Seafire Page 7

  For just a moment, everything was still. The Bullets’ sun sail glittered like jewels. Water hissed as it rained back into the ocean, and Caledonia’s crew made their next move.

  Amina and her five chosen girls recovered faster than the Bullet clip. They pulled weapons from boots and hidden harnesses and raced toward the sail. Lace and the others now moved with Caledonia, blocking the path Amina had just taken.

  The assault ship listed heavily to starboard. While five Bullets raced into the belly of the ship to stanch the wound, the rest turned to Caledonia and her girls.

  They were outnumbered. Caledonia counted at least thirty Bullets still on deck. As they raised swords and guns alike, she heard Redtooth shout, “NOW.”

  Those still aboard the Mors Navis opened fire, pulling guns from hidden clips.

  The attack caught the Bullets off guard, clearing the way for Amina and giving Caledonia and her girls a fighting chance.

  “Masts up! Knots high!” Caledonia called across the gap between ships. Redtooth repeated the order, and the masts climbed to their full height.

  Half of the Bullets leapt to the railing, using whatever means possible to cross to the Mors Navis. Some raced across the gangplank, some jumped, still others used their own rigging and swung over on ropes. Those who remained closed in on Caledonia and her small band.

  Lace was at Caledonia’s side, pressing a pistol and sword in her hands, and then she was in the fray. Caledonia searched for the Ballistic and found him in pursuit of Amina, aiming his rifle at one of the girls high in his sun sail rigging.

  Another of Pisces’s bombs exploded, sending the ship heaving toward the Mors Navis, momentarily disrupting the fight. The gangplank cracked but did not fall, and the ship tilted toward the bow, heavy with water.

  The Ballistic raised his gun again, this time aiming directly at Amina.

  Caledonia lunged across the deck, aware that as she did, she removed herself from the protection of her crew, leaving Bullets at her back instead of sisters. But she had no time for safety. With all the speed she could muster, Caledonia aimed a kick at the Ballistic’s wrist. She made contact just in time, the shot biting into the deck of the ship instead of Amina’s head.

  The Ballistic turned instantly, striking out with the full barrel of his gun. It whipped across Caledonia’s cheek, stunning her.

  A hand gripped her neck as the Ballistic bent close to taunt her. “If you’d come quietly, you might have saved a few of their lives. Now I’ll let you watch as they die.”

  His confidence was as odious as his breath. He saw victory unfolding before him. Her crew was divided, spread out across two ships, while his was concentrated and brutal. He saw Caledonia’s tactics as fractured instead of calculated.

  His mistake.

  A vicious scream split the air as a dozen girls spilled over the unmanned side of the assault ship, guns high. With all their attention on deck, the Bullets had missed the moment her girls slipped overboard into the bow boat and skirted both ships. Now it wasn’t her crew that was hemmed in on all sides—it was the Bullets.

  Using the distraction to her advantage, Caledonia slid one leg behind the Ballistic’s and in two swift moves, the man was stumbling backward. He scrambled for his gun, but she was faster. She raised her pistol and fired.

  It was a solid hit. Blood spilled from a blossom high on his shoulder, knocking the fight from him. His knees buckled, and he landed on the deck.

  Her girls swarmed from all sides now. The fight swelled. Guns were traded for blades and fists. Caledonia caught her crew in flashes: Tin and Folly fighting back to back, Redtooth’s braids swirling around her as she drove her blade forward. There was Lace, blood bright on her cheek, struggling against a boy twice her size.

  In minutes, the battle was over. Amina’s group had the sun sail halfway to the deck, and her crew was flush with triumph. Relief started to unfurl in Caledonia’s chest.

  Then, as her girls corralled the remaining Bullets around the mainmast, Caledonia saw a splash of blonde curls against the gray deck. A body lay there, unmoving and dappled in red.

  “Lace.” Caledonia rushed forward, dropping to her knees. “Lace,” she repeated, voice choked. The girl’s cheeks were still pink from exertion, and blood puddled beneath her small body. In one hand, she clutched a gun, a twist of lace around the handle. Next to her, Pippa crouched with tears in her eyes, desperately trying to cover the wound in Lace’s chest with her own hands. But it was too late. The moment Caledonia caught the flash of Lace’s face in battle had been her last.

  Caledonia wanted to rage. She wanted to give her crew the order to fire on the remaining Bullets, to remove their black hearts from this world. To give their bodies to the deep and send their ship after them.

  But she took a steadying breath. Blood. Gunpowder. Salt. This fight had cost her crew dearly already, and there was no point in wasting more bullets.

  “Surrender peacefully and you might live,” Caledonia commanded, rising to her feet.

  She hoped at least a few of these Bullets would give her the excuse for one more moment of violence. Caledonia felt their rage clutch around her like a noose, but one by one, the Bullets dropped their guns and knives.

  Pippa and Folly quickly collected the abandoned weaponry. It would more than replace what they’d thrown over in their feigned surrender. Behind the crowd, Amina appeared with two others, the stolen sun sail bundled between them.

  Caledonia stooped to gather Lace’s body into her arms, her heart keening like a ghost funnel.

  “You really think you can run from him? You’re a dead ship.” From where he kneeled on the deck, the Ballistic spoke, his words as thick as the blood that now dripped down his arm.

  Caledonia swept her cold gaze across the clip. She’d spent so long dogging Aric’s ships from afar that she’d never considered what it might feel like to stop running. To turn and fight as they’d just done. It didn’t feel like victory.

  “You’re right. Aric Athair killed us long ago.” The smile she offered them held no warmth. “We simply seek to return the favor.”

  While her crew held the Bullets at gunpoint, Caledonia hugged Lace close and walked calmly toward the gangplank, her crew following carefully behind. Her mother had once told her that there was more strength in calculation than in violence. Right now, she needed everyone—this clip and her crew alike—to know that she had won and she was not afraid to turn her back on a boat full of Bullets.

  “Retract masts!” she commanded, feet once again on the familiar plane of her deck. “Release the plank!”

  Tin appeared and gently lifted Lace’s body into her own arms. “I have her, Captain.”

  The words were so familiar, so threaded with Lace’s sweet voice assuring her, I have the bridge, Captain, that for a moment, Caledonia’s breath caught and she clenched her teeth against a cry. She met Tin’s somber eyes and responded, “You have her, Tin.”

  In moments, the engines of the Mors Navis were humming with the last of their reserves. As they pulled slowly away, a final explosion rocked the assault ship: Pisces’s parting gift punching the hull one last time and ensuring the ship would slowly submerge.

  They were scarcely a mile away when flares glittered in the morning sky. Purple and yellow and red. The remaining Bullets calling for aid.

  Caledonia hoped it never came.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fifty-two.

  Their number had increased over the years. Sometimes in ones and twos, sometimes in groups of five or more. Each time it jumped, Caledonia felt a strange twist of panic in her chest. As encouraging as it was to grow a full crew, it was also terrifying. She was responsible for each girl, for making sure they had food and drink and health, and she’d fought every day to keep them whole. To keep them fifty-three.

  And she’d failed.

  It had been a night and a day
since they left the assault ship. They’d driven hard to make the waters of the Bone Mouth, everyone determined and bent to their work. Amina got the new sun sail in place just as they ran through their reserves. It hung from the mizzenmast as though nothing had changed.

  Redtooth sat constant vigil with Lace in the belly of the ship, growling whenever one of the cats got too curious. She was as steady and stoic as a marble statue, with streams of tears carved against her cheeks. Hime was the only one who could get close enough to bring Red her meals. Their friendship had found its footing on the perilous terrain of Hime’s withdrawal, with Hime lashing out and Redtooth refusing to back down. Hime knew when Red’s marble exterior was just that, a shield standing guard over a tender heart.

  Pisces hid herself away with the engines, pouring her attention into something she could fix. And Caledonia took her position at the helm, the one she’d so frequently shared with Lace, and steered her ship with a firm hand.

  When the islands of the Bone Mouth appeared on the horizon, Caledonia gave the order to stop and finally retreated to her quarters. They needed deep water for Lace, and Caledonia needed a moment away from the eyes of her crew.

  Exhaustion tugged her toward her bunk, but she stripped out of her clothes and into something fresh, a simple pair of pants and knit top in shades of brown. The fabric was a relic of the old world, neatly wicking away her sweat when it was hot, reflecting her own body heat when it wasn’t, easy to clean and hard to tear. In spite of years of use, the top was as sturdy as the ship beneath her feet. Next, she wrestled her hair into a braided pile atop her head, sticking it in place with wooden combs. Tears cut warm paths down her cheeks and she did nothing to stop them.

  Fifty-two. They were fifty-two when they should be fifty-three. Fifty-one more opportunities to fail.

  And this wasn’t just anyone. This was Lace. Apart from Pisces, there wasn’t a girl on board she trusted more. Lace had slipped into the fabric of the ship as though she’d always been there. She’d worked seamlessly at Caledonia’s side, and whenever she laughed, Caledonia was warmed by a memory of her mother doing the same.

  She’d gotten them both killed.

  At a knock on her cabin door, Caledonia stamped out her thoughts. She smoothed her tears over her skin and stood to retrieve her gun belt. “It’s open,” she called.

  The door swung and Pisces stepped into the room, her own eyes shiny and red. “We’re ready.”

  Caledonia nodded. She didn’t trust her voice to come out steady. Her throat, her lungs, her gut felt punctured by sorrow, as though the air were constantly wheezing from her through tiny holes.

  “Cala, no one blames you.” Pisces tried to catch Caledonia’s eyes.

  “They should,” Caledonia answered, voice thin.

  “It’s not your fault. And any one of us would’ve taken her place.”

  A tremble began in Caledonia’s hands as she cinched her gun belt and latched the buckle. Any one of them would have taken her place. It wasn’t a threat, but it felt just as heavy. “Pi . . .” she started, and when she couldn’t find the words she needed, she reached for her friend’s hand instead.

  Pisces squeezed tightly. “We all loved her, and we all love you.”

  There was a moment, years ago, when Caledonia and Pisces had decided which of them would lead their budding crew. After a year with only themselves to consider, they’d fallen into a kind of wordless rhythm. The pain of losing everyone they’d ever loved had left them with a powerful intimacy. Instead of hardening against each other, they grew together, their hearts and minds weaving around one another like the roots of an old tree. But as their numbers grew, so did their need for clear lines of command.

  “One of us needs to lead,” Pisces had said. “You need to lead us.”

  “Why not you?” Caledonia asked, though she knew Pisces was right. They were barely fifteen turns at the time, and she felt too small to take on the mantle of her mother.

  “Because,” Pisces began. “One of us also needs to follow.”

  She’d only dimly understood what that meant at the time. But with every day that passed, she understood it a little bit more. Today, it meant that she had to stand up under the great weight of this loss. And it meant Pisces would make sure she didn’t do it alone.

  Clenching her jaw against fresh tears, Caledonia let Pisces pull her down the dim hallway and up onto the deck. Before them, the entire crew stood quietly under moonlight. Behind them in the near distance rose the uneven outline of the Bone Mouth islands, and at their feet lay Lace.

  She’d been washed and dressed in a simple white shift that fell to just above her feet. The Mary sisters had made it, singing softly as they stitched. Her hands had been wrapped in fresh lace, crisp and bright in the moonlight. On her arms, the crew had painted their names in black ink. Fifty-one names curled down her skin, and in her hands she gripped a gun against her breast.

  For a moment, sadness threatened to overwhelm Caledonia like a great wave. Then she raised her eyes again to the faces before her and reached for the strength of her mother.

  She didn’t remember many deaths aboard the Ghost, but at each one Rhona Styx had stood tall and strong as she spoke the same words Caledonia now needed. Never once had Rhona faltered. As a child, Caledonia thought it was because her mother was too strong to feel sadness. But standing here now, she understood that Rhona had turned her sadness into another kind of strength. It was her responsibility to be strong for her crew even in the face of loss.

  “Tonight, we say farewell to one of our sisters,” she began. “The sea carries us in life. It feeds us and rocks us and challenges us. And in death, it gives us peace.”

  As she spoke, Amina, Hime, and the Mary sisters began to secure stones to Lace’s body. They were plain and gray, unremarkable sea stones, but Caledonia imagined each one a brilliant citrine, bright enough to light her way. One at the feet, one at the thighs, one over her chest. When they finished, they lifted her between them and carried her to the railing, blonde curls bouncing one last time. Pisces stood near with the paintbrush in her hand. Caledonia took it, bending to add her name on the back of Lace’s hand.

  “We loved you well, Lace,” Caledonia said. “But you loved us better. Take our names and our hearts with you, and keep us from below.”

  Carefully, the girls lowered Lace’s body over the railing, then let it slide into the dark waters. She vanished with a small splash, and the rest of the crew raised their hands into the air, cupping their palms like sails in final parting.

  Long after most of the crew had dispersed and gone belowdecks for the night, Caledonia stood in the same spot with her eyes on the water below. She breathed deeply, forcing her mind to fold the death of her friend into the past. She needed clear eyes if she was going to keep this crew going.

  But Lace was dead. Someone she loved was dead. And it was her fault. Again.

  Redtooth leaned next to Caledonia, one hip braced against the rail. She looked as fresh as Red ever looked. Her blonde braids were smooth and the red clay at their tips renewed, her freckles were distinct and clean, and she’d taken the time to mend a few rips in her favorite gray jacket. But her eyes were puffed with sadness, and now Caledonia recalled the sound of her cries, echoing through the ship as they traveled to this resting place.

  More than any of them, Redtooth was made for battle. She found joy in the danger and fought fearlessly beside her sisters, but all that battle fury came from a surprising softness. She loved as fiercely as she fought. And she mourned as deeply as she loved.

  “Captain,” she said, an apology for the interruption in her tone.

  “I’m sorry,” Caledonia found herself saying.

  Redtooth’s frown was severe, almost affronted. “She wouldn’t want you to apologize.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Redtooth shook her head, assured of her answer even as she stru
ggled to find her next words. “She’d want you to keep going. Keep fighting. And I think . . . I think she’d want you to have this.”

  She held in her hands a loop of dingy lace. It was long enough to wrap around a hand a dozen times or more, its creamy color stained from years of use and fight. The scalloped edges had long since lost their shape, and the weave was soft to the touch. Lace’s hand wraps.

  When Lace’s mother smuggled her out of the Holster, she sent her with a small spool of this very lace. It was the only thing of value in their possession, and she couldn’t bear the thought of sending her girl away on her own without anything to trade. Even something as useless as lace.

  It had been her opening gambit when she met Caledonia’s crew—a spool of lace for a spot on their crew. That was how she acquired her name. And when the other girls told her lace was less useful than their goat, Lace decided to show them all. She wrapped her hands in that lace before every battle and hit Bullets harder for it.

  Caledonia held out her hands and let Redtooth drape the lace between them. In her mind, she saw the flash of Lace’s curls as she fought bravely against a Bullet twice her size.

  Anger rose in her heart like the tide. Her hands closed around the lace in her hands. Her voice was deadly when she said, “Bring me the boy.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  In moments, Redtooth had the boy on deck. He nearly dangled from her grip on the back of his shirt. His hands were a painful red from the bindings and his face paler than it had been when he came aboard. He blinked in the dim moonlight, eyes quickly coming to rest on Caledonia.

  Redtooth paused, awaiting orders. The boy seemed to think this could go well for him, his lips parted once again in that strangely hopeful expression. It made Caledonia’s skin itch.

  “Unbind his hands,” Caledonia commanded.

  Redtooth complied, and as blood flowed freely to his hands, the boy hissed at the pain.