“We finally got her back here an hour ago. She’s not doing well, Augustus.”
She wouldn’t be. Not for a long time. What Thorne did to her father—to the entire crew—wasn’t right. She should never have had to see Loto like that.
Pain ripped through him, fresh and hot. Loto had been a good, kind man. His laugh… No one laughed like him. Punched like him, either, but it was his laugh Augustus always thought of first.
“Were there any barrels of tar left?” he asked.
“I think so.”
Augustus gathered a small handful of men and women on his return trip to theAkias. Hammer, Sharp, and Stitch were the first to follow, who then collected Hawk, Spark, and Swift once they understood what they were doing. Without being asked, Oskar and the Blades came as well.
He pointed to several key areas on the decks, and then he and Blaze took a pair of empty crates each into the captain’s quarters.
Augustus wished he had more time to go through Mettius’s things. He could hardly guess what valuables his father treasured, but he tried. The few things Mettius had kept of Cassia’s seemed obvious and went into the crate first. Then his clothes. After that, his grandfather’s kris knife, the false eye of Anir, and the lost jewel of Zaris from Mettius’s desk.
There was an old wood carving of a sea snake on a shelf inside Mettius’s bed chamber that brought Augustus up short. Augustus had carved it years ago—it was as ugly as he remembered. He thought he’d thrown it away…
Augustus dropped it into the crate and continued on. Journals and logbooks followed. Weapons Mettius had always favored. Sometimes, doubt crept in; Augustus was wasting his time doing this. Thorne might be keeping his father alive now, but?—
No. He refused to believe this was the end.
On the upper decks, Omar’s wife, Storm, and her sister, North Star, took the crates from Augustus and Blaze.
“We’re all set,” Storm said, then gave a pointed nod toward the mainmast.
Omar passed axes, hammers, and pry bars down a line of his family and friends. Bee, Rook, Fish, and a fourth girl they called Bloom, showed up last. To these four, Omar said, “Make a mess of it.”
And so, they did. Barrels burst open all over the deck, spilling tar on the stained wood.
Blaze watched it all from Augustus’s side, arms folded. “Where to after this?”
“Okos. I’ll drop you lot off, then?—”
“We’re going with you.” Blaze’s gaze shifted to where his Rangers watched everything from atop the railing on theEntiaby the starboard shrouds.“It appears they’ve had a change of heart.”
“What about the monsters you’re all so desperate to get back to hunting?”
“Turns out men can be monsters, too.”
A half-hour later, Lili handed Augustus a lit lantern from atop the gangplank between ships. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she gave him a firm nod. “Light it up, Captain.”
He gave the deck a final sweep. Nothing remained. Nothing to say goodbye to.
The past was gone.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He thought he could?—
The dronsian sailed past Augustus on the wind with a pained roar, a sound he hadn’t yet heard from him. The anguish in his cry mirrored the pain in his own chest.
The little beast flew in, out, and around theAkias’s deck and masts, then paused over the forecastle, wings flapping.
“What’s he doing?” Lili asked.
“I don’t know.”
A tiny flame burped from the dronsian’s mouth, then a full stream struck a cracked barrel with tar leaking from its side.
An inferno burst into existence, and the crew of theEntiagave a collective gasp.
