Page 143 of The Worst of Them

Her grin slowly faded as her eyes swept over the rest of the crew. It was hard to maintain the appearance of being fine, and she let her smile fade entirely as she turned to glance behind them.

A ghostly speck followed them from far off, lingering along the horizon. It had appeared after they’d begun using the tide stones, and inched closer each day. When evening fell, a red aura glowed around the faint silhouette of a ship.

Jonah.

“For God’s sake,” Copson scolded, “stop looking at it.”

Cecily pulled her gaze away. They were under orders not to look back, as though seeing the Neptune would entice it to sail even faster.

Jack was the first to notice it in the early hours of the morning. After telling his father, he’d retired to his cabin where Cecily had made the simple mistake of asking how he was. He had snapped at her, she’d snapped back, they fought, and then she’d finally realized he was being so surly because he was panicking.

Mid-fight, she had pulled him into her arms and held him until he stopped trembling. Then she’d sent him to bed with a promise that everything would be alright. They both knew it was empty, but there was little else to say or do.

That was the most they’d spoken since the haunting began.

Cecily pulled her coat tighter around her. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I…forgot. Someone was coughing all night.”

She offered it like an excuse, but it was more than that. She had to tell someone about what she’d heard, and while Jack was asleep and Hester was already burdened enough, she had little rapport to lose with the captain.

It had taken her hours to realize that the painfully familiar coughing she heard was part of the haunting. Mere hours after she’d pulled on her gloves to hide her bloody hands, she had begun to hear it in the walls—wheezing breaths and a wet hacking that sent her back to the days when her father was dying and there was nothing she could do to help him.

And though she’d heard similar the day she met Robin, this time she knew it was her father. She could hear a remnant of his voice in the horrible wheezing, like he was about to speak. Even though a year had passed and her heart had scarred enough to grow around the gaping hole of his loss, remorse hounded her, asking if she’d done enough, if it was her fault, if she could have saved him.

If she’d saved him, she would have saved herself too, as well as all the people who had died because of her.

Blood had run over her hands at the thought while the distant coughing continued. And on and on it went…

At some point in the night, Hester had let herself in and curled up next to Cecily. While both their husbands braved the night, the two women held each other for comfort and warmth, and Cecily had placed her head over Hester’s heart to drown out the sound of her father’s death.

Copson stared at her, one brow raised.

“What?” she said, pulling herself from her thoughts.

“I asked if they ever stopped coughing.”

She shook her head, her lips pressed in a thin line. Those dying breaths followed her so closely that she half expected her father to appear and express outrage at what she’d become.

Copson seemed to understand as he gave a single bleak nod.

She pulled her arms in tighter, curling her gloved hands into fists against the cold. “You’re oddly calm.”

One side of his beard pulled up with the edge of his mouth. “I’m merely familiar with remorse, Miss Shoard.” This time, when he said her name, she didn’t think he did it to remind her of her place. It sounded too natural, like a slip of the tongue rather than a barb. “And I’m used to setting it aside for the things I must do.”

She swayed as she considered this. “Does it ever go away?” Perhaps no one would know better than him.

His shoulders raised on a breath, then dropped with a sigh. “That depends on you. I doubt I’m any good authority.” His eyes cut to her. “Now humor my curiosity. What have I seen you making?”

Keeping one arm folded tightly over her middle, she sheepishly reached into the pocket of her coat and retrieved a small blade made from one of the black scales she’d taken from the merman.

“As though you don’t already have enough,” the captain mused, but he released the wheel to take the small weapon, its veins of green glittering in the watery sunlight.

Once the scales had dried, they were hard enough to be filed into blades. Anyone who didn’t know the craft might have found no flaw in the scale’s sharpened edges, or the wooden handle she’d affixed to it with a bit of rope and resin. Once finished, it was roughly the same size as her bone knives.

Copson, however, saw what she did. “You need a better handle,” he said.

“I know.” Fashioning the knife had been a good way to occupy her thoughts, and with the memory of her father so close, it soothed her to think he might at least be pleased to see her carrying on his craft.

“Have you checked the galley?”