Page 129 of The Worst of Them

Jonah, Cecily thought. She reached for her sword. Futile as it may be against ghosts, the feel of it in her hand grounded her.

“Steady as she goes,” Copson called. Eerie silence fell as the mist thickened into fog.

Jack breathed steadily beside her, even as the light dimmed. The heavy fog barreled in, an opaque wall of gray that blotted out the sun and obscured the sails and masts. The last thing she heard was Jack’s quiet swear before it reached its totality, blinding her to everything but the wooden boards beneath her feet.

Her nostrils flared around anxious breath, sensing decay, rotting fish, sunken ships, and mud and bones and brine. She pressed her wrist to her nose to block the stench and looked at Jack.

He wasn’t there.

“Jack?” Spinning on her heel, she stepped toward where he’d been only a moment ago.

Any lingering sunlight had become more of a suggestion as shadows whirled around her, and she gripped her sword tighter, gently waving it through the dense fog.

There was nothing. No one.

Unnatural silence pressed against her ears. Not a single voice, bootstep, or even the water lapping against the ship.

Nothing but her own thundering heartbeat.

Threads of panic spooled in her gut as she trained her eyes on the murky gloom, the hair on the back of her neck raised as she wondered if it might suddenly split to reveal the ghostly face of Jonah Lovibond standing mere inches in front of her nose.

Then, high above, an orb of blinding blue light pierced the gloom.

Cecily whipped her head toward the crow’s nest. The silhouette of the man who’d heralded the fog appeared, and her heart lifted with hope at the sight of someone else.

The pirate lifted his arms to shield his head, then the light blinked out and the silhouette vanished.

She rushed in the direction of the mainmast, so concerned with looking up for another sign of life that she nearly stumbled on the body.

It was the man from the crow’s nest—or what remained of him. She only knew it was him by his boots, because he’d reinforced the soles for climbing the ropes, but any other identifying feature was gone as it appeared the top of him had been…bitten off, leaving only his legs, connected at the hips, and a bloody gouge where the rest of his body should have been.

The air left her lungs as she stumbled back, letting the fog swallow the gory mess. She hadn’t heard a scream or his body hitting the deck. The fog not only blinded—it deafened.

Jack could be calling for her. And where was Hester? How many people were on deck, crying out in terror or being eaten?

Jonah hadn’t come for Fiero. He’d sent something worse to kill all of them.

Too scared to scream, she took off toward where she’d last seen Jack. Wooden boards passed beneath her feet, but she didn’t find anyone else, as though she were entirely alone. She imagined the fog lifting to leave her surrounded by the corpses of her friends and crew, half-eaten by whatever monster lingered in the fog.

The thought was enough to make her gag.

The ship lurched, then rocked to one side, completely and terrifyingly silent. Cecily scrambled to brace herself, rolling her body forward as the port rose and the starboard tipped toward water she couldn’t see. Her foot slipped, and she yelped as she began to slide.

Faster and faster, she barreled over the planks, digging in her heels to stop herself and praying frantically when it didn’t slow her. As though she fell through a cloudy sky, there was nothing to tell her where she was on the ship or if she was about to tumble overboard, and she only knew that there was down and up and eventually she’d reach the far side of the ship and plunge into the sea with God-knew-what.

She fumbled for purchase with her free hand, grasping at any small lip or gouge in the wooden boards, but she was moving too fast⁠—

Then the tilting halted. The ship was suspended for a too-long second, held at a harshly steep angle—before it began to rock back.

It wasn’t fast enough, however, as Cecily kept sliding. A figure flashed by her, but as quickly as they’d appeared, they were swallowed by the mist, and there was no telling who they were or if they were alive.

Her feet connected hard with the balustrades.

Breath whooshed from her lungs as her knees bent to absorb the impact, but her speed was too great, the tilt still too severe, and she flew upright. Her side smacked into the rail, knocking into her stomach and leaving her gasping as she was held over a foggy void.

Hooking one elbow beneath the rail, she crouched and wound her arms tightly through the balustrades, anchoring herself to the ship as it violently rocked itself back to rights, then stilled.

A hand landed on her ankle. She jerked away with a screech. But as Stede’s face appeared from the gloom, mere inches from her own, she burst with a sob of relief.