Bash shifted closer. Dilly’s fingers flexed at her side. Emille’s face was pale, eyes darting between Edmonds and the shell he couldn’t see.
Oscar was behind us somewhere on the gangplank. I could feel him even before I heard him—quiet, coiled.
That was a side effect of what the conch had done to me. I seemed to simply know things. The fact that Edmond’s was here was all the proof I needed.
Edmonds stepped forward, rain slicking his lashes. “I confess,” he said, and there was something like honesty in it, “I hoped you could do it. But I never truly believed it was possible. Obviously, I believed there was a reasonable chance as specified in our bargain–but, well, the reality of it is something else.”
The words landed wrong.
Not gratitude. Not awe. Possession.
A man looking at a tool that had exceeded expectations.
My anger flared hot enough to cut through grief.
“You hoped,” I repeated. “While people died.”
His mouth twitched. “Yes.”
“Val is dead,” I hissed. “Inu is dead. My brother—” My voice cracked. I clenched my teeth until it steadied. “My brother is hollow because you couldn’t keep your obsession from swallowing everything.”
Edmonds regarded me, unbothered. “And yet you began this.”
The rain seemed to go quieter.
“You bartered for their lives,” he said. “Your husband. Your brother. You made a deal with the North Sea. You chose to take what it offered and ignore what it demanded. Don’t stand on moral high ground now, Rose Bailey. You are not built for it.”
The words hit like a fist.
Because they were true.
I had sat in a worn-down tavern with my heart in my throat and offered anything to keep Bash and Oscar alive. I had called Edmonds a devil and then shaken his hand.
My throat tightened until I could barely breathe.
Bash’s hand found mine, steadying, but guilt had teeth, and it sank them in deep.
Edmonds leaned in slightly, eyes intent now—impatient. “The conch.”
My wrist burned.
The serpent mark beneath my sleeve stirred like it was waking, like it recognized the shape of the end.
I swallowed blood and salt as I reached into my cloak and pulled out the abyssal conch. I held it out to my devil.
Edmonds’s gaze locked onto it like it was a heartbeat.
His hand came up fast—almost greedy. He took it from me with reverence that was so sharp it looked like hunger. His fingers traced its curve. He lifted it slightly, as if expecting it to glow for him. As if expecting the sea itself to applaud.
And then—something happened.
My wrist went cold.
The glittering serpent mark didn’t vanish. It receded—as if the magic sank beneath my skin, leaving behind a smear of black ink, faint but permanent. Not gone. Not forgiven. Only… quieted.
Across from me, Edmonds inhaled sharply, his own wrist visible where the cuff of his glove shifted. The matching serpent on his skin dimmed too, glitter fading into black.
A bargain fulfilled.
