“A boat left the harbour,” the parrot announced in an almost normal voice. His pirate singular syllable vocabulary gone. Instead, there was a slight northern twang.
The room went dead silent instantly.
“What the fu…” Bas stated.
Spencer straightened immediately, despite the lingering drug haze clearly trying to drag him back down. “How long ago?”
“Not long.” Denzel twitched. “Ghost pirate vessel. Headed toward mainland waters.”
Jessica moved instantly. “We’re going after them.”
“No shit,” Bas muttered.
Maeve’s lips slowly curved into a grin. Suddenly, this wasn’t hopeless anymore. In fact, this might actually become fun.
“Well,” she said brightly, “taking a boat wasn’t a very good idea.”
Spencer frowned slightly. Maeve spread her hands dramatically.
“They’re on the ocean, and we have two Krakens.”
Spencer stared at her for half a second and then corrected quietly, “Three.”
The room froze. Even Binky blinked.
Maeve’s grin vanished slowly. “Excuse me?”
Spencer met her gaze steadily now. “You have three Krakens,” he said again.
The implications hit the room like a physical force. Jessica’s eyes widened and Dave actually choked on air.
Bas fell off the sofa and Binky made a sound like an offended tea kettle.
“You’re a WHAT?!” he screeched.
Spencer barely reacted. His focus had already shifted elsewhere. Outward, towards the sea and to Edith. Then Spencer looked back at them, expression sharp and dangerous in a way Maeve hadn’t seen before.
Not hunter-dangerous.
Fury, cold and controlled.
“I plan,” Spencer said quietly, “to bring her back.”
30
The further theysailed from Krakens Hole, the calmer Edith became, which was deeply concerning. Because objectively speaking, she should have been panicking.
She was handcuffed with silver suppressors, tied to the railing of a ghost-pirated boat, being kidnapped toward an arranged marriage by a male she despised, and assisted by a bounty hunter she planned to emotionally haunt forever.
Reasonable circumstances for panic.
And yet, the fear she’d carried for years had started slipping away somewhere between the cliffs disappearing behind them and the open water swallowing the horizon whole.
Not entirely, it still lingered. Cold and bitter in the corners of her mind.
But beneath it now, something else stirred. Anger, pure and sharp and very much alive. Edith sat against the railing watching the sea crash around the boat while the silver cuffs bit coldly against her wrists.
She’d spent years afraid and years of hiding. So many years of folding herself smaller and smaller until she forgot what taking up space even felt like, and where had that gotten her?
