“It says—” Rose choked. “It says the binding is cracking. We’re close. We just— We have to break it all the way.”
“How?” I demanded. “Rose, how?”
I wanted to be done with this. I’d lost one of the best, and I was done losing people.
“Keep it listening,” she said, wiping at her eyes with an angry hand. “Keep hitting that scar. It has to choose between the song and the pain. The Atlanteans couldn’t keep both up. We can.”
“We’ll tear this bastard apart,” I growled.
“Bash,” she said softly. “The cost—”
“We’ll deal with the cost when it comes.” I lied. We were already drowning in it.
The Leviathan thrashed, tail slamming into the water hard enough to send waves higher than our masts. The Wraith rode them like a drunken gull, groaning.
“Reload!” Val shrieked. “Seas, damn you, faster!”
“Aft bilge is flooding!” someone screamed from below. “We’ve got children in the hold!”
Children.
Kit.
I spun, trying to spot him—and swore. The midships hatch was now a gushing fountain, water pouring up from below like the sea was taking the Wraith from the inside. The hatch cover had been torn loose, probably in the last wave.
Kit clung to the ladder just inside, half-submerged, eyes wild with terror. He hauled himself up and stumbled onto the deck just as another wave crashed over the bow and raced toward him like a living thing.
“Kit!” I shouted. “Move!”
He froze. Rabbit-still. Newgate had beaten into him the idea that running made you more of a target. Out here, stillness would kill him.
Val saw him too.
She abandoned the cannon she’d been re-priming and sprinted across the deck, boots slipping on the slick planks. The wave hit, driving her to her knees, but she didn’t stop. She kept low, pushing through the water.
The Leviathan’s head swung back toward us, drawn again to the shell’s song. Rose kept singing, voice raw, every word pulled from a place that had been cracked open by Inu’s death.
The glowing scar flared further. The creature climbed higher out of the water, drawn like a snake charmed by a flute.
Val reached Kit just as the deck tipped again. The boy’s feet went out from under him. He slid toward the broken rail at the bow—toward open air and the Leviathan’s rising maw below.
Without hesitation, Val threw herself forward, grabbing him around the middle and twisting so her body took the brunt as they slammed into the shattered rail. Wood bit into her back.
The Leviathan reared up, jaw opening directly in front of them.
“Val!” I shouted, heart, punching my ribs.
She looked back over her shoulder, eyes locking with mine across the chaos. There was no fear in them. Only decision.
“Get him out of here!” she roared.
With a grunt, she heaved Kit up and shoved him backward, hard enough that he tumbled into Emille’s arms as he slid by, both of them crashing into a tangle of ropes and barrels safely away from the rail.
The Leviathan lunged.
The move that would have swallowed Kit whole instead brought its scarred jaw within arm’s reach of Val.
She grinned up at it, feral and fearless.
