We left the cabin.
The deck of the Wraith was damp and gray, the kind of gray that seeped into your teeth. The sky hung low over Angra, clouds dragging their bellies along the rooftops. Rain fell in thin, steady needles.
The crew–what was left of it- moved quietly. Even Dilly’s usual brightness was muted; her red curls were tucked under a scarf, her eyes rimmed pink from nights without sleep. Kit stood near the rail, hunched into himself. He didn’t look up when I approached, just kept staring at the water like he expected Val’s laughter to rise from it.
Staring down at it, maybe I did too.
She was always larger than life, infallible. Yet she was somehow gone. It was an impossibility I couldn’t wrap my head around.
My chest tightened.
Bash had been right. We couldn’t fix this. We could only finish it.
The harbor came closer. Lanterns swayed on the docks, their light trembling in the rain. Shadows moved there—men, silhouettes, waiting.
And then I saw him.
Captain Edmonds stood near the end of the pier beneath a hooded cloak, the rain sliding off him as if even the weather knew better than to cling. The dock itself looked cleaner around him, as if his presence had scraped it of decay.
Usually, Edmonds looked like a man viewing the world through glass—calm, clinical, faintly amused by everyone else’s panic. Tonight, there was something wrong with him.
Restlessness sat in his posture, sharp as a pulled thread. His fingers flexed once beneath the edge of his cloak. His gaze snapped over the ship with impatience that did not belong to him.
I felt Bash stiffen beside me.
The gangplank dropped with a hollow thud.
Bash went first, as always—shoulders squared, eyes dark, the kind of stillness that warned a man he could be killed without drama. Dilly followed, then Emille with his bag, then Kit, then the crew.
I didn’t know why Kit thought he was invited, but I wasn’t prepared to argue with him now.
“Watch Kit,” I said to Dilly.
She nodded, and I knew she would keep him safe because neither of us would let anything happen to him after Val died for him. He was ours to protect.
I stepped down last, the conch hidden beneath my cloak.
And Morwenna stepped behind me.
She moved like the tide itself. Her gown clung to her thin body, dark hair plastered to her skull, her face carved into stoicism so severe it nearly looked like pride.
Edmonds watched her approach without surprise.
It was the first thing that told me he’d known she would be here.
“Mother,” he said, and the word wasn’t a greeting. It was an assessment.
Morwenna stopped three paces from him.
“Arthur,” she replied.
He made a soft sound—almost a laugh, but too thin to be real. “I wondered where you’d gone. When I arrived at your house and found it empty, I thought… yes. Of course.”
His gaze slid over her. “You didn’t help her out of kindness.”
Morwenna’s mouth tightened. “No.”
“I assumed you were plotting,” Edmonds continued, as if discussing the weather. “You always are. I assume you intended to corner me. Force me to tell you where father hid it.”
