Elf glowered at the soldiers as the great warship pulled up next to his poor, beaten, struggling Ossory. They dropped gangplanks down and let themselves onto his ship without so much as a hello or a polite ask. His shoulder still ached something awful, and his entire arm hung limp at his side. He only needed one arm to fire at these assholes, but he only had one bullet left. Then a familiar face stepped onto the rickety deck, followed by another, and a rock dropped in his stomach. The Shiyze soldier who had stopped him in Opaska - Téo Duarte - was back, and he was with a green-faced Stefan Volker. Mihri tensed next to him.

‘You really don’t get the rules about entering another man’s ship, do you?’ Elf spoke through gritted teeth. Duarte ignored him completely, instead turning his face to Anwen. Stefan noticed the papers strewn and destroyed across the deck, and made a noise of distress.

‘Those are mine!’ he cried. ‘What are you doing with them?’

‘You got robbed by a Selkie, that’s not our fault,’ Elf snapped.

‘One of them attacked me!’

‘That’s your own fault,’ Mihri growled.

Stefan gave another squeak, then rushed forward and scooped them up, pausing to regard the tears and marks covering the paper.

‘I have one question,’ Duarte said. ‘Are you working with the Chained One, or against him?’

Anwen glared at him. ‘What side are you on?’

Stefan flinched under her gaze, but Duarte stood firm. ‘We do not want to see a world where mermaids return to rule the sea.’

‘We were here long before you.’

‘And your time is over.’

‘Asshole,’ Elf muttered.

Duarte raised an eyebrow in silent question.

‘We’re giving her a lift home,’ Elf said. ‘Why we gotta be on anyones side? Caltanissa ain’t even your territory.’

‘This isn’t about the war,’ Stefan said.

‘What are you even doing here?’ Elf demanded.

‘He reached out to us,’ Duarte said. ‘You work for the Chained One; you told me that much. Now with information that you are trying to find the site of Crixilinja, we cannot let you continue.’

‘You dick,’ Mihri growled.

Stefan growled. ‘You’re spending way too much time around pirates, Miss Munna—‘

Elf’s fist connected with the other man’s jaw before he even realized he had moved, the motion ricocheting through his collar and causing his injured arm to scream. The dull bruising along his knuckles was joined with a muffled scream as Stefan staggered back, blood bursting from his nose. Two of the soldiers were beside Elf in an instant, putting themselves in front of Stefan, while one grabbed his still raised fist and pinned it behind his back.

‘I warned you about calling me a pirate,’ he growled.

Duarte stepped forward and grabbed the arm that was pinned, pulling the sleeve down to reveal the ring burned into his skin. His eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the others around him. Both Jian and Mihri lifted their sleeves to show the same mark, Mihri with a glare towards Stefan.

‘You got a crossage permit or migration papers?’ Duarte asked.

‘That isn’t what this is about,’ Elf said.

‘Answer the question.’

‘Yeah, I do. Wanna see them?’

‘That makes you Shiyze citizens, doesn’t it?’

Elf laughed. ‘Do I sound like a goddamned Shiyze citizen?’

Stefan pointed at Mihri, his other hand cupping his nose as blood poured through his fingers. When he spoke, his voice muffled and nasally. ‘She is.’

‘Close enough,’ Duarte said. He waved his hands int the air, motioning to the other officers on deck. ‘Take them in, and we’ll let the legal system decide this.’

Elf’s shout of protest was drowned out as the others joined in similar yells. Even Anwen gave a gutteral, high-pitched cry. One of the officers grabbed Jian by the arm, and he responded with a curse and a shove that sent the uniformed man staggering. Another soldier grabbed Elf’s injured shoulder, sending another wave of pain through them, and Elf reached for his gun only for another one to press into his temple. Another found its aim in the centre of his chest, and he considered the one bullet he had left in his remaining pistol. He held his hands up in surrender.

‘If we cross the border, we die,’ Aitan said, staring down the twin barrels from the soldiers surrounding him. ‘That’s the rule.’

‘Sure it is.’ Duarte rolled his eyes.

‘You wanna mess with magic?’ Elf growled. ‘You wanna piss off Old Quotinir?’

Duarte flinched at the mention of the name, but he motioned at the officers again. Someone shoved Elf hard in the back, and he stumbled towards the bigger ship. Next to him, Jian squeaked in pain.

‘We’ll die!’ the other man snapped. ‘I’m not dying because you’re too stupid to know how this works!’

‘Enough!’ Duarte snapped.

Elf glanced back at Jian, at his wide eyes and pale face. ‘I won’t let it happen,’ he said. ‘It’s okay.’

Jian stared for a moment, then his face hardened in the same unnatural anger he had seen with Quotinir, the intensity rivalling the storm brewing above. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not okay. I ain’t dying yet. Not now.’

Before Elf could reply, he drove his elbow into the face of the soldier next to him, catching the other man’s gun and swinging the weapon wide, knocking the second gun away and driving his shin between the legs of the second officer. A third turned away from Aitan to aim her own pistol, but Aitan caught the weapon in his fist, holding it in place as Jian broke away from the other bodies and charged for the hole in the taffrail. His body hit the water with a weighty splash.

Duarte’s order was cut off as Elf laughed. ‘Don’t bother, lovey,’ he said. ‘Jian’s got the strongest lungs of any man. You won’t catch him.’

Duarte glared, then considered his officers. ‘Take them in!’ he barked. ‘Shoot anyone else that tries anything.’

***

They weren’t chained to anything, which surprised Elf. They took each of their weapons, and left them in a room fancier than Elf thought was deserved, but he wasn’t going to complain and end up in some water-logged store room. Instead, he regarded the ornate copper lining of the windows, the mahogany furniture and the pressed seats, the books on things he would never be bothered to learn even if he could read. His rule had always been to pillage ships after they had sunk and to find stuff he could actually sell - and books and cloth was the first to rot. Yet, with the two guards by the door made him want to snatch something just to see what would happen.

His arm had been tied in a loose sling and he couldn’t tell what was wrong with it, but it still burned with pain. Mihri had sprawled across one of the longer, stiffer chairs with a cloth filled with ice pressed against her face. Anwen had been missing when they first arrived, but now sat cross-legged by the window, back to her usual stoic, unreadable silence. Aitan sat on the floor, his knees pulled up and his arms outstretched to cover his face. Elf assumed he was praying and let him be, but the man hadn’t moved in over an hour and he was afraid to ask.

‘You could have gone with Jian,’ Mihri said after a while. ‘You had a chance.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ Aitan didn’t lift his head as he spoke.

‘Mihri can’t swim, and I’m down a limb,’ Elf said.

Aitan sighed, but didn’t say anything. Elf wondered if he would answer the question at all, when he lifted his head, letting it fall back against the bookcase behind him. I’m tired,’ he said.

‘Fight take it out of you?’ Elf said.

Aitan sighed again. He reached for the chain around his neck, but it wasn’t there anymore and his hand fell limp. ‘I never asked her to wait for me. I knew she wouldn’t. I got nothing to go back to, and I’m tired of always taking one more job to get away from here.’

‘This is it, mate,’ Elf said. ‘This is the last job, and then you can go anywhere in the world. You can find another girl, one that’s perfect for you. Or your sweetheart might still be waiting, you don’t know she’s not.’

Aitan shook his head. ‘Caltanissa ain’t made for people. If not Quotinir, then someone else. Something else. I’m… I’m tired.’

‘We did not come this far for you to give up now,’ Elf said. He remembered Jian used to have similar thoughts, similar comments about the wild nature of the archipelago, but Elf wasn’t about to confess those private conversations now. ‘If this place ain’t made for us, then why are we here?’

Aitan threw him a sideways look. ‘We’re stuck here.’

‘Elf is right,’ Mihri said. ‘Take it from someone who stares at stars all day. Space is empty, and it’s just us here with nowhere else to go. If we went up there, we’d just die. There’d be no magic or special deals. We’d just die. So if we’re not meant to be here, we wouldn’t be.’

Aitan dropped his head down again. ‘Wouldn’t you want to go up there?’

‘Not really,’ Mihri said. ‘There’s still so much to understand here. Looking beyond just helps understand it.’

Aitan huffed, but didn’t reply. Elf knew there wasn’t anything he could say to magically change their circumstances; he could only hope he could twist the man’s arm when it came to breaking out of here.

‘What about Majeta?’ Mihri asked. ‘You promised to help her, remember?’

‘Can’t do that dead,’ Elf pointed out.

Aitan huffed again. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing, but stop it.’

Elf sighed and dropped onto an ornate wooden chair, resting his good arm against the rest and spreading his legs until he was comfortable, imaging for a second that he was lording over this great beast of a ship, watching it tear through the waves with dozens of loyal sailors at his command. He shook the thought away. A pang hit deep in his chest at the thought of his real ship, his poor Ossory left behind in such ruin. He had to trust Jian with her now. He wouldn’t have picked anyone else, though he did wish he had said goodbye, or known if it was goodbye at all.

‘I never thanked you,’ Mihri said. ‘For standing up for me back in Stefan’s house. I appreciate it.’

‘Oh.’ Elf couldn’t even remember what he had said. ‘No problem. I’m sorry about how long it’s taken for you to get back.’

Mihri sighed. ‘I hate it. Not these circumstances, but… it took my whole life to be taken seriously in this field, to study something no-one else really cares about, and I’ve only been gone for a year or so and it’s already gone. What if we had taken other jobs if we weren’t cursed? What if I had found a breakthrough and needed to stay out here longer anyway? I hate that it all means nothing. Maybe I’m tired too.’

Elf nodded, knowing again that there was nothing he could say. He still felt the familiar knot of guilt at the fact he had done this to them; he had been the one to make the call, and the one to spite Quotinir and his orders rather than just doing what he was told.

Though, he knew it wasn’t that simple. Mihri had agreed with his decision to side with Anwen, and Jian had been carrying as much blame as he felt. Maybe he was just trying to shift the blame. There was now only one thing he knew for sure; none of them were ready to go home and fix what was left of their life, not alone anyway.

‘Why don’t we stay?’ he asked.

Both Mihri and Aitan glanced up at him, staring in silent question.

‘We’re a good team,’ he said. ‘And we ain’t died yet. I say we drop off our fishy friend over there, break this curse, then fix up my poor girl, and piss off to the other side of the world. If there’s nothing left for us here, we go somewhere else. Ocean is a big place.’

Aitan snorted. ‘You think I want to hang around you after this is done?’

Elf flinched. He knew the real reason was that he had no idea what he was going to do next. He had become so focused on not dying, he wasn’t completely sure what he would do if he lived. Go back north? Probably. He knew the real threat of dying, of no longer existing beyond today scared the shit out of him. A deep, primal kind of fear that went beyond what any normal phobia gave him, the kind of fear that hurt physically, that turned his brain to its basic survival instincts. He didn’t want to be alone. He couldn’t do this alone.

‘Do you want to stay?’ he asked.

Aitan shrugged. ‘Beats being enlisted.’

Elf turned to Mihri, who wasn’t meeting his eye, and he realised how stupid it was to ask. Mihri wasn’t a sailor, and her misery had been more than noticeable for the entire voyage. She could barely swim, much less function on rough water. She was better off in her smart-people circles, and if anyone could fight tooth and nail to get her old life back, it was her.

‘I’ll think about it,’ she mumbled.

She huddled into herself on the chair, and Elf sighed. He turned to Anwen in the far corner, still watching out the window as though she couldn’t hear the conversation at all. Still, Elf approached slowly, wondering if there was any good way to start a conversation about what happened on Ossory. After a beat, he simply went with: ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No,’ Anwen said.

‘Okay.’

She turned to stare at him with those unblinking eyes. Her expression was neutral, but Elf still shivered, as though a secret was hidden beneath the gaze he couldn’t quite make out. ‘I’m not a monster, Captain O Se. In another world, I would simply be another fish in the sea.’

‘You’re tired too, huh?’

‘Yes.’

‘We are going to get you home,’ Elf said. ‘Mihri will figure out where the shoal is, and once we find a way out of here, that’s our next stop.’

‘I’m working on it,’ Mihri said. ‘I’m doing the maths in my head, it’s not easy.’

Elf nodded at her. ‘We’re so close. I promise.’

Anwen didn’t say anything, and Elf considered the guards by the door. He wondered if a quick heart to heart with them might change their minds about holding them here, but he doubted it. If the sea monster hadn’t done in his good arm, he liked their chances of fighting their way out. The issue was rallying the others to do something. He considered what he might say, when Anwen grabbed his arm, her long nails threatening to break the skin.

‘We’re too close,’ she hissed.

It took Elf a minute to realise she wasn’t talking about the shoal, and his blood ran cold. All at once he thought about how it felt when Quotinir squeezed that tiny little ball of his soul, the gut-wrenching pain, joined with the horrible and incomprehensible feeling of not being inside his own body. He couldn’t tell if turning into spray would have the same feeling, but he didn’t want to wait and find out.

‘Stop the boat!’ He threw the orders at the two guards, who jumped at the outburst but didn’t move. ‘You have to stop the boat, now!’

When neither of them responded, Elf charged forward, but the guards were ready and one caught his shins with his boot, throwing Elf’s weight out from under him. Winded, Elf swore and struggled back to his feet as the second guard levelled a pistol at his face. Before he could open his mouth to yell again, Aitan raised a book and bought it down on the man’s head, hard enough to send the guard crumbling to the floor. The second guard cried out, but before he could reach for his own pistol, Mihri grabbed him from behind, pressing a letter opener against his larynx. The guard swallowed hard. Aitan offered an arm to Elf, which he took.

‘We’re leaving the archipelago,’ Elf said.

‘Figured that,’ Aitan said. ‘We’re not dying today.’

Mihri eased the pistol away from the guard’s belt and tossed it across the floor. A single, precise jab to the shoulder left him crumbled with his companion. With a single nod between the three of them, they pushed out the door into the walkway, only to come face to face with two more guards, both with their guns ready. Elf held his good hand up in surrender, and when one of them dropped his guard, Elf lashed out with the other, elbowing the guard in the face and ripping the gun from his grip. He levelled his new weapon at the other guard, but before he could get a word out, Anwen appeared at his side and hissed, loud and harsh and grating. Colour drained from the guards face, and he dropped his weapon, backing into the wall harmlessly. Elf exchanged a look with Anwen, who shrugged.

Elf had no idea how the ship was laid out, and the dark wooden pretension only made him dizzy as they turned corners only to find another hallway on another hallway, leading to stairs that only led to more hallway. He hadn’t been on a ship this large since he was a teenager, and back then he had stuck to the lower levels shovelling coal.

Finally he found a stairway that led to the deck, and he came face to face with Téo Duarte, standing by a table with a handful of soldiers. Stefan Volker stood across from him, balancing a compass on the wooden surface and tracing circles while watching a sun-dial. All of them turned to stare at Elf and his party as they burst out.

The storm was heavy in the air above them, the wind still and the sky pregnant and black, the clouds so low Elf was sure he could reach up and touch them. The volcano sat on the edge of the horizon, the shards of broken land sticking out like the teeth of a black beast as ash pumped into the sky.

‘You need to stop the boat,’ Anwen said. ‘Turn it around, now.’

‘Get them back downstairs.’ Duarte snapped the orders at one of the soldiers, and three of them drew their weapons.

‘Soon we won’t be able to go downstairs!’ Elf snapped. ‘Turn the fucking boat around!’

He spotted the helm, a great steering wheel above the rear cabin that overlooked the entire deck, and he turned to Aitan. The other man’s eyes were already fixed on the wheel, the gears behind his eyes turning. He turned to Elf and gave a single nod, and then they were off. Two of the guards rushed to cut them off, but Aitan ploughed into the smaller one and knocked him down, dodging the second one. Elf rushed for the third, throwing his weight into a bigger woman and jamming her against the table, sending the entire thing skidding. Stefan swore, and Elf saw the jagged tip of the compass point, which he snatched out of the scholar’s hand and jammed into the hand of a fourth guard as it swiped at his face. The man let out a howl and stumbled back, as the third guard wrapped her arms around Elf’s shoulders and grappled him into place. Elf struggled, aware of a similar scuffle on his peripherals. Two more guards came up onto the deck, and he knew he didn’t have a chance.

‘Move!’ Mihri barrelled past him and shoved Stefan to the side, sending the man sprawling across the deck. She grabbed one of the instruments on the table and inspected it, then snatched up Stefan’s abandoned pencil and began drawing across the map of the archipelago; messy, scraggly lines in no particular order.

Elf struggled against the hold that had him completely pinned, digging his heels into the ground as the officer dragged him back towards the stairs. ‘This better be important!’ he snapped.

‘I need a sextant!’ Mihri yelled back. She then paused and grabbed a triangular looking device by the edge of the table.

Two more guards approached Elf, and he threw his weight back against the officer holding him, kicking his legs upwards to collide into their chests, but they didn’t connect. Instead, his boots hit something solid and hot, sending a searing pain through his legs as the soles of his shoes melted.

‘No!’ Ignoring the pain, he kicked off the invisible wall and threw his arms straight up, dropping out of the officer’s hold and hitting the deck hard. He cried out as the sole of his foot connected with the wall, blistering and bubbling against his open nerves and he yanked it back with a yell, his bad arm twisting painfully and wracking him with pain.

‘Sir!’ One of the guards he had tried to kick was staring wide eyed at his leg, his face turning a noticeable green. The officer who had held him also noticed, and before Elf could protest, she reached to grab him again. Elf scrambled back from the wall he couldn’t see, before he crashed into the table and used it to pull himself to his feet. Aitan was still struggling, closer to the helm, and Mihri was next to him with her strange instrument. She then recoiled.

‘I found it!’ she cried. ‘I know where the shoal is!’

‘Good to know. Move!’ Elf grabbed her arm and bolted for the helm, ducking around a furious Duarte and dodging another swipe. They took the stairs two at a time, with Aitan breaking free from his fight and following close on his heels. Then he saw the wheel and stopped dead in his tracks, almost sending his companions back down the stairs.

Anwen stood at the wheel, guiding it gently to the side as broken, frayed ropes from the sails dangled around her. She wore the same neutral expression as always, and regarded each of them with no sign of emotion.

‘Will we turn around fast enough?’ Elf asked.

‘With some help,’ Anwen said.

Her head tilted to the side, and Elf rushed to the rails. His heart leapt. Ossory sailed alongside the great ship, still beaten and battered, but the sails and mast had been crudely stitched back together. Jian stood at the wheel, waving up at him.

Elf laughed as relief washed over him, followed by the cold dread of realisation. ‘You’re heading straight for the border!’

Jian’s smile faded. Anwen reacted first, grabbing one of the broken ropes and leaping from the railings, sailing weightless through the air before dropping down on the deck of Ossory. Jian grabbed the edge of the rope and tied it to the taffrail, and Anwen motioned for the others to follow.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Mihri muttered.

The click of a gun made Elf pause as cold steel pressed into the side of his head. Below, Anwen charged to the front of the boat and dove into the water. A dark shadow flitted through the water before it slammed into the hull of Ossory, sending it careening sideways. Jian rushed to the front of the ship and pulled the ropes to meet the motion. As Anwen struck the ship again, the front end shot sideways at a harsher anger, making the old girl groan.

‘Take them back downstairs!’ Duarte barked. Elf turned to him, and when he realised that the soldier wasn’t looking at him, he snatched the pistol away easily. His pistol. The bastard was about to shoot him with his own gun. A quick glance down the stairs told him that the crew had no intention of moving to stop them.

‘They’re the smart ones. You don’t mess with magic in the archipelago,’ Elf said. ‘Trust me.’

Duarte’s face turned red as he glared at Elf, and Elf leaned over and planted a small kiss on the man’s nose, then he turned and leapt from the ship. Mihri was halfway down, her limbs tense and shaking as Aitan directed her from the deck. She cried out as Elf’s weight made the rope bounce, but when she was low enough, Aitan gave a shout and she let go, dropping into the man’s sure arms. Elf scurried down the rope, the rough surface burning against his hands, and as he fell into Aitan’s grip, the other man moved away and left Elf to hit the deck hard. His knees jarred at the impact, and his broken shoe flew off as the damaged skin screamed in pain.

‘Is that how it is?’ he asked through gritted teeth.

‘Yes.’ Aitan rushed over to the wheel, and Jian leapt away. The smaller man took the knife from his boot and cut the tether to the bigger ship, before grabbing another rope and pulling it hard. The sail above snapped as it caught in the wind, and Anwen struck the ship below again. Aitan tore the wheel around, and the little ship was thrown sideways, knocking Elf off his feet. He stumbled up to the other end of the ship, hugging the remainder of the taffrail as Ossory groaned and shuddered, a horrible shiver running through her body. Elf shut his eyes tight, bracing for another wall of fire to envelop him completely, but after a painfully long moment of shuddering steel, everything fell silent.

He opened his eyes, watching as Anwen in her full mermaid glory leapt high into the air, landing firmly on two feet at the bow of the ship. She gave a single nod, and Elf breathed a sigh of relief so heavy it made his chest ache.

‘Straight west,’ Mihri said. ‘It’s in the dead centre of the three territories.’

‘What does that mean to us humans?’ Elf asked.

She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s the cross point between Shiyze, Pratea, and the Tundra, idiot.’

‘Oh.’ Elf nodded and collected himself, trying not to think about burning walls and evaporating bodies. He glanced down at his bare foot and poked at the blackened skin. He couldn’t feel anything, and decided it would be best to leave it. His boot lay discarded on the deck, barely more than a sole and a few laces. The rest had evaporated. He shuddered, then pulled his other boot off and tossed them both into the water. A quick check of his gun told him he still had his one bullet.

‘Don’t call it in yet, cap’n,’ Aitan said. ‘We still got ‘em.’

Elf turned back to the bigger ship, which had pulled further along in its course, but was obviously turning to follow them. The broken sail - and whatever else Anwen had done to them - would slow them down, but the holes in the side that gave way to cannons were working fine as far as Elf could tell. ‘Jian!’

‘On it!’ Jian took his place by the main mast, pulling at the ropes and catching the wind in the sails, making Ossory bounce as she picked up speed. As Mihri relayed her map to Aitan, Elf fell in with Jian, pulling ropes as firm as they would allow, and feeling his girl, his poor, beaten, tired old girl charge faster and faster, sending up spray with each bounce. Yet, the bigger ship was still gaining on them.

The rain started suddenly, as though the clouds above had grown too heavy and dropped everything in a sheet all at once. Lightning lit the way as the waves became choppier, the ship bouncing more violently. Elf quickly found himself working through a sheet of water and tiny daggers that stabbed through every inch of his clothes. Still, he guided Ossory, watching more than listening for Jian’s movements under the roar of rain hitting his deck. Mihri’s voice also yelled somewhere in the distance, bracing against the wind and forcing the sails to fight the waves. The wind was with them, but a quick glance told him that the bigger ship was gaining.

‘There’s something in the water!’ Mihri’s voice echoed through the storm, and Elf’s stomach lurched.

‘Let’s call it a fish!’ he called back. He could only pray to whatever underwater god he hadn’t pissed off that it wasn’t one of Quotinir’s. One of the sails battered against the wind as it fought to catch the gale, and Jian leapt over next to him, grabbing the same rope as Elf and pulling hard. Both of them strained hard to pull of the rope to force it down, until the second sail snapped into place and bent dangerously, making Elf’s shoulder scream as pain pulled him into focus. He didn’t know when his sling had come loose, but there was no time to find it.

The shadow passed over them first, blocking out a violent lightning strike, and then the ship was next to them, slicing through the waves and sending explosive bursts of spray over them. The first hole in the side of the hull came level with Elf’s face, the cannon inside sparking. Elf yelled and abandoned the rope, leaping towards Jian and tackling the other man to the ground as a deafening boom split the air, tearing across the sky and sending splinters raining down. Elf squinted through the torrent, noticing the damage to the mast, but it still held firm for now.

‘We’ve seriously got company!’ Mihri yelled.

‘I noticed!’ Elf snapped.

‘In the water, asshole!’

Jian scrambled out from under him, rushing over to the taffrail with enough force to topple over. He swore. ‘The fish are back!’

Elf cursed, struggling to his feet and glancing to the waters below. Lights filled the dark ocean, flitters of luminescent blue and green shapes sliced through the water below, calm and smooth despite the storm. The second canon came in line, and Elf swore.

A shape darted past him, and he whirled around as Anwen rushed to the bow of the ship, hanging off the ends of the wires before letting out a high-pitched wail that screeched through the air, slicing through the storm and slowing the wind.

Elf turned back to the cannon just as the flare on its end sparked to life, and his legs locked, his entire body freezing, bracing.

One of the shapes burst from the water then, bringing a long line of water that sailed over the cannon, and the wood exploded inwards, raining smoke and splinters into the ocean. The shape curved overhead, catching lightning in the glowing blue lights of its arch before landing firmly on the deck in front of Anwen.

The creature didn’t look anything like the fish that had attached them before. Instead, it was feathery and sleek and bony, long arms turning to wings at their tips, with feathered frills at their hips. Its inhumanly long legs ended in the talon of a great bird. Its face was also more bird than human, though long dark hair erupted from the top of its head, and two dark, human eyes sat over the large beak.

‘Protect this ship, please!’ Anwen cried.

The bird creature nodded, then spread its wings and tore into the sky, spinning in a wide arch and spraying specks of light everywhere, before crashing back down into the water.

‘They’re friendly?’ Elf asked.

Anwen nodded. In the rain, streaks of gold and blue covered her skin, the scales shining in the water. ‘The sirens are my friends. They’ll help us!’

‘Does that mean we’re here?’ Mihri asked.

‘We’re almost at my waters, the sirens guard them!’

Elf glanced over at Aitan, who gave a nod and tore the steering wheel sideways, forcing the little boat away from the cannons as the third one began to spark. The glowing shapes in the water followed their path, circling around the vessel while the others broke away, slamming into the bigger ship and tearing holes in its underneath. One of the creatures shot up into the sky, raking thick claw lines through one of the sails, before leaping off and slamming into the main mast, carving it clean in two.

‘Follow the lights!’ Anwen called.

Elf leaned over the taffrail, watching the large, feathery shape slice through the water like sharks. Anwen gave a shout, then dove into the water with them. Her smaller shape disappeared for a moment, then fell in with the others, weaving around the lights in ribbons. Elf laughed, despite the pain in his arm, despite the shadow of the warship still hanging over them. Somehow, they had made it. They had won.