell like soap-covered shit,” she said, lightly punching my arm before bending down in front of Kit. “Why don’t you head downstairs and find something to eat, tell them Val sent you.”
He swallowed hard and nodded once.
“Thank you, Miss,” he said.
She winked and waved him away. Despite her long scar over her eye, it was hard to be afraid of her. She was about as harmless as a fly, though one of the deadliest shots I’d ever known.
“As for you, you need to soak in a bath for at least three hours,” she said, shoving me towards my cabin.
“You know I’m the captain of this ship, right?” I asked, a slight tug pulling at my lips.
It was a strange sensation after months of numbness.
“You’ll have to take that up with the other captain of the Wraith,” Val said with a wicked smile.
My heart lurched in my chest, feeling too much at once.
Part of me was livid with Rosamund. Not for taking command of my ship, but for interfering in a plan I spent over a decade enacting.
She knew what she was doing when she enlisted Inu last night.
Told her exactly what to say so that I would go with her.
That was the problem with allowing people in and sharing secrets: you could be easily manipulated.
“And when will my rival be making her appearance?” I asked, hating the way my heart pounded harder in my chest.
This need I felt for her was a poison. It was an obsession, and it was as foul as any sewer rot in London. The best thing for Rosamund Bailey was if I had hanged, but she was blinded by poor judgment.
“Haven’t you heard, Prince Charming, you’re going to the ball?” Val’s eyes glittered with amusement.
Maybe it was the last few months catching up, but I couldn’t process the words she was saying. Almost like this was an alternate reality or a dream, and soon enough, I would awake back in Newgate once more.
Val turned down the way the boy went and hollered back, “Captain’s orders. She left a note in your room!”
I was a guest in my own home. Even washed and scrubbed till my skin was red, I felt out of place.
Everything was how I left it, minus the repairs that’d been done, but there was the unmistakable sense of her on everything I touched.
The smell of lavender and sea salt on my bed was undoubtedly hers.
A shell and an empty vial that was added to my shelf of items I’d acquired over the years.
There was a new log started after mine with her dancing script over the last months.
I’d read it twice over, but the letter in my hand I’d read over a dozen times and still couldn’t fathom understanding it.
My mind just kept replaying the part where she claimed to have made a deal with Edmonds.
It was one thing to assume it, but another to see it in her writing.
Underneath, she promised to explain, but only in person, which meant it was far worse than I’d imagined.
It was agonizing to be away from her and not ask my questions. More than once, I stopped myself from walking into London and banging on the Bailey house door. If I knew one thing, it was that Rosamund Bailey’s scheming rarely ended well.
A knock on the door interrupted my brooding, and I slammed down her note that was already fraying at the edges from overuse.
Obsession. If I had any decency in me, I would order the Wraith out of London and make the choice for her.
She still thought there was something left to save in me, but she couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Come in,” I snapped.
“It’s good to see you, too, Captain,” Emille said, sliding into the room with a wooden box tucked under his arm.
I frowned, regretting snapping at my doctor. He was a good man who deserved better from me. I owed him my life several times over. The fact that it was only my forearm I was missing was due to his skill as a surgeon.
“How have you been, Emille?” I asked.
Emille shrugged and set down his box, holding out his hand to my chair. I sighed and acquiesced, lowering myself into a chair I’d sat in thousands of times, but now felt foreign to me. Like I was a guest in my own home.
“Better now that you are back. Let me see,” he ordered.
It was an inevitability I’d hoped to avoid as long as possible.
I shrugged off my coat and began rolling up the tucked-in sleeve of my arm.
The skin was rough and uneven; the scars dipped in while some protruded, reminding me of canyons.
It could have been a lot worse. I was lucky Edmonds wanted me alive and that his doctor saw to it daily, but I held no doubts that it would have healed better under Emille’s care.
He frowned at what was left of my arm and ran his hand over the new skin. I still felt the ghost of my arm from time to time, but it lessened over the months.
“I have something for you,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have,” I said dryly.
He ignored me and opened the box, removing a carefully crafted arm.
Wood patiently smoothed out and glazed so that it was soft to the touch.
I ran my fingers over it, admiring the mix of red and dark oak that no doubt hours had gone into.
Even nails were carefully drawn into the tips of fingers.
This would have taken him endless hours of labor.
Lifting my eyes to his, I saw one of my oldest friends.
A man I’d hunted down after hearing stories of his brilliant mind that was being wasted beneath the weight of grief.
There was never a doubt in my mind that Emille would have continued to shine in the medical world if it weren’t for the death of his wife and child.
“Thank you,” I said, voice dry.
Emotion I never asked for clogged the words I should have said to him. He deserved more than just a simple thank you.
Emille’s bright smile crinkled at the sides of his eyes, and it was easy to understand the way he easily soothed his patients. I doubted there was a better doctor in the world.
“It was my pleasure, now if you will allow me.”
I held out my broken arm, and he carefully slid the piece onto the scarred remainder of my arm.
A divot at the center allowed it to follow up to my elbow.
With adept fingers, Emille hitched a small hook to a metal ring at the end and then another on the back before placing a thin black rope over my opposite shoulder.
It was a clever design and made it so that the weight of the piece didn’t dig into my shoulder. I took in a breath and moved it all around, noting how it stayed in place and the patting was protected from friction against my healed skin.
“Emille, you’ve outdone even yourself. Any chance you can make the fingers functional enough to hold a pistol?” I tried to chuckle, but it came out hoarse.
“Not a pistol, but-” Emille reached for the wooden hand and twisted once, then twice.
He pulled at the hand, and it came away smoothly, leaving a small, round cutout of wood at the end. Reaching into his bag, he withdrew a wooden base attached to a glinting silver hook. I smiled up at him, recognizing his genius. He slid it on and locked it into place.
I reached out and hooked it into my jacket, which caught easily, but more importantly, the piece on my arm held steady. It was significantly more functional.
“Very clever,” I said.
Emille dipped his head. “I’m happy you’re back.”
A normal person would have said they were happy to be back, but it was more complicated than that. I imagined this was how a fish out of water felt. Its entire life’s purpose stripped within moments.
Emille nodded and began to turn, but paused halfway. “She did a lot of things that will haunt her to get you back. You know, a wise man once told me that we could carry the dead without burying ourselves, but I’ve always wondered if he believed it.”
The words cut just as he intended to, as sharp as any scalpel.
“They were words you needed to hear,” I said.
“Aye, I did, and now I’m saying them to you.”
The door shut behind him, and I considered walking back to London and locking myself up.
Oscar was free, the boy was free, and Rose was safe with her family.
It was all neatly tied into a bow except for those damning words.
I made a deal with Edmonds. Meet me tomorrow night- Val knows where to bring you.
Intentionally vague, so I wouldn’t be able to decipher her intention. Her mind was intoxicating, but also incredibly frustrating. However, if I saw her, it would be difficult to give her up once more. Distance was the only cure for obsession.
I eyed the silver hook at the end of my arm. She would never truly be safe until James Allan was no longer a threat. A large ball of fur leapt onto the desk and narrowed its green eyes at me. For a moment, I was reminded of Edmond’s icy blue eyes and how unworldly they were.
“Sorry to disappoint you that I came back,” I said.
The creature let loose a low growl and sat, swooping its bushy tail around it. Blackbeard looked to the hook and then up to me, judgment crawling over his face.
“You could go live with her, you know, she’d make you a proper fat cat living in a manor with your own servants,” I said.
It was a first, negotiating with grumpy felines, but when he turned his back on me and flicked his tail in my face, I knew he was not interested in bargaining.
“Excellent,” I said.
An angry cat, a foreign crew, a fake arm, and a scheming aristocrat, whom I just happened to be obsessed with.
What could go wrong?