8

The next morning, I wake up to the girl who saved my life shoving me out of her bed. “Captain said you’re hatching the beast today, since you’re all rested up,” Swift grumbles, stepping over me as she staggers to her feet.

I prop myself up on my elbows, watching as she rummages through the drawers. I’ve got no earthly idea what time it is, apart from “not night.” There’s no window in Swift’s bunk, and it strikes me now that the janitorial closet might have been roomier.

When she strips off her shirt, I don’t spare her the way she spared me. Her body is laced with scars, but that’s not the only thing marking her skin. Inked across the bottom of her rib cage is a bird, its pointed wings curving down toward her hips, its head covered by the bottom edge of her bra. A swift.

Of course.

“So did your mom give you that name, or did people just see your tattoo and start calling you that?” I ask.

“Mom.” She says the word like it’s eggshells that she’s dancing over. “Now quit staring, jackass,” she snaps, and throws her shirt in my face. “Get off the floor. You’ve got shit to do.”

Five minutes later, we’re jogging through the halls on the ship’s lowest level. Down here, the engines groan and grumble as if we’re passing through a giant metal heart, and the smell of saltwater winds through the air. The upper part of the Minnow is stitched together from mismatched pieces, the halls bleeding from metal to wood and plastic in a train wreck of bolts and glue. But down here, the comforts of the yacht parts melt away into the cold, industrial womb of a warship.

We round a corner and step through a hatch into what I should have known the ship possessed from the start. The Minnow already has a built-in trainer deck. There are two huge cutaways with roll-up doors on either side of the hull that open out to the ocean, and a runoff trough that takes in whatever seawater washes over and sweeps it into a channel that feeds out the back of the ship. A massive cutaway dominates the rear wall, with a similar set of roll-up doors which have been pulled up to give us a wide, sweeping view of the morning sea. The floor is damp under my bare feet, and I take care not to slip as I pick my way after Swift. Santa Elena waits at the edge of the trough, four of her crew beside her and the pup’s tank at her side.

On the back wall, a knot of cabin boys and girls takes me in with wide eyes. None of them look older than thirteen, and Santa Elena’s boy is among them. I can’t tell which is the bigger spectacle for these kids: the monster pup, or the shoregirl dragged aboard to hatch it.

A pit of dread builds in my stomach. The pup’s in its purse, which keeps it in stasis. It’s safe and warm, fed by the rich fluids that cradle it. The second it’s exposed to the outside world, it needs constant care and attention. We usually have a rotating staff when the pups hatch back home—a night shift, an early day shift, and a late day shift. Twenty-four hour supervision.

With my life tied to this baby monster, I can’t afford to do any less than that.

“I’ve collected the tools you need,” Santa Elena says as we draw near. She’s dressed in sweatpants and a track jacket, her hair bound back in a ponytail, a far cry from the elegant woman who lounged in the throne room last night.

For a second, I hold the captain’s gaze, and I’m sure she sees the questions in my eyes: How do you know what we need? How did you get this equipment? How did you get this pup?

But she only smirks. “Your knife is there. Turn it on any of my crew and I’ll have lead in your skull faster than you can blink.”

She gestures to a bank of instruments spread out on a workbench. Whatever her source, she’s clearly done her research. There are tubes and bellows for clearing the baby’s airways, towels for wiping it down, an adhesive thermometer to monitor its temperature. And then there’s the blade,
gut-hooked and wicked looking, designed to carve the leathery skin that forms the sac.

I take it in my hand, testing its weight. I’ve only ever been the one holding the knife once, a year ago. I remember what Mom said to me as she hovered over my shoulder, ready to swoop in the instant my wrist twisted the wrong way. “Make the cut along the lower edge of the purse,” she told me. “Let the fluid drain before the pup does.”

But we had Tom with us, holding up the other end of the purse while Mom guided me through the work, and technicians on the sides, ready to swoop in with the care the pup needed. I need more hands than I have here, but no one’s stepping up to help. Swift’s fallen back to the captain’s side, and none of her crew look interested in anything but watching me struggle.

“Put up the dams,” Santa Elena barks. Two of her crew, a man and a woman, move to the edges of the drainage channel and haul up partitions that catch the water, creating a miniature tank that fills to knee-depth in a minute.

My hands are shaking.

“Dump the purse,” the captain orders the men to her left. They wrap their arms around the tank that holds the Reckoner pup and tilt it over slowly but surely until the amniotic fluid drains into the pool, the sac sliding out after it. The waters flush a muted orange, and the pup convulses in its purse.

I grab the rest of my tools and step over the barrier, shuddering as the chill of the seawater sinks into me. The amniotic fluid forms a thin, slimy skin on the water’s surface, one that the pup will have to fight once it’s free-breathing. I set the tubes, bellows, and towels down on the other side of the partition and move toward the purse, my fingers curling tighter on the knife.

The purse is about four feet long and three feet wide. By my estimates, the pup’s probably around two hundred pounds, almost twice my weight. As soon as this thing gets free, it’s going to have a mind of its own, and it’s up to me to get out of the way before it gets any ideas.

Santa Elena seems aware of this. I can see it in her smirk as she declares, “Have at it.”

I kneel, the water seeping into my shorts, and grab the sac by its bottom. The pup’s awake—its paws press at the leathery womb that surrounds it. Still trembling, I press the blade into the purse until its point punctures the skin. A bubble of amniotic fluid oozes out, and I press harder until the knife’s hook makes it inside the sac. I yank back.

The blade’s sharp, but the membrane is tough. It doesn’t make a clean slice like it ought to. The edges are ragged. I grit my teeth and pull harder until I’ve sliced all the way across the sac’s bottom. The syrupy fluid gushes out, drenching the front of my shirt as I lean over the sac and reposition it, this time so that I’m kneeling at the top.

This is the part I’ve been dreading. This is why it takes so many hands, why my own two won’t be enough, why I stand a good chance of losing one of them.

I hook the knife in the middle of the first incision and start to pull back, carving a T-shaped gash in the membrane. I try my best to lean back, to get out of the way. The pup twitches, and one of its—his, I can see that now—rear legs stretches out into the open air, kicking for the first time without any resistance.

I glance down to find that his reptilian eyes have slid open. His gaze is fixed on me, and for a moment he reminds me far too strongly of Durga. The lines that shape his body are unfamiliar—clearly he isn’t one of my mother’s constructions—but he’s a terrapoid through and through, and it’s enough to rattle me. She’s gone. She’s really gone.

Breathe, I remind myself. What comes next?

“Make it fast,” my mother told me. “The quicker the cut, the slower he’ll react.”

I pull too hard. The blade dips against the pup’s skin, flaying the purse membrane wide open as he rushes toward me, and all of a sudden the baby Reckoner is free.

And he’s pissed.

He lunges up, his beak snapping, and before I can react, he’s got a chunk of my hair locked in his bite. The deck behind me comes alive, Santa Elena shouting as her crew draw their guns and point them at me and the pup. He twists viciously, his stubby limbs flailing, and the sharp edge of his beak shears off some of my hair.

The rest rips right out of my scalp.

But I’m free. I stagger backward as the baby continues to thrash, rolling off his back and into the water. He lets out a nasally squeal as if the world he’s been born into has already offended him.

“Lower your guns,” I shout, using the partition to haul myself to my feet.

The crew doesn’t obey me—of course they don’t—but after a nod from Santa Elena, they stand down. The baby Reckoner runs up against the tank’s barrier and bounces off, still squalling. His stumpy tail thrashes against the water.

I lunge for the bellows and the thermometer. I’ve got mere seconds to get this done before the pup locks onto me again. There’s some part of me that’s gone raw and wild and animal, and I let it loose as I rush toward the beast. The Reckoner wheels, but I hook my fingertips under his keratin plating and swing myself around onto his back before his jaws can reach me. He bucks and screams, his eyes rolling. I drive the bellows into his primary blowhole and squeeze them, forcing the noise back down his throat and then sucking it right back out.

I toss the device to the side, not caring where it lands. But before I can get the thermometer placed, the pup rolls on his back, plunging me underwater. I choke on the putrid mix of saltwater and amniotic fluid, and the baby’s weight slams me against the bottom of the pool.

For a moment, stars dot my vision.

Then he rolls right back over, and I’m up—I’m free just long enough to rip the adhesive off with my teeth and slap the thermometer down on the beast’s neck, where neither his jaws nor his stubby arms can reach it.

The Reckoner lunges predictably when I let go, but I dance out of the way and run for the opposite end of the tank, crawling over the barrier as I try to catch the breath I lost. To my surprise, there are hands there to meet me, hands that guide me out of the dangerous pool and onto the damp deck. Santa Elena passes me an approving nod from the other side of the tank, and my stomach twists.

I don’t want her approval. I want to get out of here. My head throbs—I raise a hand to it, and it comes away bloody.

Oh. Right.

Now that I’m safe from the pup’s temper tantrum, I can finally take stock of what he’s done to me. About half of my hair is missing or shorn. I probe carefully at my scalp until I can be sure of it. I drop my blood-soaked hand to my chest and press carefully against each rib. I’ve seen trainers with their chests crushed get right out of the tank like nothing’s wrong, fueled by the adrenaline that comes from being in the water with a killer beast. For all I know, I could be dying right now, so I’m not taking any chances.

I press on my sternum, and three sharp pains cut through my sides.

They all must see it in my face. The captain strides over to me, Swift on her tail. “Get Reinhardt down here,” she barks to one of the cabin boys on the back wall. I cough, and her attention snaps back to me. “Sit down. Stay as still as possible.”

“Looks worse than it is,” I gasp.

Her eyes flash. “Don’t lie to me, Cassandra. It doesn’t benefit either of us. Now sit.”

And I guess I’m still just a dog on her leash, because I sink down onto the damp floor.

Swift crouches next to me, her brow furrowed. “Why’d you go back in there?” she mutters. “After it got hold of you—why’d you go back?”

It’s starting to hurt to breathe. The adrenaline is wearing off. “Had to—” I hiss. “Had to make sure the airways were clear … and get the thermometer on. Temperature has to be … monitored.”

“Right, but that thing was about to kill you.”

“If that thing dies, I’m dead anyway,” I shoot back, as loud as I can manage. “And you are too, so you’d better be thanking me.”

“Not on your life,” she says, but there’s a smile teasing on the edge of it, and a little spark of hope flutters through me, hope that she might actually be on my side.

At the very least, I hope I’ve convinced her I’m no longer suicidal.

Reinhardt turns out to be the ship’s medic, a weasely looking man who prods at my ribs with long, bony fingers and comes to exactly the same conclusion I made ten minutes ago. Three breaks, but nothing horrible enough to put me out of commission. “I can medicate you, but I can’t fix fractures like this,” he says, pulling a bottle of pills out of the satchel on his hip. “Two of these a day, no more. And watch them carefully. We got a lot of addicts on this crew.”

I nod, taking the pills from him and immediately popping one. There’s no instant relief, but the fact that I have something to manage my pain is more than I expected. My gaze shifts to the tank, to the Reckoner pup who’s poking his snout up over the barrier and warbling. I’ve been taken care of enough—now it’s time to see to him.

I check the thermometer’s reading on the companion device. He’s running a little hot. No surprises there. I’ve never seen a birth this violent, but the pup’s temperature isn’t high enough to get me worried. I wave to get Santa Elena’s attention, cringing as my ribs twinge. “He needs to be fed,” I say.

“How much?”

I frown, trying to remember the conversion chart Mom keeps pinned to the wall of the nursery. “For a pup this size, twenty pounds of meat should do it,” I tell her, trying to keep the uncertainty out of my voice. “And we’ll need to swap out the water in the tank.” Over her shoulder, I spy two of her crew reaching for the empty purse floating in the pool. “Watch it!” I yelp, just as the Reckoner lunges.

His jaws snap shut, missing them by inches. He’s the most aggressive newborn I’ve ever seen, though admittedly I’ve never seen a pup get nicked by a knife during a birth. Most terrapoids are sluggish out of the purse. I was swimming in Durga’s pool mere hours after we hatched her. But this one’s already a monster without the training.

And I hate him.

He’s my charge, and he’s the reason I’m being used by a bunch of pirates. My life is tied to a beast that’s already done his best to end it, and for a moment I find myself wishing that they’d just killed me on the Nereid.

But that wouldn’t have done any good, because the pirates would still have this pup, this equipment, and no one on shore would be the wiser. It’s on me to survive. It’s on me to get this information back home, even if there’s no place for me there anymore.

And then something comes to me, something I can use. These pirates don’t know what Reckoner pups are like. They’ve only been on the bad side of the fully-grown beasts.

I could play this to my advantage.

And the idea is so deliciously present that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Anything this pup does will be blamed on his nature before my training. One little slip of the knife made it so that they see him as a wild beast that I’m taming rather than a blank slate that I’m programming. They gave me a shield when Santa Elena tied me to Swift. Now they’ve given me the sword. They want me to teach him to hunt.

But they also gave me the power to turn them into the prey.