Page 6

R aindrops splatter onto my hand, skittering outward in several directions, making even smaller droplets of water.

The ripple effect—my father used to talk about it all the time.

How one decision made by one person can lead to a thousand other events happening, so far away that the person who started it all would have no idea the impact their decision made on the world.

The weight of that conversation I had with my father years ago sits heavy on my mind tonight.

Amara and Wells agreed to join me on this perilous venture.

The risk of what we are about to do is beyond anything any of us have attempted to overcome before.

And now there is one more soul added to the mix.

One more life that may be left in ruins should we fail.

“I’d say the rain pisses me off, but it’s a perfect shield for us to do what needs to be done tonight,” says Raven, my navigator and resident thief, as she wipes the onslaught of water from her face.

Her ability to snag someone’s purse and sneak into places she doesn’t belong is unprecedented and the exact skillset we require for the night.

At the green age of twenty-one years, I fought Amara and Wells on letting her join us.

She should be back on the Trinity with the rest of the crew where the risk is minimal and she can evade whatever hell will be brought down upon us should we fail.

But the plan requires one more person to join the fray, and she’s the only other member of the crew who has the sleight of hand to pull off stealing the artifact from Blythe.

When she was fifteen years of age, I found her outside a brothel in two scraps of cloth that barely covered her private parts, begging to provide service to whatever bastard was willing to give up his shillings for the night.

Unlike the other young women I’d passed by time and again, her feet had been shackled to the outside wall.

When I asked the madame why she was chained, she’d told me the girl kept running away.

It cost me a bar of gold and two rubies, but I bought her freedom from the madame that night and trained her how to read the stars and the wind that fills our sails.

She’d taken to it well. Worked harder than anyone else on the crew, making every ounce of gold and ruby I’d spent that night worth it.

Silently, I curse myself for letting her join us. She should be back on the ship—safe from the monsters of this place. Safe from me and my obsession with freedom.

Instead, she lies on her belly to my right with a spyglass raised to her left eye.

“Agreed.” Wells slides his hand over the shoulder of his leather coat, flinging a wave of water into Amara’s face. She chomps her teeth at him with a wicked growl.

“What?” he laughs. “It’s not like you can get any wetter.” His smile is mischievous and I shake my head, knowing exactly what he’s about to say. “That is, unless, you allow me between those beautiful legs of yours.”

Amara rears back her fist and punches Wells in the bicep. “Agh! Damn you, woman! You punch like a man.” He rubs his bicep up and down, but the look of desire shining in his eyes for her only deepens.

The metal cuffs in my hair sing against one another as I shake the rain off my hair. “The two of you are going to get us caught before we even have a chance of stealing the Serpent’s Key.”

Amara scoffs. “I played no part in this. I was just defending myself, Captain. He is the one?—”

“Hate to break up the party, but Blythe is on the move,” Raven interrupts.

I watch as the spyglass in her hand moves steadily to the left. Large raindrops pelt my fingers as I shield my eyes with my hands so I can see better through the onslaught of rain and peer down into the street below us.

The roof tile scrapes against my elbows as I lean closer to the edge and watch Blythe in a hooded cloak moving through the throng of people.

Wells had done his detective work the night prior, having stalked Blythe’s men to a tavern, where they got so deep in their cups, they boasted openly about their plans for today.

They tried to be secretive about the when, where, and why of their plans, but Wells was able to piece it together, nonetheless.

That’s the thing about treating one’s crew like scum under one’s boot. The turnover of Blythe’s crewmen is next to none, and most of the men crewing with him have no wits and certainly no loyalty. Especially not when he threatens them all through the use of fear and punishments.

Treat your crew like family and they will become one. It was one of the many lessons my father passed onto me before he was killed.

A lesson that is proving faithful tonight.

Wells stands and gathers his sword from where it was laying by his side before he signals to the three of us that he is off to create a distraction.

“Amara.” I nod my head toward Wells. She knows damn well her duty is to follow and aide him, but the stubborn glint in her eyes tells me she wants nothing more than to abandon him at his post. Though, deeper, I know the act they play together is all for show.

Rising onto her knees, she groans. “This mission will be the death of me.”

I snort. “All the more treasure for us, then.”

“You wound me, Captain.”

She readjusts the pistol at her side as I smile up at her. The heavy raindrops make me squint my eyes and I wipe my hand across them to clear the water from my vision. It works for only a moment as I say, a little more seriously, “Be careful, Amara.”

More rain splatters against my eyes, but I see her nod once before she turns around and disappears off the other side of the roof, following in Wells’s footsteps.

“The entire city is going to lock down if Blythe fails his attempt at stealing the Serpent’s Key,” Raven whispers to me, despite the heavy rainfall. “The king will send out his entire army for the artifact once he realizes it’s stolen. Are you sure you want to get in the middle of that, Captain?”

The opalescent pearl clasped onto the thin braid in my hair falls forward.

I absently reach for it, rolling the small treasure between my fingers like I’ve done most days since my father gave it to me.

It’s a constant reminder of the life I once shared with him and my mother.

A reminder of the love I saw between them before the monsters of this world ripped them apart.

The day of my father’s death was the first time I realized that no one was going to rescue me from that fateful day. No one was going to come along and take away the pain—not even my mother. I was in charge of my own destiny, just as I am right now.

Magick may not run through my veins, but there has always been the incessant pull of something .

Something guiding me . . . showing me the path that is meant for me to take.

And the moment Red Beard revealed the Serpent’s Key as our new bounty, I felt that tug in my heart letting me know that this was, somehow, the way out.

But what if you’re wrong? What if all this is for naught and the shackles around your ankles only grow tighter?

Water falls from my hair is I shake the thoughts away before looking to Raven.

Placing my hand over her forearm, I give it a pat.

“Freedom is the one thing worth fighting for, Raven. This world grows smaller every day. More evil things sprout around us, desperate to take hold of all that is good. We have sailed under Red Beard’s demands for far too long.

He is only an example of the cruel and wicked things in this world.

I do not want us to be around when fouler creatures sink their claws into this place. ”

I look out over the sprawling city below us.

It was once beautiful. The white stone of the buildings’ walls would shine from the mid-morning sun.

Children would run in the streets with abandon and their parents would know they were safe.

Every shop and tavern was thriving. I can still smell the scent of freshly baked bread and decadent sweets as my parents swung me between them on our nightly strolls.

This city was my beloved home before we were forced to flee to Emerald Cove.

Now, green and black mold crawls its way up the dingy walls of every building.

The only children in the streets are those begging for scraps of food.

Most walk right past them, splashing muddy water into their faces from the puddles that seem to pollute the cobblestone streets every few steps.

Or worse yet, the children are stolen and forced into some kind of horrific labor—just like Raven had been.

The only smell rising to meet my nose now comes from the overflowing sewer drains that the king no longer takes care of, despite the hefty taxes the people are forced to pay.

“Freedom,” Raven repeats, tasting the word in her mouth like it still feels foreign to her after all the years she’s been away from the brothel.

“I think I’d like to fight for the chance of that,” she whispers to me.

Her dark red lips split her face and the smile she beams at me is one I will remember for the rest of my days.

The freckles she earned from all the time spent on my ship crinkle as her smile broadens further, and I know she’s found it: the feeling that always tingles up my spine when I think of days spent on the open water with no one to answer to.

The sensation of being weightless as I take my midnight swims under the blanket of stars high above me.

The wind that flows freely through my hair, and the feeling of my mother’s pearl lapping gently against my shoulder when the sails of the Trinity take hold.

I can see it in Raven’s eyes. The wanting of something intangible, yet all-consuming.

Freedom .