The hunter shifts his weight, watching the change in my expression with unease.
“We hold her until nightfall,” he says, his tone turning serious. “If someone makes an offer worth taking, we sell her whole. If not…” His gaze flicks briefly toward the tail displayed across from me, then back again. “There are always other options.”
The other man nods.
“Scales fetch more when they’re fresh though,” he mutters. “Blood too, depending on the day…”
Their conversation becomes distant as my gaze drops to their chests, where their hearts beat steadily, pumping blood. I know that with my talons, I could rip them out in one clean swipe. It wouldn’t be a big effort. In my blinding anger, I might even consider eating them, like the dark water sirens do, making an exception for these disgusting excuses for men.
Beyond them, someone catches my attention.
A figure lingers next to the stand across from me, wearing a cloak that falls from her shoulders in a long, fluid waterfall of deep emerald, its fabric drinking the light instead of reflecting it. She waits, as though she understands that sudden motion would draw the wrong kind of attention. That these men are some of the most dangerous around.
Then she lifts her head.
A small gasp escapes my throat, but it is swallowed up entirely by the cloth.
Cailia.
I would know her anywhere, by those dark, knowing eyes and the way her hair clings to her like oil dripping down her shoulders.
She lifts her hand and gently presses one finger against her lips, then nods towards a beam next to her.
A sheet of parchment hangs nailed to it, the paper curled at the edges. Though they haven’t captured him correctly, I stillrecognize his face. I could never forget that slightly crooked nose and those dark curls, not in this lifetime anyway. Sable, sketched with coal. Beneath it, other pages overlap. Grim, and Nightglass, and all the others I have come to know and care for. Beneath each of their pictures, bold red writing that I saw plastered all over the island on these flyers growing up.
Wanted.
I blink away my tears. He cannot come here. He will not come for me. Even if this piece of paper didn’t exist and death wouldn’t await him here, the sea already has its claws in him. It had already called him home before we reached the Sea of the First Song. I failed to bring his shadow back, and with that, I sentenced him to death. He is probably back in the Sea of Bones, climbing over the railing to drown just as all the other lost souls did. And the worst part? He’ll do it all alone, because I was stupid enough to keep my promise to save his crew first.
As Cailia makes her way across the wooden bridge towards my stand, I spot the corals in the shape of her silhouette. Any passing human would not understand what lies beneath her cloak from the same of them, but if you know what to look for, they are unmistakable. She stops in front of me, and a tear falls from my eye, directly onto the dark planks beneath my head. Someone came for me. Her gaze moves over my body, tracing the length of my new form without recognition, until she reaches my face and lets her eyes rest there briefly.
“Turn her,” she says.
Grimsbane shifts his weight, suspicion raising his brow, tightening his mouth. “You’re looking to buy?”
Cailia tilts her head slightly, considering me with narrowed eyes in silence. “Depends. Not much left in this one,” she answers. “Looks half-dead already.”
The hunter snorts beside her and steps closer, his hand closing around the rope connected to my tail. “She’s worth more than you could afford, witch.”
“I want her,” she says, with no hint of submission in her voice.
He laughs and jerks the rope downward. Pain tears through my tail all the way down to my skull, and I bite down on the cloth shoved in my mouth, my scream muffled.
“For what?”
Calia’s expression doesn’t change, but I can see how her shoulders tense underneath the thick cloak.
She raises her chin. “That is nothing of your concern.”
His grip on the rope tightens as he straightens his posture, aggravated.
“I do not sell to witches,” he spits.
When Cailia does not react, the hunter turns his head when someone calls his name from behind him, his attention shifting from her. Cailia moves closer, close enough that I can see worry in her eyes.
“He is here,” she whispers, eyes darting between the hunter and me, her lips barely moving.
My breath catches as my gaze flicks past her immediately, searching for Sable in the crowds of the market that is now buzzing with life. Shouts of prices and deals fill the air, mingling with the clatter of coins and the creak of wooden carts being dragged across the docks. But there is no sign of my dark-haired pirate captain.