Page 125 of The Worst of Them

Cecily wore that same expression now.

For all the times she had imagined dying, seeing herself dead was a new kind of devastation. And for how far she’d come, for how much she had grown, her first thought was that it had finally happened—the world had finally put itself to rights and she had found her end.

But it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right, because she couldn’t pinpoint the moment of her death.

With numb fingers, she reached for Hester’s shoulder, half expecting to find that she’d actually died and was looking upon her own body as a ghost. To her relief, her hand didn’t pass right through.

Hester glanced up, and her jaw dropped. Looking between Cecily and the dead girl, she squeaked a tearful, “H-how?”

Cecily shook her head slowly. “I don’t know,” she breathed.

It was hard to look at herself on the ground—the girl, rather, as it was surely not herself—but she couldn’t look away. But the longer she looked, she began to note small differences: the shallow cleft in her chin, the set of her ears, a small freckle on her neck. Her hair was longer too, exactly as Cecily’s had once been.

The furrow in Hester’s brow deepened as she seemed to realize this as well. It had to be some odd magic, some trick of the universe, one Cecily had never been meant to discover and dearly wished she hadn’t.

Stede had once told her strange things happened at sea—the very day he’d told her about Captain Jonah—and he’d warned her to keep her wits.

She never imagined she would find someone else wearing her face.

At that moment, Jack and Greyson broke through the crowd. Upon seeing the girl, Jack’s breath left him in a sharp exhale.

Cecily blindly grasped for his arm before he could say or do anything. “It’s not me,” she said, and managed to tear her eyes away from the dead girl to meet his horrified gaze. “Not me,” she said again.

He swallowed, staring hard at her as though assuring himself he wasn’t seeing things, that she was actually alive. He placed one hand over hers, his fingers tight.

Then his gaze shifted, catching on something over her shoulder, just as a soft, worried voice came said, “Vanetta?”

Cecily’s breath froze in her lungs. This was about to get so much worse, because she knew—she knew what was about to happen and was so utterly powerless to stop it.

Slowly, she turned to find Ann Lovibond looking at her. Fear and hope knitted the woman’s brow, and Cecily had never wanted to be someone else so badly, if only to spare her the realization that hadn’t yet come—that the girl she was looking for was dead only feet away.

Cecily gulped, and with a small shake of her head, she gave the only comfort she could—a whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Ann frowned. She looked at Cecily for a moment longer, then faced the scene before her.

Her mouth opened, like she might ask why the girl was lying on the ground. But as she took in the blood and sensed Death’s lingering presence, her lips shut. Her face crumpled.

And then she screamed.

“Vanetta!” Ann threw herself to her knees, wrenching the girl from Hester’s grasp. She shook her, crying her name again and again while blood soaked into her sleeves and skirt. “Vanetta! Who did this?!” She looked up at those gathered around her, her eyes and face red with grief. “Who killed my daughter?”

Cecily took an involuntary step back as Ann’s pain called to her own, peeling back the scar left by her father’s death. Undeserved, unnatural, a pain she didn’t want to feel, nor was she ready to face the agony that still lay dormant within her.

But as she moved, she bumped into a body hustling through the crowd, their head down. She turned, an apology on her tongue—when she realized it was Fiero.

He looked at her, his eyes wide, face pale.

Her eyes dropped from his face to the hand hidden awkwardly behind his back. It didn’t take her long to deduce why.

With lethal quiet, Cecily said, “What have you done?”

Fiero bolted. As he lifted his hands to push people out of the way, she saw the long knife, its blade glimmering red in the sunlight, and she knew that it had been meant for her. He had tried to put that blade through her neck and instead chosen a stranger with a too-similar face.

And the warning she’d felt all morning—Fiero had tried to kill her.

“Stop him!” she yelled, thrusting her arm out as though she might grab him.

He didn’t make it far. Passengers blocked his path before he could run to hide among the lower decks. Responding to Cecily’s command, the pirates reached for him. He was too big for a single person to take down, but three of Copson’s crewmembers managed to subdue him and forced him to his knees.