Chapter 41 On Deals and Devils
Chapter forty-one
On Deals and Devils
Rose
Atlantis did not fall in a day—it knelt.
When steel and sorcery failed to slay the Leviathan, the Atlanteans forged chains thicker than temple pillars and bound the beast to the ocean’s heart.
Not in triumph, but in surrender.
For even the greatest empire learns, too late, that some monsters cannot be killed—only endured.
— The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
Such a small thing for such a high cost. I sat at Bash’s desk staring at the once bioluminescent shell with a beautiful song.
Even though it had been mostly quiet days ago, I could still hear its whispers in my ears.
I ran my finger over its crescent shape, and Sebastian Jr. crawled from beneath my hair where he liked to be these days.
Almost like he believed I was responsible for his shell’s demise, and so I was going to pay the price and be his new home. We’d tried several different shells, but none of them met his standards. We weren’t likely to find more mythical shells any time soon.
Sebastian Jr. crawled down from my shoulder and towards the broken shell. He stared at it mournfully. I understood his loss. He’d lost a home, but we–we lost so much more.
Seven days since we fought and defeated the leviathan, and Inu and Val’s absences were like wounds that wouldn’t close. I suspected they wouldn’t close for some of us, no matter how many days went by.
Oscar sat on the hammock a few feet away, silently sleeping. The first real sleep he’d had in days. I was careful to make as little noise as possible so that I wouldn’t interrupt this small bit of peace he found. He was a fraction of himself. Barely speaking, barely functioning.
None of us was holding up well. I may not have liked Inu at first, but we’d found a common ground, and then things weren’t so difficult between us. In fact, if we were given more time, I think we could have been something closer to friends.
Val, though–she’d been there since I set foot on the Wraith.
She has a quick wit and a sharp smile. I missed her so much, but I was also glad that she found something she cared about enough to die for it.
Kit wasn’t doing well after her loss, but he was alive, and that meant he could heal with time.
The cabin door opened as silently as possible, and I turned to see Bash enter. He was pale, and dark circles under his eyes gave away the exhaustion clawing at him. The Wraith was limping–barely functioning. The fact that we were maintaining this pace at all was practically a miracle.
Bash closed the door, eyeing Oscar before placing his hand on my shoulder.
I leaned into his touch. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine what my pain was compared to his.
Val may have been my friend, but she was his for a decade before that.
She followed him everywhere, even when it was a terrible idea.
Inu, he’d seen her deeper than her stony facade.
They were his friends, and he lost them soon after losing Billy.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He leaned down, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “You don’t have to keep saying that.”
“I just don’t know what else to say,” I said.
Because the truth was that I was drowning in guilt. My brother was broken after losing the love of his life, my husband was grieving three lives, and two people–two very good people–not to mention the others of our crew who were now at the bottom of the sea–all that was because of me.
Because I was selfish enough to make a deal with a devil to protect those I loved, and maybe it worked, but the cost was too much.
“Stop,” Bash whispered. “What’s done is done. Now we finish this.”
I turned to face him and knew he was right. Either we did this right, or they died for nothing.
There was no scenario where I allowed that to happen. I stood and offered my hand to Sebastian Jr., who glared at me with beady eyes before crawling up it and into my hair.
“You are sure he will be there?” Bash asked.
He should have just asked the question he really wanted to know.
“I’m sure,” I said.
Because I didn’t know how that was possible except that I was either lucky or I’d listened long enough that my confidence was merely a symptom of madness. This is where we found out which one it was.
“He has waited his entire life for this moment. He won’t wait any longer.” I said.
Bash nodded, and that was enough for now. If I listened too long to the shell and was a bit mad, we’d know and deal with that, but only after we’ve dealt with Edmonds.
I wandered over to the bed where a ball of gray fur lay purring contentedly, curled into a small ball.
As soon as I ran my hand over him, he did a big stretch, showcasing three limbs.
His right front leg was gone now. Emile swore he didn’t know how to save a cat from dying, but the fact that Blackbeard was here now said otherwise.
The makeshift bandaging where his leg used to be was clean and well-tended.
As long as I pet him, he lets Emille tend to him.
“He’s healing well,” Bash said.
“Of course he is,” I said, scratching behind Blackbeard’s ear. “He’s a demon cat of a reincarnated infamous pirate who fights sea monsters and lives to tell the tale. I expect nothing less of him.”
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to Blackbeard’s head before turning to see my brother still sleeping.
“I wish I could take it from him,” I whispered.
Bash pressed his lips together, considering. “He wouldn’t let you even if you could. Someday he will take his next breath, but until that day, all anyone can do is drown until one thing, one person pulls him through it.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I wished I could be that person, but I suspected that no one ever really got to choose what their anchor was. All I knew was that I missed Inu, Val, and Billy, and I hoped that one day my brother would find himself again.
Bash’s fingers squeezed my shoulder once before he stepped back, the motion careful, like he was trying not to startle grief itself.
“We’re close,” he murmured.
The ship answered for him—an exhausted groan in the bones of the Wraith, a shudder that traveled up the walls like a cough it couldn’t swallow. We’d patched her until she was more stitch than sail. More stubborn than wood. The sea had taken its tithe, and it still wasn’t satisfied.
I moved to the back window and looked out.
Angra do Heroísmo rose out of the fog like a bruise—dark roofs slick with rain, lanterns smudged into soft, trembling halos, the harbor water thick and gunmetal.
The Azores had always looked like a place that couldn’t decide whether it belonged to the sea or the sky.
Tonight it belonged to neither. Tonight it belonged to something in-between, where prayers went to rot, and bargains came to collect.
My wrist itched beneath my sleeve.
“Rose.” Bash’s voice was quiet. “He’ll want it the moment you step off.”
“I know.”
“And Morwenna—”
“I know,” I repeated, because if I let my thoughts touch that woman—her wet hair on my deck, her hands on the ropes of our fate, her eyes that did not blink when she spoke of drowning—I would begin to feel the sick churn of sympathy, and sympathy was a luxury I didn’t trust myself with.
Not today, when everything I’d done–terrible things–awful costs– they'd all been for this moment. I could not afford to be anything less than prepared.
The cabin was too small for all the ghosts. I could feel them crowding around us—Val laughing with a knife between her teeth, Inu’s stillness like a blade, Billy’s voice telling us the sea never gave without taking.
I turned back and looked at Oscar.
He slept like someone who had been punched hard enough to forget how to breathe. His mouth was slightly open; his lashes stuck together from salt and crying. There was a pistol beneath his hand, fingers curled around it even in sleep, like he expected the world to attack him the moment he let go.
I swallowed hard.
“Let him sleep,” I whispered.
Bash nodded. “We won’t wake him until we have to.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear and felt Sebastian Jr. shift, the crab’s small legs tightening briefly in my curls as if he, too, could sense Angra drawing close, the promise of land and the threat of people.
Blackbeard lifted his head at the mention of nothing at all. His remaining paw kneaded the blanket with a slow, satisfied violence. His eyes were half-lidded, unimpressed by everything except my hand.
“You’ll stay,” I told him softly, as if he’d listen.
He blinked once.
Which, for Blackbeard, was practically a vow.
Outside, the Wraith’s bell sounded—low and mournful. We were entering the harbor.
Bash moved to the door. “I’ll have Dilly bring the men up. And Emille.”
“Emille?” I asked.
Bash’s expression tightened. “If Edmonds decides he doesn’t like the ending of his deal, I want our doctor where I can see him.”
Fair.
I reached for the abyssal conch on the desk.
It was lighter than it had any right to be.
A shell that had once held a song that could destroy monsters of the deep or whisper untold secrets that could give a person power that would change the world.
Now it sat mute and cold, its surface dull where the bioluminescence had burned out.
The crack along its side was thin—almost elegant.
My stomach turned.
“I hate it,” I admitted.
Bash’s gaze flicked to it. “Good. Hate keeps you sharper than reverence.”
I cradled it anyway, because hatred didn’t change obligation.
We left the cabin.
The deck of the Wraith was damp and gray, the kind of gray that seeped into your teeth. The sky hung low over Angra, clouds dragging their bellies along the rooftops. Rain fell in thin, steady needles.