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Mermaid?My attention swings back to that.Do they have her? Is she alive?

I debate whether to hide somewhere in the ship or to go up top but curiously gets the best of me. I need to see the Syren before they kill her or torture her or whatever they’re going to do. I wish I could save her, but now that I know my reaching Edonia relies on the captain and crew getting their mermaid blood, I don’t think I can.

The fact that I would be choosing myself over another Syren’s life breaks me a little. But already sacrifices are being made.

I slowly creep up the stairs to the deck, poking my head up just in time to see a most preposterously chaotic scene unfold.

It seems that most of theNightwind’screw are here now, each of them fighting one or two rotting skeletons dressed in baggy clothes, armed with rapiers and broadswords.Nightwindseems to be winning despite the disadvantage, though I look just in time to see one of the skeletons jab their rapier right into the stomach of the pirate who cut Aerik’s cheek.

But though the pirate doubles over in pain, he still manages to slice the skeleton’s legs off at the shins, then brings down the side of his sword into the skull, crushing it into fragments.

“Here’s a fair maiden.”

A twirl around to see a skeleton face gaping at me a foot away, about to stick his sword through me.

“Here’s a headless bastard,” says Sam as the woman pirate comes in from out of nowhere.

I scream as she swings her sword and cuts the head clean off. The skull goes bouncing along the deck, the mouth still open in a holler.

I stare at the woman, shocked that she saved me. “Thank you,” I say breathlessly.

“You’re most welcome,” she says. “Figured Bones would have my own head if I let anything happen to you.” She looks at the knife in my hands. “I’d tell you that you should be below deck where it’s safe, but I reckon you’re a woman who doesn’t listen to most.”

“You’d be right about that,” I say, my gaze going to the rest of the battle unfolding around us. “Are we winning?”

“We?” she says with a grin. “I’m glad to know which side you’re on. Aye, I say we’re winning. Takes a lot to get these cursed men down but once they are…” She jerks her chin at the man she had decapitated. The body is slowly crawling back toward the head. She goes over and reaches down, grabbing a hold of one boney arm and ripping it off, then whips it around so it goes flying off the deck of the ship and into the water. “You can keep them down for a while.”

She looks over the rest of the scene, at the fighting skeletons and the thick eerie fog that’s creeping over the ship, and frowns.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” she says to me as she comes back over, her cutlass at her side, pulsing with the need to stab something.

“What?”

Her gaze is steady on the other boat which is mashed up right beside theNightwind. Some of theNightwind’screw, including Sterling, are bringing aboard a long box of sorts. It reminds me of a coffin except that it’s covered in a muslin sheet. “That’s the mermaid in there.”

My mouth drops open and I let out a sharp gasp. “They have her?”

“Or what’s left of her,” Sam says, disappointment in her tone. “You see how the cursed men are more or less skeleton? Mermaid blood would have given them the appearance of human for a short time. The fact that their humanity and skin has faded into shreds means that the mermaid isn’t giving enough blood. That or she’s already dead.”

“Aaaaaaargh!” a skeleton man cries out and starts running toward us with his broadsword raised.

Sam quickly turns to fight him, her swordplay an even match for his, and though I want to stay and maybe help her, she doesn’t look like she needs help from the likes of me. Instead, I want to follow Sterling and the Syren to wherever they go.

I step out of the way, hiding behind a barrel of tar, then watch as they take the long box down the stairs and into the lower deck. I wait a bit and then go down after them. They aren’t on the main deck, not near the captain’s or officers’ quarters or the galley, so I sneak down the next set of stairs to the gun deck.

They step out of the room where Aerik’s cell is and I duck behind a post, watching as they run back up the stairs to join the fight against the cursed crew, singing a sea shanty together as they go.

They left the door to the room open, thankfully, and I scurry toward it. They had lit a lantern and placed it in the corner of the room, illuminating the covered box and Aerik who is staring down at it from his jail cell in weary confusion.

He looks over at me and blinks. He really looks worse for wear. His face is bruised and bloodied, looking like skin-and-bones already. I almost feel sorry for him.

“You’re still alive,” he comments, his voice raw and hoarse.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I say as I take a step closer to the coffin-sized box.

“What is that?” he asks.

“This?” I say, reaching for the sheet that’s covering it. My hand is starting to tremble, my nerves all over the place. “This is a mermaid.”