Dante’s jaw clenches. “He’ll only get rid of Marco if he’s made whole.”
Tavo studies his friend a long moment, and I cannot help but wonder what goes through his mind. Ways to get rid of Marco without Lorcan’s help? Or perhaps Tavo’s contemplating which position he wants in Dante’s regime. I bet he’ll ask for my grandfather’s.
Come to think of it, whatwillbecome of my grandfather?
The serpents are under Shabbin control. They won’t harm you but don’t let on you know they’re harmless. The Shabbins don’t want the prince to know of their involvement.
I lock eyes with one of Lorcan’s circling crows. Ah . . . so that explains the look that passed between him and Antoni.Did the serpents help drag the ship?
They helped.There’s a smile in his voice.
Like a string of paper dolls, Antoni, Sybille, Dante, Mattia, and Gabriele line up, while Riccio and Tavo come up on either side of me. Wind sweeps around my body and whips my hair, pressing against the foaming waves. Slowly the ocean retreats, revealing more of the galleon.
Splintered masts. Bashed decks. Algae-cloaked ropes.
“You’re going to have to go fast,” Riccio says.
I nod and walk forward, the heat crackling off my two escorts warming the skin through my shirt. “Wouldn’t it be faster to swim to the submerged end?”
“Too much current, Fal.”
“And serpents.” Is Tavo shaking? I didn’t think he was scared of anything but apparently, hereallydoesn’t like serpents.
“Follow me.” Riccio scales up the figurehead.
“If they don’t attack you, Tavo, don’t attack them, all right?” I start my climb, using the pointy-eared female figurehead like Riccio did.
He holds out his arm to me, and I clap my hand around it. He yanks me atop the deck that’s slick with corals and sea water.
“Hold on to what you can,” he instructs, leading the way as Tavo hoists himself onto the vessel.
I close my fingers around the pieces of railing that weren’t chewed away by the sea as I follow him across the sloping deck, crushing seashells beneath my boots.
A renegade wave hits the side of the boat, knocking me off-kilter. I begin to slide, but Tavo, of all Fae, grabs my arm, and although he singes my shirtsleeve, he manages to right me. He mutters under his breath how he got stuck with the worst job.
“Soon, you’ll have a better one,” I tell him. “Focus on that.”
I want him to focus on you,Lorcan growls.
Motivation goes a longer way than threats.
As we head farther down the deck, I soften my knees and drop onto all fours like Riccio. Hand over hand, we scale along the lopsided deck. Another wave bangs against the boat. I shut my eyes and brace myself as the galleon seesaws.
“What the—” Tavo, who’s still standing, preferring to hop from one broken mast to the next, shades his eyes.
When his eyes bulge, both Riccio and I twist our necks in the direction of Marco’s ship.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Riccio whispers. “Fuck.” And then he scrambles right over me, flattening my body against the deck. “Sorry,” he has the decency to mumble.
“Get off the ship! Fallon, get off the ship!” Sybille screeches.
But I cannot get off the ship, and not because I’m frozen in fear of what’s coming, but because what’s coming is about to smash more than just this galleon.
It’s about to smash the hopes and dreams of all those on the beach and in the sky.
Seventy-Five
Leave my crow! We’ll find him again.Lorcan’s two crows fly low, trying to push me back the way I came.Leave him!
