Page 99 of Cursebreaker

She glares at Gabriel, but only for a second, and then something shifts in her gaze at the very instant Owen reappears, sweat beading on his pale forehead. “Will it turn him?” she asks our brother.

Owen clenches his teeth. “It’s not that kind of curse,” he says, a frown crinkling his eyes.

“Is… Aster… here?” Jack wheezes.

I kneel beside Margaret, still trying to stop the bleeding. “Jack,” I say, my voice hoarse.

His smile widens. “I’ve been… thinking…” His chest rattles as he gasps for breath. “I’m worried about… the horses… I wish we could… show Margaret.…”

His face pinches, his body seizing.

“You can show me whatever you like,” Margaret insists, her voice frantic. “You’re not going anywhere, do you hear me? You’re not going anywhere!”

“I love you.” Jack coughs, blood splattering his chin. “Henry!” His expression turns urgent. “Henry!”

Henry still has his back to them both, hands raised as if he expected Will to appear at any moment. But he turns at the sound of his name, his eyes wide with panic.

Jack makes a choking noise, but it’s as if he uses every last bit of his strength to sit up, just a little—to look Henry in the eye. “You’ll… look out for Margaret?”

Margaret groans with frustration, her teeth clenched. In my whole life, Margaret has never lost her cool when treating the wounded. But her composure is slipping, revealing a side of my sister I’ve never seen. “No!” she seethes. “No. Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to me, Jack!”

A sound escapes Jack’s lips, somewhere between a gasp and a sigh, his eyes dimming. “How did I get so… lucky?”

I brace myself for Margaret’s bloodcurdling wail, but she goes perfectly still, her hands pressed to Jack’s chest even as his body goes limp, his vacant eyes staring up at her face, a smile permanently fixed on his bloody lips.

It feels as if the sand will open up and swallow us whole, and for a breath, none of us move.

“We have to go, Marge,” Owen says gently, one eye on the horizon, the other on our sister and Jack.

“I’m not leaving him here!” Margaret hisses.

But there’s another shout, and that’s when I see it.

I make out the flag of the ship that appears out of the mists of the Dire. A ship I hoped to never see again, unless it was to watch it sink.

The Deathwail.

Owen grabs hold of Margaret, still holding on to Jack, and in a blink, the three of them vanish.

The Red Island’s fleet has surrounded the Deathwail, but it’s as if our cannons are redirected at the island with every blast, and I know the Deathwail must have Nightweavers aboard—Nightweavers sworn into service by the Guild of Shadows. One ship against hundreds, and no one can manage to get close enough to board the Deathwail to take them out. Rage builds inside me with every thunderous boom of the Deathwail’s cannons, and I lift my hand, focusing on the buzz of the water lapping at the shore, on the call of the sea, tainted red with blood—

Pop.

I brace myself for the sensation of falling as I’m pulled into Owen’s vortex and deposited on the deck of the Starchaser.

I want to throw myself on Margaret, to hold her and offer her comfort, but there’s blood on my boots. Jack’s blood is everywhere—on Margaret’s hands, on Henry’s face, on Gabriel’s shirt.

So much blood.

“My—my pearls!” Margaret cries, her voice raw. “Where—”

“I’ve got them,” Henry assures her. I don’t know when he retrieved them, but the relief that washes over Margaret is instant. “I’ve got them,” he tells her, over and over again, and I know what he really means to say—can see it in his eyes now, more clearly than I ever could before.

I’ve got you.

The Starchaser bustles with activity as they prepare to sail. I take inventory of all the people I love, dispersed among the other survivors who had managed to flee the wedding. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see that my family and my crew are safe, and so are the three remaining Castors, Boris, and even Clemson and Davina. But someone’s missing.

“Titus?” I shout, scrambling to my feet. “Where’s Titus?”