Page 164 of Tracking Snow

Copper hair falls almost to her waist, bright against her black clothes. Tattoos cover her pale arms. Silver flashes from the piercings along her ears and nose.

She sits in a wheelchair with one hand curled around the rim. Aquamarine eyes look directly into the camera.

Directly at me.

My fingers press harder into the photograph.

The next one catches her laughing beside a tiny Black woman with white hair. Her head is thrown back, full lips parted, the line of her throat bared.

Something heavy shifts inside my chest.

I lay the image beside the first.

Another shows her outside a coffee shop. Then crossing a street. Working behind the bar.

“Are you sure?” I clear my throat when the words come out unsteady.

Bump bump bump.

My heart has practically beat right up into the cavern of my mouth.

“We have solid intel,” my quartermaster confirms before telling me her name. Ariel. Where she lives. Boston.

Years of searching. Three lost ships. Forty-two dead sailors. Every fortune I’ve stolen or earned fed into the same empty stretch of water.

All of it has led me to her.

I touch the edge of her picture again. My thumb is far too rough against the soft curve of her photographed cheek, so I ease the pressure.

A mermaid stranded on land.

Perhaps she came from the place I’ve spent half my life trying to find? Perhaps the answer to everything I have ever wanted is staring up at me with aquamarine eyes?

I gather the photographs, straighten their edges, and gently close the folder though I can’t take my fingers off of it. As if touching it will bring me closer to my goal.

“Set a course for Boston, and prepare the guest cabin.”

“You think she’ll come willingly?”

“I intend to ask her properly.”

“And if she refuses?”

“She’ll find out exactly what a determined man I am.”