Page 111 of When the Sky Breaks

“Weapons,” Ansel said as our pursuers rounded the corner. He drew his gun. I did likewise.

“Be quiet, be good,” I murmured into Sorcha’s hair, grabbing my own knife and pressing it into her palm as I finally removed my hand from over her mouth.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” one of the men said, voice low, gruff, knife at the ready. Then his eyes tracked down to the weapons in our hands.

“You weren’t supposed to do it,” Ansel replied.

“What’s a few deaths to save hundreds?” the man spat back. “We’ve kept the ship steady course this way. Avoided icebergs. Sacrificed our way to favorable winds.”

“See there’s a problem with that sentence,” Ansel said. “The word sacrificed. You’re throwing passengers to demons.”

“Nobody that’ll be missed,” the man replied.

“You’re to stop,” Ansel said.

“We’ll see,” the man retorted.

Ansel drew the hammer back on his pistol.

“Leave it,” Sorcha said suddenly. “Let them be. We’ll deal with it another way.”

“And what do you suggest, Sorcha lass?” Ansel asked.

“I’m a pregnant woman in a silk dress,” Sorcha said. “I go to the captain and act morally outraged.”

We climbed the steps back up to our rooms, stopping on the upper deck to take a few minutes to breathe the night air and recover from the gory display. Sorcha curled against my side, knees drawn up.

“They’ll be here in a minute,” she murmured.

“Who?” I asked, pressing a kiss to her hairline.

“The whales,” Sorcha said.

And sure enough, a moment later a pod of humpback whales breached the surface of the ink-dark waves.

“Good cetaceans,” Sorcha murmured, then went limp against my chest, magic draining out of her.

“We really need to make a rule about this,” I whispered, kissing her again and pulling her into my arms to carry back to bed.

Forty-Seven

Sorcha

Isat in the captain’s office in my most expensive tea gown, crucifix tucked under my dress so it didn’t show, cradling my belly to deliberately make it look bigger than it already was.

“It was some kind of occult ceremony,” I said, voice a half octave higher than usual, diction perfect, tone deeply offended.

“The crew is allowed to practice their own religion, miss,” the captain soothed. “No matter how atypical.”

“I don’t mean icons and incense, Captain,” I continued. “I mean something properly disturbing. Pagan.”

“Are you absolutely certain that you . . .” the captain began, but Ansel didn’t let him finish.

“Think about it, Captain,” Ansel said. “Think about where the engine room is. Think about the young, isolated, impressionable passengers the engine crew is working nearby.”

“I’ll look into it,” the captain soothed.

“You’ll solve it,” I said sharply.