Page 133 of The Worst of Them

This did not appease him. “Cecily, you⁠—”

A shadow fell over them, and they both looked up. Copson had approached, and now stood close as he gazed over the water. His voice was low as he asked, “Was that a mermaid?”

“Yes,” Jack answered. Though frustration still burned in his tone, he’d lowered his voice as though it were bad luck to speak of the creature. “It brought her to the ship. After she killed the serpent.”

The captain’s eyes snapped to Cecily. “You killed it?”

Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, she rose, shrugging Jack’s coat around her shoulders. “I lost the sword,” she told both Copson and Jack, then grimaced. “I tried to get it back, but the serpent…kept it.”

Copson’s gaze bored into her with what might’ve been either anger or incredible curiosity. “You lost the sword I gifted to my late wife.”

“Yes,” she said, unwilling to offer more. She was already sorry enough for losing the beautiful weapon, and she didn’t have the capacity to weather his mood after all today had brought.

But then a laugh jolted out of him, just a small, short sound. “A sword is a small price to pay for my ship and my crew.”

Even as he laughed, she couldn’t bring herself to feel any better about it. There was something…off…inside her, and she couldn’t figure out what it was, or in what respect.

Perhaps it was only that she’d been underwater for far too long, and her mind was lost on its way back from the verge of death.

Beside her, Hester gasped, “Cecily, your hand!”

Cecily dimly recognized the pain in her palm, which sharpened as she lifted her fist and opened her fingers to reveal three curved, black scales lined with her blood. She plucked them from where they’d cut into her palm, marveling at their opalescent veins of green.

Distantly, she heard Hester ask Greyson to fetch bandages, but Cecily remained wholly focused on the beautiful scales. They were so lovely…

“The mermaid?” Copson guessed, studying what she held.

“He brought me back, but I ran out of breath…” Disbelieving, she said, “He gave me his.”

She didn’t understand why a creature with fangs and soulless eyes would have done such a thing. There was little altruism at sea, and certainly none while angry ghosts chased them.

The captain and first mate traded glances. Then Jack pressed his fingers into his brow and muttered, “Shit.”

“What?” Cecily asked. “What is it?”

“Stay in the sun, Cecily,” Copson said, shifting his weight away. “If you feel any desire to go overboard, don’t.” With a parting glance at Jack, he left just as Greyson emerged from the lower decks with a handful of bandages.

Jack’s eyes were hard as Hester wrapped Cecily’s cuts. Meanwhile, confusion strengthened its grip on her mind, as though the fog from earlier had weaseled through her ears and into her brain to silence half her thoughts. Even her little home was shrouded in mist, the door shut tight and the windows dark.

Odd.

“Let’s get you into something dry,” Jack said, pulling her from her thoughts. Hester had finished, and now his hand was on the small of her back, herding her toward their cabin.

It was as though her body moved of its own volition while the rest of her was still in the ocean, searching for the surface. She wandered along the banks of her mind, testing the boundaries of the fog as it rolled against the edges of her thoughts.

Inside their room, Jack stood by the door as she dried and changed into clean clothes. Though her mind wandered, she couldn’t help but notice all her movements felt smooth and languid, so graceful⁠—

“No knives,” Jack said as she reached for her daggers.

She paused, her hand hovering above the belt waiting on the bed. Worry darkened his eyes, and she stared at him, feeling unusually hopeless to understand.

“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

“No.” He scooped up the weapons. “There are legends and stories about kissing mermaids⁠—”

“I didn’t kiss him.”

“I know,” he said, depositing the knives in the armoire. “I’m not accusing you.”