30
The road to the facility is rocky and winding, doubling the strange sensation of riding in a car again. After months at sea, every jolt over a pothole or a washboard feels like a punch in my lower back. I glance across the backseat to where Swift sits, staring out at the passing palms and scrub. It’s twice as strange for her—she’s never ridden in a car in her life.
Our driver is a bulky military man who’s said maybe three words in the forty-five minutes I’ve known him. I can’t tell if he’s not talkative or if he’s mad that he has to shuttle a pair of teenagers up the coast on “personal business.” He drives, he doesn’t get lost, and he doesn’t say anything, even when we pull up to the facility. When he cuts the engine, I glance over at Swift. “Well,” I sigh, “this is it.”
I push the door open, the slashes on my arms stinging from the effort. It’s been two weeks since the attack, long enough that I don’t have to reapply gel strips every morning, but the wounds have a nasty tendency to bust open if I strain them. The ones on my face have been healing better—not enough though. Varma likes to say I have “character” now, which is a weird word for scars.
Tom’s the first one out the door. He beams when he sees me, and it makes my heart lurch just a little. I give him a quick hug, and he hugs back with a gentleness I never would have expected from him. When he steps aside, my mother is standing behind him.
I don’t deserve the look she’s giving me. I’m a traitor to her industry, partially responsible for the biggest crisis the Reckoner trade has ever faced. I joined up with pirates. I killed trained Reckoners. I was supposed to take that little blue pill my father gave me, the one that would have killed me and stopped all of this from happening.
But none of that seems to matter as much as it should when we’re standing face to face. So I do what the captain taught me. I straighten my back. I look her in the eye. And I forget it all when she steps forward and folds me into a careful hug.
Mom’s eyes fix on my scars, following the lines they trace over my face. “I wish you’d stay,” she says, reaching up to cradle my jaw. Her thumb runs cautiously down the raw, nerveless ridge of one of the claw marks.
“I—” My voice catches in my throat as I spot a shadow in one of the facility’s windows. Tom told me not to expect Dad’s forgiveness any time soon, and I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t part of my welcoming party. But I know it’s him, watching me now. Maybe someday, maybe soon, he’ll see enough to make him step out from the shadows. Until then, I have to carry the distance like a knife in my gut and know that I earned it with the choices I made.
“I wish I could stay too, Mom,” I say at last, bowing my head and taking a swipe at my watering eyes. “But there’s unfinished business out there, and no one’s better suited to take care of it.” She’s heard these words before. She’ll probably hear them again. The IGEOC likes calling it “unfinished business”—it gives the impression that we’re cleaning up a mess of our own making, rather than one of theirs. I glance back over my shoulder. “I brought along someone I’d like you to meet.”
Hearing her cue, Swift steps out from behind the car and gives my mother an awkward wave.
“This is Captain Swift Kent,” I say, and there’s something about those three words that makes my smile uncontrollable. “She’ll be in charge of the Minnow over the course of our commission. She’s also responsible for saving my life.” I leave off exactly how many times she’s done it.
Mom’s brow furrows. “You look familiar,” she says. She really doesn’t, dressed in her crisp new uniform with her hair halfway decent, but my mother must recognize Swift from the Nereid’s security footage. Mom takes an extra second to process the realization, then steps forward and offers a hand to her. “It’s a very noble thing you’re doing. Best of luck on your mission, Captain Kent.”
Swift takes her hand and shakes it, and I know there’s a part of her that still can’t believe this is how she’s received on shore.
Before the awkward silence has a chance to settle in, I jump forward. “I was actually—I mean, the captain wanted to see the facility. I was going to give her a tour, if that’s okay.”
Tom folds his arms, smirking. “You need help, or do you remember where everything is?”
I roll my eyes and grab Swift by the elbow. “Won’t be more than a few minutes,” I shout as I pull her away. I don’t miss my brother’s wink. He’s seen me do this too many times before.
I lead the way down the narrow trail to the Reckoner pens. It feels weird to be walking these paths in civilian clothes, weirder still that Swift’s following me. When we get to the concrete meridian that extends out into the bays, she stops. “Cas, what are we doing?” she asks.
I ignore her. There are eight bays in front of me, and one I know I have to go to. A magnetic pull draws me down the meridian to the last row of pens, the ones built for the biggest beasts we raise. One is occupied by a serpentoid that looks like it was in the Hellbeast fight, covered with raking scratches that no pirate weapon could produce. The other bay is empty.
As it should be. I’m all too aware of the shape of the ink across my back as I sit down on the edge of the meridian, staring at my torn-up hands. Imagining the last time I was here. Feeling just how much has changed since then.
I don’t turn around when I hear Swift’s footsteps behind me. “This was her pen,” I murmur.
“I know,” Swift replies. The last time she was here, it was with a syringe of cull serum in her hand. Poor, simple, trusting Durga let her get too close, and that was it. That was what started this whole mess.
And now we’re sitting on the cusp of another beginning. Tomorrow the Minnow ships out for the open seas with one mission—to track down and eliminate all of the remaining Hellbeasts. With Bao at our side and free rein of the NeoPacific, we’re the perfect tool for the job. We’re able to operate where state militaries can’t, free from obligations to defend the citizens of the shore that make those militaries unable to spare any of their resources.
It’ll be a long job. A difficult one. But if we do it right, we’ll finally put to rest the disaster that Fabian Murphy started. The man himself has followed my instructions perfectly—no word of him has surfaced in the weeks since he left Fung’s island. If there’s any justice in the world, he’ll never come back. Whether it’s on some distant floating city, some inland mountain escape, or some uncharted island, he’ll stay far away, trapped and harmless, for the rest of his miserable life.
Meanwhile, we’ll reap the benefits of cleaning up his messes. It took nearly a full week of negotiation, but we’ve secured a hefty commission from the IGEOC to carry out our duty. Most of the negotiation was on my part, getting the Minnow’s crew to come around to working for the shore. Almost all complaining was put aside by the size of the offer. It’s nowhere near a pirate take, but as an honest living, it can’t be beat. If we’re smart, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to milk this hanging favor for a very, very long time.
Even better, it’s enough to keep Swift’s family looked after, and our open-ended assignment allows plenty of time to make stops at the Flotilla. Plenty of time to make stops in the SRC too. And anywhere in between, though our relationship with the Salt is a little shaky at the moment. Omolou’s boat sank in the Hellbeast fight, leaving Lemon a free agent, but Eddie Fung was more than a little upset when Swift withdrew Chuck’s offer and told him she’d be staying on the Minnow permanently. Chuck and Varma weren’t upset at all.
Swift sits on the meridian next to me, her gaze fixed on the water as she rubs her thumb over the third line of ink slashed across her forearm. I’ve never asked her about the night she poisoned Durga, and I don’t think I need to. She’s haunted. That much is clear from the way she stares, from the way she won’t look at me.
But I can’t keep my eyes off her. Captain Swift Kent—because after all of the deliberation, we knew it could only ever be her. Santa Elena was right. Swift could be the greatest captain these waters have ever seen. And I can’t wait to see that.
We have unfinished business, but we have an entire future to finish it. So I reach out and take her hand in mine, wincing as my wounds brush over her skin. She startles a little, then softens, her gaze finally flicking to me. I may not love her yet. I may not deserve to have her love me back.
But we’ve got oceans to cross. Beasts to hunt. Full lives to live. And I’m going to try.
The End
ACknowledgments
This book almost didn’t happen. The miracle that is you sitting here reading these words is the result of the efforts of so many incredible people, and all of the paper in the world wouldn’t be enough to thank them.
So here goes nothing.
Brian Farrey-Latz, thank you for starting this journey with me. Mari Kesselring, thank you for bringing this story home to safe harbors. Profound thanks to the two Flux teams—can I call you Flux the Grey and Flux the White? Feels appropriate. To Mallory Hayes, Katie Mickshl, Sandy Sullivan, Bob Gaul, Megan Naidl, Joe Riley, and everyone else at Flux and North Star whose hard work makes dreams come true.
Thao Le, you wager of wars, lighter of fires, and beacon of hope—I couldn’t ask for a better champion as my agent. Thanks for carrying us through the storm, and thanks to the whole team at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency for your unwavering support for this little big story.
Tara Sim, I don’t deserve you (or anything you put me through). Thank you for your wisdom, your friendship, your generosity, your incredible gift for storytelling, and all of those images I’ll never be able to get out of my head.
Jessie Cluess, thank you for welcoming me to your wonderful garbage city with open arms. There’s no one I’d rather escape the clutches of Kettleman City with. Traci Chee, you’re my favorite little old lady, and I’d be lost without your plot goddess powers. Thanks to Elizabeth Briggs, Audrey Coulthurst, Sarah Glenn Marsh, Roshani Chokshi, and all of the other members of the YA author community who form my salty pirate network. None of us sails these waters alone, and I’m so grateful for that.
Marisa Perez-Reyes, thank you for taking me to the ER in the middle of the night on the day I wrote only five words of this book—and, you know, for everything else too. Thank you Wop House for your wonderful weirdness that let my weirdness thrive. And it feels strange to thank an educational institution—especially one that put me through hell—but it feels stranger not to say thank you to Cornell for all of the little corners where I stole away to tell this story when I was probably supposed to be studying more.
Mom and Dad, I understand more and more every day what an obscene privilege it is to be your daughter. Thanks for a home where anything was possible with enough elbow grease, and sorry about the scientific inaccuracies (even the fun ones). Sarah, thanks for being my first creative collaborator. I can’t wait to see where your amazing gifts go. Ivy, be good.
And finally, there’s you. Whoever you are, you’re reading this. You’re with me. I can’t thank you enough. This book almost didn’t happen, but I fought for it, every step of the way, thinking of you here at the end. Thanks for finishing this story. Here’s to many more horizons.