ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

-- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

It was a bad damn day to be a pirate.

The storm had sprung full force from Poseidon’s wrath or from the gates of the nine hells themselves. Seranth had only had time to give Dare a glimmer of a warning—an insistent pulse in the back of his mind before she even materialized on the deck.

Warning! Danger!

Seranth. The sea spirit who’d chosen him less than a year after he’d first captained a ship. Her thoughts and feelings were tied to him as closely as his own breath, and he’d risked her very existence in this stupid move. For money. Nothing more than stupid greed and avarice that might cost him the magical bond that had made him the best captain on the high seas.

And worse—sudden pain stabbed through his chest when he realized another, awful truth—he might never see Lyric again.

He shouted orders to his crew, even knowing that they couldn’t hear him over the raging fury of the storm. He was drenched, water pouring from his head into his eyes, hindering his vision, but he kept at it. His crew was highly trained, and they all loved the Luna as much as he did. They were all working their asses off to save her.

He could feel Seranth reaching out to the heart of the storm; trying to calm the waves. She was a water elemental and could commune with the ocean at the best of times, but...

These were far from the best of times.

He’d listened to her immediately—taken action immediately—but immediately had been far too late.

Now rain lashed his crew, pummeled the deck, and threatened to drown them all with silvery sheets of pounding water. The waves threatened to swamp them. The ship was buffeted by the crests and valleys of mountainous waves. He kept shouting his futile orders to the crew, knowing they couldn’t hear them, but driven to save the ship that was his entire life. He had to save them—must save them all.

His crew. The exotic supernatural creatures in his cargo. Seranth.

Saving himself fell into a distant fifth, or sixth, or hundredth place. Did he even deserve salvation? Probably not.

Hells, no.

He shouted out a bark of laughter that went unheard and lashed himself to the wheel. “Come and get me then, you bitch,” he shouted at the ocean. “I’ve always known you’d claim me in the end.”

The bow of his ship smashed into the crest of a monster wall of water, and he could feel the battering of her timbers and beams in his blood and bones. The Luna’s first mate was waving his arms to get Dare's attention. The man pointed to the boxes and bales of cargo lashed to the deck and to the temporary pen they’d built for their most precious cargo, who’d refused to go below where at least they would have been marginally safer.

Siberian unicorns are claustrophobic, the seller had said.

The creatures themselves had proven that ‘claustrophobic’ was a severe understatement. They’d made it very clear in no uncertain terms that they would not be put down in the hold of the ship. One of his crew had a broken leg and black eye to prove it; another had been knocked unconscious by flailing silver hooves.

Smitty was right. They needed to protect the animals. They were possibly the most valuable cargo Dare had ever carried on his ship. Beyond that, he had no wish to see such rare and beautiful creatures harmed. He was a pirate, not a monster.

He gave Smitty the thumbs-up, and his crew jumped into action, untying the cargo and hurling boxes into the sea. They’d been overloaded and were riding too low in the water as it was. They needed more maneuverability to get out of this. Profit be damned.

The wheel fought him like a wild thing; tried to yank itself out of his hands and turn the ship in pursuit of what he didn't know. Maybe the ship had decided to steer itself straight to the nine hells. Or send him and all his crew to visit Davy Jones. Or at least to visit the ghosts of past Atlantean sea captains.

Another monster wave was coming right for them. There was no way to maneuver around or through it. It was going to smash them into splinters. He threw his entire weight into steering the ship, turning it just a little to approach the wave at an angle.

It was the only chance they had.

A high-pitched screaming sent sound waves like rusty nails through his teeth and skull. He whipped his head to the side and saw catastrophe in the making. One of the sides of the unicorns' pen had come down, and the animals had pushed through, kicking and flailing in their terror. Ropes from the cargo’s wooden boxes had tangled around the animals’ feet, and the larger one—the male—was being pulled inexorably to the edge of the deck. His mate was screaming that horrible, visceral sound and trying to block her mate’s slide across the deck.

Dare yanked his dagger out of its sheath and sliced through the rope holding him to the wheel. He had to save them—they didn’t deserve to die for his folly.

He ran across the deck, pushing forward with a combination of bullheaded stubbornness and the practice of long years spent maneuvering his way around the ship. He launched himself through the air for the last few feet and landed flat on the deck, his reaching hands just grasping the end of the rope. He yanked hard, rolled over, and pushed himself to his feet. Then he twisted the rope around his waist to help give him leverage to pull.

Seranth! Turn us into that wave at just the right angle, or we’re done for.

For the first time since he’d known the elemental, the sound of her voice in his mind was tinged with an undercurrent of fear:

I'll do my best, but my best might not be good enough in this instance. If that's the case, please know that my time with you has been a bright spot in millennia of existence.

It's not over yet, he thought at her fiercely, while maintaining his hold on the tangled unicorn and pulling the creature back bit by bit from the edge of the deck.

"We're going to hit!" he shouted, not even sure who was shouting at. Maybe only himself—or maybe Poseidon, who was in charge of the sea and so was ultimately responsible. After all, the sea god should favor the sons of Atlantis, or at least keep an eye out for them. Knowing Poseidon, he was probably drunk in some Olympian Tavern.

Bastard.

The ship hit the wall of water at an angle and – for just a moment—Dare thought they might actually survive it.

Then the rope ripped through his hands, tearing the skin from his palms, and spun him around with the force of its movement. When he turned, he was just in time to see the backsides of the animals as they went over the side.

He didn't even think; he just ran. He leaped up onto the railing, balanced precariously for a second to get a fix on where they were, and then dove into the churning water.

There was no chance he could save them.

There was less chance he could save himself.

But he'd be damned if he wouldn’t try. The current took them immediately and slammed him into the side of the boat. Lights whirled around in spots before his eyes: kaleidoscopes of color alternating with terrifying darkness. He was fighting so hard to catch his breath that he almost didn’t notice the warmth of the blood pouring down the side of his head when he clawed his way out from under the water. He saw the animals, which was a miracle itself, and they were swimming away from him and the foundering ship.

Of course they were. Because they had a lot more sense than he did.

He headed in their direction and managed to catch the end of the female’s trailing rope. The ship loomed large and black behind them, and he realized he might've jumped out of a sinking ship and right into the maelstrom that was sinking it.

He kicked harder until he reached the animals, who were both flailing in the churning water, frantic with fear.

"It's going to be okay," he lied. Nothing was going to be okay ever again, but he didn’t know how to speak unicorn anyway.

Also, he’d quite possibly cracked his skull open, because his mind wasn’t making any sense at all.

Their names. What were their names?

The storm had pounded everything out of his mind, but he forced himself to think, wrapping one arm around the female’s neck…right. English aristocracy. Some book. Ringley? No…

"Bingley. Bingley and Jane. We're going to be okay, guys. Somehow, we're going to be okay."

The storm suddenly, miraculously, began to dissipate. Either Seranth had been successful, or the ocean’s fury was simply worn out from throwing its full force at the ship.

The Luna was limping toward him. Beaten and battered—almost, but not quite, broken. In the startling way of storms at sea, the sky had gone from darkest night back to daylight in the space of minutes. The waves were calming, the wind slowing, and he had the impossible thought that they might actually survive this.

Jane took that moment to kick him squarely in the groin, and he doubled over, gasping and choking when his face hit the water. When his ears quit ringing, he could hear Smitty shouting something at him from the broken side of the deck where the unicorns had gone over.

Dare looked up, still hunched in the water, and Smitty shouted again.

“Okay there, Cap’n?"

"Outstanding,” he managed to yell back. “You want to throw down the dinghy so we can get Bingley and Jane back on board?"

"Right away, sir,” his mate yelled.

"Did you hear that, you rotten nut-kickers? We're going to be okay," he choked out.

The unicorns looked dubious, if that's how you translated eyes rolling in their sockets and frantic hooves flailing. He put a hand over his crotch just in case, but then he had a hard time staying afloat, so he gave up and hoped lightning—or unicorn hooves—didn’t strike twice.

Smitty shouted something else. Dare looked up instead of around, so he only peripherally saw the piece of wood that slammed into the back of his head.

Darkness.

Cold.

Freezing, icy, dark.

Swirling, floating, sinking.

Drowning.

Drowning.

When Dare came to, he was deep, deep beneath the surface. His survival instinct’s first instinct was to breathe, which was a horrible mistake. He choked and tried to force water out of his mouth and nose but it was impossible.

He couldn't see any light, he didn't know which was up and which was down, and even with superior Atlantean lung capabilities, he was pretty damn sure he was going to be dead in about the next five seconds. Even if the ship had been able to wait around for him, he’d never be able to reach it.

There was only one thing left to do, and luckily he knew how to do it, underwater or not.

He focused his mind and called for the Atlantean portal, which had been the only means of transport to the surface during the eleven thousand years Atlantis had been sunk beneath the seas.

I need you now.

The faint glow that heralded the portal’s arrival began to manifest in front of him, but it was another case of too little, too late. Even the magic of Atlantis couldn't save him now. He tried to hang on—lungs bursting, head pounding with pain—but his vision of the swirling portal was narrowing to a point of light in the far distance. The lack of air was crushing his lungs. His last thought before the dark claimed him was that he only had one regret about dying.

He’d wanted to see Lyric one more time.

* * *

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