Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Evelyn

I KNEW THAT THE CAPTAIN HAD A BAD VIBE, BUT EVEN I hadn’t anticipated this level of recklessness. Bowen is the only thing keeping those shrieking mermaids off the deck. Even from where I stand next to the mast, I can see how sharp their claws are, how vicious their teeth. Bowen is doing his best, but they’ve dragged no less than three crew members down into the deep.

And now the captain wants to make it worse.

“Don’t do it.” I don’t mean to speak, but Hedd immediately turns his vicious attention in my direction. It’s too late to back down. The only way through is through. I lift my chin, trying not to flinch as someone screams far too close. “It’s the wrong call.”

Hedd looks at me for a moment and then dismisses me just as quickly. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that mutiny.”

“Someone questioning a dangerous order is not mutiny!”

Bowen answers without looking at me. “That’s enough, Evelyn.” He nods slowly. “Of course we’ll follow your orders, Captain.”

Hedd grins and rushes toward the railing. I waste no time grabbing Bowen’s arm. “You can’t seriously mean to obey. I thought we were past this.”

“He’s a berserker.” Bowen speak so softly, I can barely hear him over the sounds of fighting. “If he attacks you, even with all my power, it will be a battle of attrition. While we’re fighting, the mermaids will kill too many of the crew. There’s no choice. Set up a shield around you and Dia. Don’t argue with me, Evelyn.”

He considered all that in the span of seconds? I don’t want to admit that he’s right, but I can’t find a fault in logic with what he just said. I lick my lips. “What about you?”

“I’ll be able to function better if I’m not worried about you and Dia.”

There’s no time left to argue. I grab his shirt and pull him down for a desperate kiss. “Don’t you dare die.”

“And lose out on even a moment with you? Never.” He guides me back to the mast. “Shield. Now.”

I pull my chalk out of my shirt with a shaking hand. Dia watches with interest as I draw a circle just large enough to encompass both of us. I hesitate to close it, but Bowen is already moving away. He’s trusting me to do what I said I would. I have to trust that he’ll do the same. I press my hands to the deck and speak the words that bring the shield into being. It snaps into place with the strength that makes me shudder.

Dia carefully presses a hand into the air in front of her. “Neat trick. Most folks I’ve seen make shields do it with a bit more pizzazz.”

“I don’t know about other types of magic, but if a witch is using a bunch of song and dance to cast a spell, it’s likely for the benefit of those watching.” I don’t rise. I can see clearly enough from my position where I’m crouched. Besides, if I need to break the shield, it will spare me a second or two. “Why is he doing this?”

“Hedd?” Dia shrugs. “He likes a fight, and berserkers aren’t built for long range.”

I have nothing to say in response to that. This man’s selfish desire to commit violence is going to get people killed. His people. And there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it. I’m so furious, I can barely breathe past it. Or maybe that’s fear. It’s hard to tell the difference right now.

I don’t know if it makes things better or worse to be able to watch Bowen in action. It’s the first time I’ve seen him truly fight, aside from the cat-sìth. It’s never been clearer that he’s in his element.

Instead of using a wall, he moves through the fight with targeted attacks that send the mermaids hurtling back to water. I can’t tell if we’re making headway with their numbers, or if they are truly unending. It certainly feels like it. In reality, judging from the frothing waves around us, there are … maybe a hundred? It’s hard to estimate when they move so chaotically.

Hedd swings his ax wildly at a knot of the creatures. I might hate the man, but even I can admit that I’m glad he’s not fighting us. He’s cutting through the mermaids as if they’re paper. I shudder. “He’s a monster.”

The sweet scent of pot reaches me. “So are most of the C?n Annwn. You haven’t been around long enough to notice, but the ones they pick up who are gentle folk don’t last long.” Dia’s tone is neutral enough, but when I look up at her, her dark eyes contain sorrow. She’s lost someone she cares about. Maybe several someones.

I’m trying to come up with a response when a roar makes me whip around. A mermaid has latched on to Bowen’s back, its teeth ripping into the spot where his shoulder meets his neck. I scream and lurch forward to break the shield on instinct. I don’t know what the fuck I can do to help, but I can’t just sit here and watch him die.

I never get a chance.

A burst of power surges from him, so strong that I can feel it even through the shield. It sweeps the deck, and for a moment I swear nothing actually happens.

Then the mermaid on Bowen’s back slumps to the deck, boneless in a way that makes my stomach queasy. Then it happens again, and again, and again. Everyone goes still and silent, shock written across all their features. But not just shock. They stare down at what’s left of the mermaids on the ship with disgust and fear—and those emotions aren’t directed at the dead monsters at their feet. They shift away from Bowen as if that will do anything when he just killed every single mermaid on deck.

Nox steps onto the railing, one hand clinging to a line of rope, and leans over. They whistle in the sudden silence. “Best I can tell, every single mermaid is dead, Captain.”

Bowen collapses to the deck, unconscious.

No.

I don’t make a conscious decision to move. One moment I’m screaming in my head as I watch Bowen fall and the next I’m at his side. I barely register breaking the shield to get to him. “No, no, no, oh, you fucker, don’t you dare die. You promised me!” I never thought it was even a possibility. From the moment I met him, Bowen has been larger than life. Untouchable.

As I fall to my knees next to him, he looks all too human. Too pale. Too still. “Bowen!” I can’t lose you. Oh gods, please let him be okay.

“What the fuck did I tell you?”

I glance up to find Hedd standing over us, cursing and spitting. He hardly looks like the captain I’ve come to dislike so intensely, his form twisted and strangely out of proportion. He’s also still holding his giant ax, its double blades dripping deep purple blood.

He’s a threat, but I can’t focus on him right now. Bowen is losing too much blood with no sign of stopping. I press my hands to his wound, but it does nothing. Right. What the fuck am I doing? I have magic. I’m not as good at healing spells as Bunny was, but I can keep him alive until we can get to a proper healer. I trigger the glyph over my heart and press my hand to the wound again. For a moment, nothing seems to be happening, but then the flow of blood begins to slow. The skin doesn’t knit back together, but I’m pretty sure I see several veins reforming.

Now I have to deal with the captain.

I very much do not want to put any distance between me and Bowen, but this motherfucker seems to respond only to strength, and I have to get us out of this alive. There’s no way I can win a fight against a berserker, but I’m not thinking about that when I slap my hand to my chest and summon violet fire in a ring around me and Bowen. It takes more power than I want to admit to keep it from actually making contact with the deck.

I rise to my feet. Hedd looks downright demonic in the flickering light of the fire. I can only hope I look half as intimidating. “You’re welcome. How many of your crew are down? Bowen just saved us all.” I fling my hand out to encompass the various fallen forms. I don’t know how many of them are alive or dead, and later I’ll feel guilty for the fact that I was only worried about Bowen and no one else. But not yet.

“He disobeyed a direct order.” He’s not backing down. In fact, Hedd grins at me as if he can’t wait to see what I’m capable of.

Fuck. I might have just made a fatal mistake. I look around again, frantically searching for something that will stop this fight before it starts. My fire is fearsome, but it’s draining my magic as an astonishing rate. I normally use it only for concentrated blasts—not to create barriers.

My only hope is the crew themselves. I lift my voice. “Is your desire for a fight worth your entire crew? We did what we came to do. We eliminated the mermaid infestation.”

He lifts his ax like he wants to cleave my head from my shoulders. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do if he attacks. In his berserker form, I don’t think my fire will kill him. It might not even slow him down.

“I will brook no disobedience.” Nox appears at Hedd’s back. “Bowen was given an order and he failed to obey. You’re challenging your captain as we speak.” They cross their arms over their chest and jerk their chin at the island in the distance. “We can’t have you on the crew, so we’ll leave you on the shore of First Sister. You can find your own way from there.”

Hedd turns a mottled purple, but he doesn’t counter his quartermaster, not with the crew slowly gathering around and murmuring about what a close one that was. Not everyone made it out alive. I see the exact moment he realizes that Nox has allowed him a graceful way out. “Nox, get them off my fucking ship.”

Things happen quickly after that.

Dia appears and helps me heft Bowen’s unconscious form to the side of the ship and then into a smaller boat. She grabs my hands before I can follow. “Take care of him.” I open my mouth to ask her to come with us, but she shakes her head before I can. “I have my own path to follow, Evelyn. We’ll see each other again.”

I’m not so sure.

Not a single member of the rest of the crew tries to help us. They go out of their way to avoid my gaze as I give the ship one last sweeping look. Their apathy is more or less what I expected, but it’s still really fucking shitty considering Bowen just saved all their lives.

We came on board with only the clothes on our backs, and that’s how we leave. Considering Bowen had a crisis when he was left behind by the Crimson Hag, I’m not looking forward to how he reacts when he wakes up and realizes that we are yet again stranded, this time on a different island.

We sail the distance in record time, propelled long by some strange combination of water and air magic, courtesy of Nox. They stop us about ten yards off the beach. “This is as far as I go.”

I examine the distance. “That’s not going to work. If you toss us out here, he’s going to drown before I can drag him to shore.” I glare at them. “This is a really shitty thing to do after how he saved everyone. You would’ve lost more people if he hadn’t released that blast of magic.” I’m still not ready to examine the sheer delicacy and power required to do what Bowen did. I’m pretty sure if I think about it too hard, I might actually pee my pants in fear. The man is a fucking monster, and he’s been in my bed for the best part of the week. I don’t want to examine the truth that the same power that brought me so much pleasure is also responsible for so much death.

Nox props their elbows on their knees. “I’m in a particularly precarious position. I don’t expect you to understand, but as long as Hedd is captain, things will be done a certain way. Yes, Bowen saved a lot of the crew’s lives. But I just saved both of yours.”

I want to argue … but the truth is they’re right. Hedd was going to kill me right there. I might have held him off for a few moments, but I was going to lose that fight. Then he would’ve finished Bowen off, and there’s not a goddamn thing I could’ve done. Still. “You’re clearly the better captain and the better person. Why aren’t you in charge?”

“You were on the ship long enough to know the answer to that. I don’t have the votes. There are plenty of the crew who are happy with how he runs things. Until that changes, the only thing I can do is counteract his more extreme impulses.” They sigh. “Get moving, Evelyn. I’m not so ungrateful as to let him drown. Trust me.”

After the fight with the mermaids, the very last thing I want to do is slip into the inky water surrounding our boat. Anything could be below the surface and I would have no idea until it was far too late. Not to mention I’m not entirely certain I trust Nox enough not to let us drown. It would be a convenient way to take care of a problem.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice.

I take a deep breath that does nothing to fortify me and slip over the boat’s edge into the water. It’s colder than I expected, significantly more so than two islands ago. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m supposed to get Bowen in the water with me when Nox rolls him over the side.

I curse and make a grab for him. I can’t touch the bottom of the shallows, and it’s everything I can do to shove his bigger body over me so he doesn’t drown. For a moment, I think this is it. What a pathetic way to go out after everything I’ve survived. Bunny will be so disappointed when I meet her in the afterlife.

But then the water around me changes and seems to grow almost solid. It lifts me up to the surface, making Bowen’s weight less significant. I sputter and cough and look up into Nox’s amused face. “Told you I wouldn’t let you drown. There’s a safe house about thirty minutes’ walk north up the coast. It’s hidden in a crevasse that looks like an X. You can find food and clothes there. Stay safe, little witch.”

The water around us shifts again and then we’re being ferried away from the boat and the elemental sitting in it. Within seconds we’re spit out onto the rocky beach. It’s one of the more surreal moments of my life. I’ve known people who can harness the elements, of course, but Nox is on another level. They might be helping us right now, but I can’t stop the shiver of fear at the thought of ever being on the opposite side of a fight. With their control, they could stall the air in my lungs or pull a move like Lizzie and rip the blood right out of my body. Or, rather, the water in my blood. Semantics won’t matter when I’m dead.

They aren’t on our side, but at least they don’t want us dead.

This is the moment when Bowen chooses to wake up. He coughs a little, so I turn him onto his side to keep him from choking. His neck still looks pretty gnarly, but he hasn’t started bleeding again. At least my spell’s holding. It should continue to do so until his body heals enough that he won’t die when the spell fades.

“Evelyn.”

“I’m here.” I move around so he can see me without straining. He’s too pale, his dark eyes standing out. Worry worms through me, but I swallow it down as best I can. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

He curses and slumps onto his back. “Good news.”

“Rookie mistake. You always ask for the bad news first. It makes the good news feel more optimistic.”

His lips curve, but that’s the only hint of amusement I get. “Give me the good news, Evelyn.”

“Suit yourself.” I sink onto the rocks next to him and try not to shiver in my cold, wet clothes. “We’re alive. Hedd was going to kill us both after you collapsed, but Nox stepped in—very cleverly, I might add—and saved us.”

He shudders out a long breath. “Okay. And the bad news?”

“Funny story. Really, you’re going to laugh.” Damn it, I’m stalling, and not even in a clever way. “It seems we’re stranded again, and about to watch another one of the C?n Annwn ships sail away.”

“About what I expected.” He presses his hand to his wound and winces. “What happened? The last thing I remember is a mermaid on my back.”

I swallow hard. I really don’t want to revisit the events that ended that fight, but he has a right to know. The sooner we finish this conversation, the sooner we can find somewhere warm and dry. Hopefully. “It bit you. Quite badly. You sent out a wave of power that, as best I can tell, turned every bone in every mermaid body to liquid and made their bodies flesh sacks. It was really impressive in a horrifying, nightmarish kind of way.”

Bowen is silent for several beats too long. “Did I kill anyone else?”