Dilly’s eyes flicked to me—soft, almost apologetic. “Rose chose to destroy it,” she said quietly. “So the conch served its purpose.”
Edmonds’s face went blank.
“Served its purpose,” he repeated, like the words were poison.
His fingers dug into the shell. The crack seemed to widen slightly beneath his grip.
“You’re telling me,” he said slowly, voice shaking now, “that my life’s work—my entire pursuit—ended becauseshemade a choice I didn’t approve of?”
Dilly’s shoulders rose in a breath. “I’m telling you, Atlantis was smarter than you, and so was Rose. The bargain was that she would deliver you the shell. Nothing about its condition or functionality.”
Edmonds’s eyes flashed.
“Silence,” he hissed.
Then he turned on me fully, fury spilling out of him like oil.
“What do I have now?” he demanded. “What do I have—after all of this? After everything I sacrificed—after everything I endured—after all the years—”
His voice broke on the last word, and for a heartbeat I saw something beneath the obsession: a man who had built himself around a single purpose because he didn’t know what else to be.
Then the purpose snapped back into place like armor.
He lunged.
It was fast. Too fast for how composed he usually was. His hand shot out toward my wrist, fingers curling as if he meant to drag me closer, to shake me, to force the sea to give him what it hadn’t.
Bash moved instantly—
But Oscar moved faster.
A pistol cracked like thunder.
Edmonds froze mid-lunge, shock blooming across his face. His cloak darkened at his chest, red spreading through rainwater.
For a moment, no one moved.
Even the harbor seemed to hold its breath.
Edmonds’s eyes lifted slowly toward Oscar.
Oscar stood on the gangplank, rain plastering his hair to his forehead, his face hollow and expressionless. His hand didn’t shake. His eyes were empty in a way that made my skin crawl.
He looked like a man who had already died once and decided the world could join him.
“For Inu,” Oscar said softly, as if saying her name might anchor him.
Edmonds’s mouth opened, a stunned exhale escaping as he swayed.
He looked down at the conch in his hand as if it had betrayed him. Then he looked back at Oscar with something like disbelief.
“You,” he rasped, voice wet. “You would—”
Oscar stepped closer, pistol still raised. “You took her from me,” he whispered. “And then you tried to take my sister.”
Edmonds’s face twisted. “Everything I did was for—”
“For yourself,” I said hoarsely.
