Page 11 of The Withering Dawn (Wicked Tides)

Hearing her story made my fists ache to hit something.

I wanted so badly to ask her about the ship she was on with Antonio’s sigil on the flag, but I didn’t dare inquire about it when she looked to be on the verge of breaking apart where she stood.

If it was an act, it was a good one. It appealed to the part of me that wanted to fix broken things, which contradicted the part of me that also wanted to wreck everything around me.

Yes, I was a twisted man. Even I didn’t understand the innerworkings of my mind most days. I wanted to heal the world and watch it burn at the same time and God knew I could not do both.

It was only when Aeris seemed to relax a bit that I decided I could allow myself to do some digging.

“I find myself wondering something,” I said. “Who did the ship belong to?”

She didn’t say anything, but her demeanor said she knew something. It was like she was afraid to tell me. I narrowed my eyes at her, letting her know that I could see her unease.

Aeris took a deep breath as if to ground herself. “I can help you find him,” she said.

“What?”

“You want to find him, don’t you? The man that cut your back. The one that killed your brother.”

I hesitated, wondering if she was a witch or if she was just abnormally good at guessing.

“What do you know?”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “You have all those documents from the Perry Smith. Were you looking for him?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

She straightened, tucking her hair behind her ears. “You won’t find him in those records. Everything he did with the Order was unofficial.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I heard him talking to Jacob once.”

I scoffed, shaking my head and pacing the small space, hands on my hips.

“If you seek to lure me in with vague information, you do not—”

“I remember almost everything I hear,” she cut me off. “Listening is all I’ve been able to do for a very long time.”

I cocked my head. “I am to believe—”

“Cathal, Aleksi, Nikolas, Oliver, Cilian, Rourk, Henry, John. There is another John on your crew, but your men call him Johnny so as not to get them confused. There are also two Williams, but you call one Bear because he’s large and has a heavy step. Winston, Richard, Francis, Amon, Kristoff. There are others. I can name them all if you ask me to.

“Sometimes you speak in your native tongue and only two others aboard this ship understand you when you do. Cortez and Alonzo, though they don’t talk much. I don’t know why, but you’re closer to Aleksi and Cathal and judging by your condition when you came into the hold the other night, drinking rum, you felt responsible for Oliver like he was a younger brother and his death affected you more than you expected. Now that I know Leo was your brother and he is gone, I want to assume you feel very protective of those weaker than you like your brother was protective of you.”

She paused a moment and when she did, I felt like I’d been holding my breath for hours. Like I was in a dream.

“And I wonder if that is the reason you took me off of the Perry Smith. Because I looked weak and helpless and it reminded you of someone. Perhaps yourself when you were a weaker version of the man you are now. When you were too weak to fend for yourself so your brother had to. And then you realized what I was and that is why you’re conflicted. Because I’m a monster and yet I needed help.”

My heart was thrumming rapidly in my chest like my past had come back from the bogs of my memories to haunt me. Not that I was unaware of their existence, but the way she recited so much of my past like a goddamn mind reader almost knocked me over. I found myself wondering if all those names had been mentioned within earshot of her. I wondered when and where I spoke my own language around others. Sometimes I could not even tell when I switched from one language to another.

She watched me like she thought I might backhand her for saying so much and I realized then that I was standing like I had a rod up my ass. I let out a deep breath and relaxed my shoulders.

“Are you reading my mind, mu?equita?”

She shook her head, taking a bold step toward me. “I’ve spent my life watching things happen around me.”

“And with all that, you think I should believe you about Antonio.”

“Antonio Acosta. The man who owns the ship. He spoke with Jacob some time ago. The Order used it whenever and however they liked as long as they stored Antonio’s riches on the island for safekeeping. They keep each other’s secrets. When Antonio requested they transport his possessions, they decided to take me on the ship with them and hoped I would die on the way. If I survived, they would have delivered me to hands far crueler than their own. But they never intended for me to survive.”

“Were they going to give you to Antonio?”

“I don’t know. I only know where I was going, but not to whom I was to be sold to if I made it that far.”

I felt myself getting closer to the piece of knowledge I really wanted. The thing I’d been hunting for years.

“Where were they taking you?” I asked, holding my breath again.

She gulped as if she didn’t want to say. “Dornwich.”

I marched up onto the deck with my hands balled into fists. I was so close. So close. It was like walking in a dream and seeing the thing I wanted most across a river with no bridge. Only there might be a bridge now and Aeris had shown it to me.

“Cap’n?” Cathal said. He was sitting on a barrel beveling a piece of scrab wood with an oversized knife. He stood, stepping over the wood shavings around his feet, and waved the tip of his knife toward me. “What’s got ye all wide-eyed with yer hands all balled up?”

“Dornwich,” I said.

“What about it?”

“That’s where we need to go.”

His expression went from relaxed to rigid within seconds like he could read my meaning through my tone alone.

“You found him,” he said.

“She told me. The treasure we got from that ship was his, like we thought. They were taking it to Antonio in Dornwich and she was likely going to be sold there if she didn’t die on the way.”

“Makes sense if the rumors are true about them buying up live sirens. But how do ye know she’s tellin’ the truth?”

His eyes flitted away from me, focusing over my shoulder. Turning, I saw Aeris cautiously stepping out into the open.

“You don’t,” she said. “But what would I gain by telling you to go to Dornwich? No siren in their right mind would go there.”

“You talk like yer coming with us.”

“She is,” I said.

Cathal raised a brow, snapping his eyes back toward me like I’d just insulted him.

“Beg pardon?”

“Just trust me. We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”

“Yes, but never with a siren aboard.”

I took a moment to watch Aeris’s reaction to our conversation and I saw nothing malicious in her demeanor. I didn’t see anything hateful. Anything that would indicate that she was even offended by Cathal’s reservations. I couldn’t quite explain it, but I knew her efforts to help were genuine.

“She’s on our side,” I said.

“How do you know that?”

I turned back to face Cathal. “I just do.”

Slapping him on his thick shoulder, I moved to the stairs leading to the helm where Nikolas had been listening to the conversation, arms rested on the wheel. I tapped his back and he moved to the side, letting me take control of the ship.

“Prepare your pistols and knives, gentlemen! In a few day’s time, we’ll be in Dornwich,” I said. “And one step closer to finishing this.”