“Still a bit touchy about that, are we?”
I place my palm in his and hop up, brushing the sand from my dress perfunctorily. “What is the point of immortality if not to be petty, Corpsey? One hundred and fifty years from now, I’ll still be making you grovel.”
He raises a suggestive brow, his head tilting in a predatorial manner. “So long as I get to grovel on my knees.”
I stick my tongue out at him, even as my cheeks flame, and my core heats at his wanton tone. He smirks, intertwining his fingers in mine, and leading me toward where the large, spired rock of the Crocodile looms. A siren’s harrowing song echoes over the water as we wade into the lagoon. The icy surf of the low tide laps at our ankles, and the achingly sad melody opens up a hollow in my chest, sending shivers racing over my skin.
Niko holds my hand tightly in his, as we circle around the rock cliff to the mouth of the cave. The last time we were here, the tide had been too high to see the stalactites spearing up from the floor of the cave entrance to meet the stalagmites hanging from the ceiling, creating the eerie illusion of a stone jaw.
I peer into the darkness warily. I’d been terrified and desperate here, and I’d lost three whole days. What could Niko possibly have to show me in its depths that I haven’t already seen?
“Are we going to be trapped in there again?”
“If I was going to trap you anywhere, I assure you, Darling…it would be our bed.” I shiver, loving the sound ofourin his lilting accent. Natural and easy, like it’s always been true, and it always will be. “It’s low tide. We have a few hours before we’d be stuck.”
“Normalhours, not crazy, Crocodile hours,” I mutter, unconvinced.
His fingers spasm against mine, a sudden, violent jerk.
I glance at him in alarm, but he only tucks his hand into his pocket and ushers me calmly forward. Anxiety curls beneath my ribs, as I follow him deeper into the cave. He appears skeletal in the odd blue light of the cave, and as I study him—the rigid lines of his muscles, the overly lean shape of him—the anxiety contracts around my stomach like barbed wire and squeezes.
Rather than leading me around the rock ledge, Niko climbs down into the deep bowl of the cave. The silty floor is soft and smooth on my bare feet as we duck into the shadows of the Indomnitus. The ship looms over us, the majestic mainmast stretching up toward the iridescent sparkle of the ceiling.
We circle the keel of the ship and around to the bow. A shining figurehead towers above us—a skull with flowers and ribbons growing out of the hollows of the eyes and nose and mouth. Similar to the carvings of the gates of the Lunaedon, and just as darkly beautiful.
When we reach the other side of the ship, a gangplank leads from the ground to the upper deck, one that definitely hadn’t been there during my brief exploration of the cave. Like the Indomnitus has been waiting for Niko to climb aboard.
If this unsettles him at all, he doesn’t show it. Just walks smoothly up the gangway, his bare feet near silent on the wood. I follow, feeling increasingly unmoored; a feeling that only grows when we reach the deck.
The ship has always had a presence about it, a dark enchantment that kept me from coming too close. Like stepping on these decks would somehow be like stepping on a grave; like one wrong move would awaken a long-slumbering power. But as we cross to the mainmast, and then up a small set of stairs tothe quarterdeck, the Indomnitus doesn’t feel like a grave at all—it feels like we’ve stepped through time.
The wooden planks sparkle like the decks have been freshly scrubbed. All of the ropes, which should be long rotted, are neatly tied and stacked. The black sails ripple in an invisible breeze, as if the ship is on the precipice of a long journey, paused in time, waiting for its lost crew to return.
I run my fingers over the captain’s wheel, as Niko comes up behind me. “It’s beautiful.”
He nods, a wistful expression on his face as he glances around the deck. “It was.”
The ship is as ornate as everything else about Niko—not only made for functionality, but a work of art. All of it built with precision, all flowing curves and shining carvings.
He swallows roughly. “Sam and I left Somnya when we were fifteen on a raft. We were desperate to find a different life or die trying. We probably should have died.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “The wards were still healthy then, and anyone could travel through them if you had enough guts to find one. By some blessing, in the midst of the wildest storm I’d ever seen, we found one and followed it to another world. A place cursed by a darkness, but also ripe with the freedom I’d always longed for. I grew up there. Built a life for myself, one where I’d never be powerless again. This ship represented everything I’d always longed for growing up under Pan. The crew became my family. The ship became my home. I explored every inch of that world, and many others beyond it. Always chasing another horizon, another shoreline where I might find something to fill the eternal hole inside me.”
I listen intently, desperate for every piece of him he gifts me with. We’ve had lifetimes apart, lifetimes alone. And getting to learn everything that happened to him, every scar, every moment, is an immense privilege.
“I never did.” He meets my gaze. “Until you.”
“Thank you for showing me,” I reply softly, humbled.
Niko lets out a shaky breath. “In honesty, I haven’t stepped foot on this deck since before I killed the Aeternalis. After I kidnapped Wendy and sent her away, he burned the masts and sunk the Indomnitus in the sea. It was only fair in his eyes…I took something he loved, even if his love was twisted and dark. So he stole mine."
There is a deep longing in his expression, as he glances around his beloved ship. “Not only mine, I suppose. He closed every ward after my betrayal, trapping us all here eternally.”
I furrow a brow, staring at the ship. “How—”
Niko laughs ruefully. “The island brought her up from the depths. A reminder of everything I lost by murdering its anchor. In case I ever forgot.”
He wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my hair. I sidle into his chest, savoring the icy smell of him. The cool relief and burning heat that cascades over my skin at his touch.
With his body curled around mine, I realize with horror, it isn’t only his hands that spasm. The muscles of his arms, of his neck and back, pull tight with strain. The weight of his exhaustion, his pain, is evident in the way he holds me; the way his fingers dig into my back, like I’m the only thing keeping him upright.
