The dragon flapped into the sky, then circled him from above.
A wave spun through Augustus’s stomach. “Is she in trouble?”
The dragon squawked.
Augustus scanned the wreckage around him.
The ship near the bowsprit and the Perean Navy storming through splinters.
The second ship, already sinking.
Two ships.
There’d beenthreeanchored in the bay all week. Where was thethird ship?
This was a diversion.
And Selene?—
Augustus sprinted for the nearest pulley and skiff.
Felix nearly took him off his feet with a single hand. “Where?—?
“Selene’s in trouble.”
“Pavle!” Felix swept a hand for him to follow. “We have to go!”
Augustus slammed into a wall of darkness.
Not a wall. A crescent shadow. Creeping across the deck in an arc.
Sunlight strained to reach him from the sky.
Beside him, Felix glanced between the shadow and the sky. “It’s just an eclipse.”
An eclipse.
The icy cold traveling through his body chipped and cracked around his bones.
“When the time comes that the world becomes shrouded in shadows, a line of demarcation will be drawn.”
They were out of time.
The dragon shrieked.
“Captain?”
“Get that fucking rope,” he said, pointing at the pulley. “We’re running out of time.”
The market didn’t empty. It unraveled.
One by one, people paused their transactions. Voices dropped. Feet shuffled backward, inch by inch, as if the wind itself whispered,you don’t want to be here.
Selene caught it all from the center, a slow clearing of space she hadn’t asked for. She was left with only her breath, her blades, and the cold steel resting along the backs of her forearms like a second spine. And Petrina, whose presence she had yet to understand or trust, even if shehadspent the last half hour facing the danger with her.
At Selene’s back, Petrina aimed her blood-stained sword at a too-close pirate with dark brown skin. “Uh, uh, uh… I’d stay back, if I were you. Unless you want to end up like your friend here.” She motioned to the dead body near his feet.
“It’s all right, Alejandro,” Thorne said, flicking his hand. “No need to hover.”
