Page 41
“Darcy is living my dream.” Ross kicks his polished boots up on a crate, his gold buckles gleaming. “How come I never meet any beautiful women in the sea?”
“Could it have something to do with the fact that you pay shit wages for others to do the hands-on work for your company, so you’re never actually out to sea?” James asks as we hit a wave that pushes Ross from his seat. He lands a few inches closer to me. “Mind how you act around Dee. I still haven’t forgotten why Minnie wanted to leave the island.”
“Why dredge up that old business?” Ross flicks a hand, dismissing the topic. “You know your sister has always been dramatic.”
“Nevertheless.”
Their chattering dies out, and a fraught silence fills the small space between the three of us. Every creak and groan is amplified, the atmosphere so uncomfortable that I’m almost grateful when we reach the spot where everything went wrong.
“This is where it happened.”
“Weigh enough,” James calls over his shoulder and flips the oars, letting the blades skim the surface. Darcy is holding water, her boat spinning to a stop.
The vessel is still rocking as she steps into a calfskin suit that covers her whole body.
“Everyone stay armed and ready in case the stoor wyrm shows itself,” she says. “If I’m not back in four minutes, do not come looking for me. Keep your harpoons aimed at the water as you retreat.”
She fixes a brass sphere helmet over her head, and I grip the gunwales, frightened as her circular goggles swing toward me. My grandmother always warned me to stay far away from the divers who came looking for spontaneous portal openings to the fae realm. That was one order I never had trouble obeying.
Their attire and weapons scared me.
Now I look at the woman I loved, and I find her just as frightening. She adjusts the hose running from her helmet to her upper back and fastens her axe to her hip, fitting it between the miniature lanterns shielded by the glass cylinders hanging from her belt. The lights dim as she plunges beneath the surface.
Bijou watches her pocket watch intently, her face pinched, and Zephyr prattles on about a run-in with a serpent’s nest that I’m fairly certain never happened.
I listen to the waves gently lapping at the sea stacks and wait with the rest of them.
Darcy resurfaces before her time is up, her boat leaning as she holds onto the gunwale and removes her helmet.
“The stoor wyrm is dead,” she says, gasping for air. “I have proof of it.”
She holds a membranous plate flayed from the serpent’s spine for us to see.
James leans forward to study the evidence. “You really killed the damn thing.”
“Yes, I’ll send a diving team to fetch me its head so we can parade it around the village.” Her teeth flash white. “It’ll require—”
Her boat rocks suddenly, and she loses her grip.
A sequence of horrible events replays in my head. Even after everything, I can’t bear the thought of seeing her pale, lifeless face again. I lean over, relieved that the lights on her belt are still visible.
She comes back up, spitting water. “Watch out.”
A thump against the boat’s hull throws me back, and I scuttle to the port side as a long tongue flickers over starboard. A tail rattles near the stern, and the hissing maw disappears.
A black-and-white-striped serpent loops itself above the water, slithering back in.
This one is a shrimp compared to the stoor wyrm, but I can feel it sliding beneath the boat, a series of thuds keeping me flat on my ass while James and Ross scramble for their weapons.
Darcy climbs back into her boat and positions herself in front of the priestess as Zephyr’s fist closes around their sword. A soft blue light glows through my dress, matching the luminescence of their knuckles.
They can’t use their magic and expose their secret. They’d have to leave immediately, and I want them here with me, physically.
I shake my head, frantically reaching for the knife strapped to my thigh as I move back to my feet.
Their eyes snap to me, lighting up with recognition. Unsheathing their sword, they toss it to me.
They must be using their aether to guide the weapon, because it glides to my hand, and I catch it without a problem.
