The embrace lasted only a moment. Jax stepped back. No,staggeredback was more like it.
My head whipped between him and the passing dancers. There was Blackbeard and the young woman with the golden dress, twirling away at the dance’s breakneck speed.
Jax reached into his jacket with a groan. When he pulled his hand out, his fingers were covered in blood.
“Jax!”
“Captain!”
Omar and Safira materialized from the whirling crowd, rushing to Jax’s side. As if they’d done this a hundred times before, each ducked under one of his arms, helping him to walk.
“Get your cloak, Sofie.”
Like a fool, I just stood there, staring at the growing bloodstain wicking across his shirt.
“Sofie,” Safira said, putting a little siren compulsion in her voice.
Thatgot me moving. I ran from the ballroom, not caring who I bumped into. I could feel the chaos building inside and around me, and so I put it to practical use. My cloak flew past a startled servant and about a dozen pirates lingering in the foyer, dropping neatly into my hand.
I pulled it on, fumbling with the clasp. My hands were shaking.
Jax, Omar and Safira were already behind me.
“I can run ahead, or fetch a healer,” I babbled. “I’m terrible with healing magic, but I could try.”
“There’s a plan, Sofie,” Jax said, his voice strained. “There is one rule we pirates ofCarabossenever break.”
Omar and Safira said it in unison. “We don’t deviate from the plan.”
“It’s how crewmembers get killed,” Jax said more quietly.
I practically tripped getting out of their way. “The others—”
“Are already in place. Keep walking, Sofie. Better yet,run.”
Once Omar and Safira had helped Jax down the front steps to the palazzo, they slipped out from beneath his arms and began to run themselves. I gaped at them, shocked they would abandon their captain—until I realized he was running, too.
And yanking my arm to follow him.
With a gasp, I found myself stumbling alongside him. But we weren’t headed for Jax’s “Bard.”
We were cutting straight through the heart of Starfall, towards the docks.
The Lady de Gorm was waiting at the quay, untying one rowboat before hopping into another. The boat already started to drift before Safira reached it, diving into it with a siren’s unnatural grace.
She steadied it long enough for Omar to join, then Jax, and then Omar was lifting me in. I nearly lost a shoe in the water.
At that point, I didn’t care. I could barely breathe. Dawn was coming, the sky tinting red and purple. The lighter it got, the more obvious the dark patch on Jax’s shirt became.
When we were halfway to the ship, Omar rowing while Safira tried to help Jax, a woman’s voice sliced through the night, growing increasingly higher pitched the further the rowboat went from the shore. A lone figure was running through the port, stumbling from breathlessness.
“Marigold,” I cried. “You’ve left without her!”
“Quiet,” Jax hissed, the cords of his arms straining in the moonlight as he removed his jacket.
Somehow, his shirt wasn’t as bad as I’d have thought, as if the bleeding had slowed.
“You made a deal with her,” I insisted. “If you leave her behind and Blackbeard learns what she’s done, he’ll kill her!”
