G raybeard didn’t bother guiding his warship back toward the docks. Of course, from the angle we were at, I couldn’t tell if the docks were still there. Instead, the pirate spun the bone wheel, and the ship glided toward the shore. The edge of the bank had been cut away in the raging waters, forming a natural dock. Graybeard dropped a massive anchor, and the Bone Sails slowed to a stop.
I walked with Casper, still eyeing with suspicion any puddle larger than a cup of water. A few I stabbed with a stone dagger just to be safe. The plank settled onto the bank of the river as we reached the worst of the erosion. Graybeard and Zola waited at the top of the bone ramp.
Casper hesitated, eyeing that plank with some trepidation. A rattling clack echoed out from the Bone Sails, and Casper’s face split into a grin.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“That if I was scared of a little bone, I shouldn’t stand so close to a dick.”
I guffawed. “Are you serious? Did they just call me a dick in Morse code?”
“Pretty sure they did,” Casper said as she took her first step onto the plank, and started up onto the deck. I followed her, feeling the strange give of the bone and sinew beneath my boots. The water had made some parts slick, but our issues with sliding and catching our balance ended when we set foot on the deck of bones.
“Thank you,” I said.
The parrot ruffled its wings before settling down onto the skeleton’s shoulder. “I thought we were here to deter water witches, not to engage an entire army of them.”
“Surprises all around,” I said.
“Lass,” Graybeard said. He gestured toward the far side of the ship. “You’ll find what crew we could rescue waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Casper said as she hurried past Graybeard. One of the smaller skeletons, clad in leather shorts, gave Casper a slap on the back as she passed. She flashed the skeleton a grin, and I was fairly certain that was probably the skeleton who had called me a dick.
“Foster and Aideen?” I asked.
Graybeard’s skeleton lifted its chin, and I followed the gesture up to the crow’s nest. One of the skeleton crew gestured wildly to the two fairies standing on the edge of the nest.
“We were lucky,” Zola said.
“Lucky?” I said. “Half the damn soldiers down there drowned.”
“And imagine if we hadn’t been there,” Zola said. “In the time it would’ve taken to reach the riverfront from the shop, this engagement would’ve been over.”
I hadn’t thought of our timing as anything remotely like luck—more like our timing was just damn close to getting us killed, and watching our allies drown.
“They targeted you all, they did,” Graybeard said. “You may not have seen the shifting of the waters from down below. But from here, I could see every bend those witches took. They circled around you like a Titan come to swallow you all.”
“Swallow us like a sheet iron cracker that got stuck in their throat,” Zola snapped.
I remembered the waters closing around us, crashing against our shields; the soldiers dragged down to the grasses under the waves while the undines sucked away their last breaths.
“Yeah, maybe we are lucky to be here.”
“The witches thought to neutralize us beneath the waters,” Zola said, raising an eyebrow. “Ah would’ve thought our reputations required a larger attack.”
A mournful, pained cry sounded from the huddle of soldiers across the ship. Casper had her arms wrapped around one of the younger privates, a man who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. I didn’t need to hear the conversation to understand what had happened. That pained howl, the uncontrolled sob that told only of the loss of friends or family.
“They did enough damage,” I said.
“Aye,” Graybeard said. “But they could’ve done more.”
I turned to Zola. “And where the hell was Alexandra? Nixie said she was coming back this way with support.”
Zola frowned. “It is unlike Alexandra to be late. Ah wonder if the undines did not merely strike on one front.”
Her words sent a frisson of anxiety tearing through my chest. I cursed and pulled the backpack off my shoulders. “We need to talk to Nixie. We need to talk to Falias.”
“Foster!” Graybeard shouted.
The fairy perked up on the crow’s nest, said something to Aideen, and then swooped down toward us.
“What is it?” Foster asked as he glided onto Zola’s shoulder.
“Have you spoken to Falias?” the parrot asked. “Any of Nixie’s troops?”
He shook his head. “We just got done not dying. Why?”
“Because the water witches could’ve crushed you here,” Graybeard said, “and yet they didn’t.”
Aideen followed Foster down. She landed on Graybeard’s shoulder, opposite the parrot. “The queen is not known for subtleties. She is ruthless and murderous, and blunt though her tactics may be, they are deadly.”
I already had the blue obsidian disc in my hand before Aideen finished speaking. I gave the fairy a nod, and started down the bone ramp, catching myself once when my boots threatened to lose traction. The cry of one of Casper’s soldiers echoed out around me, and rage kindled in my gut.
I didn’t bother to look for a smooth entry into the water; most of the sloping shore had been cut away by the raging river. I hopped down, keeping one arm on the bank, while I sank to my waist in the river. The old discs weren’t the most secure communications we had. We had to be cautious about what went across them, but in an emergency, they were one of the best tools we had for reaching Falias.
The disc pulsed beneath my fingers, and I waited. The water rippled and shivered around me, and I began to question the sanity of hopping into the river when I had just seen a legion of water witches in those same waters. But the ripple did not become a deadly adversary. The ripple became a voice.
“Damian? What is it?”
“They struck Saint Charles.”
“No,” she said, a bald urgency in her voice. “That’s impossible. They struck Rivercene. Ashley and Beth and Cornelius …” She hesitated.
“Are they okay?” I was ready to fish the hand of Gaia out of the backpack and charge to Rivercene.
“They survived. But they only survived because Alexandra and our detachment showed up to help them.”
“How many?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
I cursed and spat a string of profanity.
Nixie’s voice came back, and whatever calm had been there shattered. “The queen is here!”
The transmission cut off, and the waters around me returned to their natural flow.