Page 16 of Cursebreaker

Damn the voice—damn it all. I would have made them bleed.

But if what Will had done to those Bloodknights makes him a killer… maybe Titus is right—maybe we’re all the same. And I can’t help but feel a swell of affection for Will when I think of him carrying Diana from the dungeon where she’d been held, his eyes glowing gold, hands steeped in blood.

“Made it myself,” Diana says, patting her prosthetic leg, and I realize I must have missed what she said moments before. She sets the bowl of stew aside as she angles toward me, the light of the lanterns turning her blond hair a deep shade of orange. “I’ve been playing around with a few ideas to make it more functional—different kinds of enchantments—”

“Enchantments?” I blink. “You’re a Sorceress?”

“You’re surprised?”

“You don’t look like a Sorceress.”

She barks another laugh. The abrupt cackle reminds me of Titus, and suddenly I’m struck by their resemblance. In another life, Diana could have been his sister. I suppose, in some ways, she is. She and Rook and Gabriel—they act just like siblings.

My heart sinks at the realization. Titus’s crew was a family—his family. Now only a few of them are alive, and again I wonder if, when Titus is cured of his compulsion… will he be able to forgive himself for the things he was forced to do?

I turn toward her, the sound of Rook’s music fading beneath the sound of my own heartbeat. “Is that how you knew about the compulsion?”

She nods. “I felt the cord break,” she says, and her gaze turns dark, as if there were mysteries swirling just below the surface of her playful, nonchalant demeanor. “The strings that make up the fabric of our world—the Manan… if you have the sight, you can see each strand. Centuries ago, our magic as humans was infinitely more powerful than that of the Nightweavers and the Underlings alike, but when we were cursed, our sight turned… foggy.”

I think about the thread I felt pull taut between Titus and me back at Castle Grim. I wonder if Diana could see something like that or if I just imagined that feeling—that connection between us, tying us together in ways I can’t begin to understand—if I can’t feel that same string between Will and me because my sight is foggy.

Before I can ask Diana more about the sight, and the strands, and the human curse, the music comes to an abrupt halt, and Rook calls down, “Nana!”

Diana rolls her eyes, but I notice a faint grin curling the edge of her mouth before she barks back, “What?”

Rook pretends to whisper as he shouts, “He’s awake!”

He points his bow at Charlie, who finally begins to stir, looking around at the others still twirling about the deck with a bleary look of confusion.

Diana’s lips rattle as she blows out an exasperated breath.

“Nana?” I can’t help but ask.

She smooths a few stray hairs behind her ears. “My little brother couldn’t say ‘Diana’ when he was a baby,” she says. “Titus never let me live it down. Now it’s all anyone calls me.”

Again, I think of Titus, down in the brig. I try to imagine what it would be like if he were here now—what it was like for him as captain of the Starchaser. This ship, his friends—another part of his life I know nothing about.

But I want to know. And that guilt Eliza mentioned lodges itself in my stomach, as heavy as a stone.

“So, your brother,” I say. “Is he…”

“He’s safe on the Red Island,” she answers with a grim smile. “He insisted on coming on our last voyage, but he’s only fourteen. I told him I’d be right back, but…” She sighs. “Maybe everything happens for a reason,” she says, hopping to her feet. “Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, all we can do is play our best hand with the cards we’ve been dealt.” She rolls her shoulders, cracks her knuckles. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to ask your brother to dance.”

A smile touches my lips as I watch her approach Charlie—watch him accept her invitation and sweep her into a much slower dance than the music calls for, his footing unsure, gaze mystified as he tilts his head, taking in Diana’s face with a look of pure wonder.

I lean back on the crate, my gaze drifting to the stars above. A pang of grief pierces my chest when I think of all the nights Will and I spent together—how he would ask me to tell him the stories behind each constellation. My time at Bludgrave Manor feels so distant now, the memories more difficult to grasp. If I knew then what I know now… would it have changed anything? Would I have run as far from Bludgrave—from Will—as I possibly could?

I think of his arms around me and the familiar, earthy scent of roses and damp earth—the freckles that dust the bridge of his nose and the dimple in his cheek whenever he smiles. I think of his lips on mine, and his hands on my waist, and his breath caressing the shell of my ear. I think of sprigs of blue salvia, and whispered promises, and his gaze on the side of my face when I told him the legend of Titus and the Twelve Keys—the constellation after which the prince of the Eerie had been named.

My mouth goes dry. He knew. When I told him that story—when I pointed at the sky and I said his name—Will already knew that Titus was Captain Shade. He knew that he was the one to save me from the Deathwail. Could he have already known about Titus’s association with my mother and father, or did Titus keep that a secret from Will as well?

Something dark flutters in the corner of my eye, drawing my attention to the crow’s nest, and my heart skips a beat.

There, perched on the railing, a raven watches over our assembly with beady, dark eyes.

“Care to dance?”

I tear my gaze away from the crow’s nest to find Henry standing beside me, his hand extended, a wicked grin playing on his lips. I hesitate, but when I look back to the crow’s nest, the raven is gone.