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The Dark Horizon: Chapter XXXIX

summary: AU. The Caribbean, 1715: Royal Navy Lieutenant Killian Jones and his brother, Captain Liam Jones, have just arrived to help pacify the notorious “pirates’ republic” of New Providence. But they have dangerous allies, deadly enemies, and no idea what they’re getting into when they agree to hunt the pirate ship Blackbird and the mysterious Captain Swan. OUAT/Black Sails. rating: M status: WIP available: FF.net and AO3 previous: chapter XXXVIII

The door of the Walrus’ cabin stood just ajar, laying a thin track of lantern light a few feet inside, where it caught short against the total darkness. No lamps or candles had been lit, and nothing stirred within, like the empty lair of a wolf gone out to hunt. Or perhaps the wolf had been mortally wounded, retreated to lie down in the dark and wait to die, too bitten and battered by the combat to think of returning, even as it burned to destroy any and every challenger, everything in its way. But just now, it did not know how. Did not know anything except the utter, unbearable desire for oblivion, and even that remained elusive.

Emma hesitated for a long moment, not sure if she wanted to go in or not. But it was not much of a true dilemma, as she could not be anywhere else just now. Miranda had told her once, in Boston, that she always put everyone else before herself, always thought of their needs first, always sacrificed whatever it took to save them. And while Emma was so rarely confident of her own ability to actually do so, she also knew it was the one thing – perhaps the only thing, in her mind – that was good about her, that was right, that was true. She was heartbroken and struggling with her own grief over Miranda, but there was still someone who was more so, who had even fewer places to turn for solace than she did, who was perhaps the only other person who understood the true depths of what was gone. As well, Miranda would have wanted it. She always wanted us to get along. She always wanted more for us. For everyone.

Emma steadied herself, then pushed the door further open, slipping inside and setting it quietly closed behind her. The cabin looked like chaos, things thrown and the table overturned, the precious books scattered on the floor and papers and charts and quills sliding over the boards. Still no movement. The bed was empty, as was the chair. Was she mistaken, and he –

She took another step, and almost tripped over Flint. He was hunched in the corner, arms resting loosely on his knees, unmoving, unseeing, staring at nothing, as if he had wept and raged himself out and turned to ash and dust. Emma had never seen him like this before, not when Flint’s energy and ambition and initiative burned as brightly as his redhead temper, when he always had another plan, another idea, another cunning plot to overthrow his enemies and rise triumphant. He looked like a statue, barely seeming to notice her entrance, until he finally, very slowly, turned his head and raised bloodshot green eyes to hers. More wearily than anything, as if he couldn’t even find the strength for anger, he mumbled, “The fuck are you doing here?”

“I just. . .” There was no easy answer. She figured he had likely had enough already, but a bit more couldn’t hurt, and handed him Killian’s rum flask, which he had supplied her with when she told him she was going to try to talk to Flint. “I thought you could use some company.”

Flint snorted bitterly, but accepted the flask, unscrewing the top and gulping down half of it at a go. He wiped his mouth roughly with the back of his hand, scattering droplets from his untrimmed beard. “I’ll keep company with this.”

“I meant real company.” Emma paused, then slid down next to him, feeling her own knees give a little as she did. They sat with their backs against the wall, the Walrus rocking gently beneath them on the nighttime sea, as a heavy silence reigned over them. At last she said, very quietly, “You know I feel the same way as you do. About Miranda.”

“I doubt that.” A muscle worked in Flint’s cheek.

“About losing her.” Emma felt her own voice waver as she said it, and almost wished she hadn’t, as Flint looked as if he’d been hit again by something heavy. Ordinarily she would have reached out to offer a comforting hand, but she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t bite hers off. “The first time we met. When you and the men attacked the ship I was on. Why did – why did you think I might fetch a ransom? I couldn’t have been much. I was just a maidservant.”

Flint looked surprised that she would even ask. He took another slug of rum. “It was a shit prize anyway,” he said, after a moment. “A hold of uncured skins, a few bronze pennies, and barrels of turpentine and tar. Hardly the riches of Croesus. We needed to make something from our effort.”

“There were other passengers. The captain.”

“I shot the captain.” Flint finished off the rum.

Emma wryly supposed that he had. Remembered fighting Billy, thinking he was going to kill her, that she would die and leave Charlie and Henry alone, and how frightened she had been, even more, when he didn’t. Marched her up to the deck still awash in gunsmoke, grapnels tumbling from the railings where the Walrus’ motley crew had swarmed aboard, and her first sight of Flint, striding through the chaos and barking orders. While Billy was the one to cop to the fact that she might be worth something in ransom, she would never have lived to make Nassau if Flint had not agreed. He might not relish killing a defenseless young woman, but he would have, if he judged it more profitable or pragmatic. She realized, now, that she had never known why he decided to keep her alive even before she met Miranda, before their unexpected bond played a part in Flint agreeing to take her on as apprentice, and she wanted the answer. “Why?” she said again, just as quietly but with undeniable force. “Why did you spare me?”

His mouth twitched again. It was far too forbidding to be a smile, and too pained to be a grimace. “You looked like you were worth something.”

It was Emma’s turn to flinch. Knowing Flint, he probably meant in money, but that was still more than she had heard from almost anyone else. Her parents might have thought so, but they had died. Charlie was still too young to be anything except another responsibility for her. Leopold and Eva White had been kind in their way, but she was always and ever their servant, and their charity did not extend to keeping her on when they discovered the scandal of her pregnancy with Henry. Neal Cassidy – she did not want to think about Neal. For Walsh, she was a glorified housekeeper and bedwarmer. If this was so, James Flint, of all the bloody people, might have been the first individual in her then-twenty-one years of life to think that she was valuable in any way, and that both tore at her and touched her beyond words. Because of that, she had met Miranda, met Killian and Liam, met Sam, provided for Charlie and Henry, had Geneva, built this small but desperately loved little family of hers, even if it was awash in danger and uncertainty and death. Will, Jack, Anne, Billy, even Regina, all the people who had come to matter to her, and for whom she was still fighting. Finally she said only, “Thank you.”

Whatever response Flint had expected, it did not seem to be that one. One gingery eyebrow jumped, but he didn’t answer, muscle working still harder in his jaw. Then he got up, searched among the ruins of the cabin for another bottle of rum, and pried the seal off, sitting back down and draining a sizeable quantity of it. “Fat lot of good it did us,” he said at length. “Both of us.”

“It did.” Emma’s heart hurt, hurt beyond belief or breath or any notion of where the ease might ever come from, but she did not regret it. Did not regret any of it, or them. “It did.”

Flint looked at her bleakly, as if to say that this morbid optimism was all well and good, but he could not comprehend this view of the situation, himself. He still seemed to be thinking about ordering her out so he could be alone with his misery, but instead he said, “So why were you sailing back to England? Leaving the boys in the Americas, returning to a place you couldn’t have many good memories of, when certainly there was other employment where you were. Even if not – especially not – high seas piracy. Get a position in some other rich fuck’s household. It wouldn’t have been hard. Why England? That never made sense to me.”

“I. . .” Emma looked down at her hands. She had likewise never spoken this aloud, never given it form. Even Miranda had never asked, and she felt an almost unbearable, searing pain of missing her. “I. . . I was running. Leopold and Eva had put me out. Walsh was dead. I had nothing left, nowhere to go. I had an idea that I would go back to England and find that I had missed it, that there was something I had left behind when I emigrated with Charlie. That it was home, just because I was born there, and I had to get back to it somehow. That I would find what I needed, and bring the boys back to join me when they were a little older. That I could care for them from afar, but that I . . . I’d be alone, I’d only have to look out for myself. It. . . seemed easier.”

“Aye.” Flint blew out a slow, pained breath. “So it does.”

“But of course, I didn’t,” Emma said quietly. “Get there. England. And I didn’t miss it, either. The feeling that I wanted to have then – it’s what I have now, when I think about Miranda, and Sam being away, and not knowing where Liam and Regina and the children are, and everything else. I can’t bring any of them back. I would do it in an instant if I could, I would go down to hell and get them out if I had to. But I can’t. And the war’s not. . . not over.”

“Fucking tell me about it.” Flint contemplated the rum bottle, then set it aside. “Silver and I spent days talking the Maroons out of killing us and the men, and now we have some of them here with us. You saw them. We know there’s another battle for Nassau ahead. Woodes Rogers has a death grip on the place, Robert Gold can’t be far behind, Benjamin fucking Hornigold is doubtless lurking traitorously nearby as well, all the godforsaken lot of them. Just set the whole island afire. Might smoke out the rats.”

“Sam went to Massachusetts. Meant to bring back recruits, mercenaries, gentlemen of fortune. Swords and ships. He has plenty of treasure from his own successes, he’ll find takers.”

“How fast?” Flint stretched his legs out slowly, grimacing. “And what was in that letter?”

Emma was startled. “Silver didn’t think you knew about it.”

“Silver’s an idiot.” Flint paused. “He’s had his uses recently, I’ll admit. But still an idiot.”

“He’s not, you know,” Emma said. “He’s just like you. And if you two worked together to bring the Maroons around, if he – ”

“He’s – tried, I suppose.” Flint’s voice caught and roughened. “To do what he. . . what he can. But I never know if that’s because he actually bloody cares a whit, or because he’s saving it up to use lucratively for advantage later.”

Emma was tempted to remark that the exact same quandary often obtained with Flint, but this was not the time to rub salt in old wounds, not when she was trying to comfort him. Instead, she acquainted Flint briefly with the contents of the letter, of Mariah Hallett’s tragic situation in Cape Cod, and how Sam had felt obliged to depart at once, to do whatever he could to remedy it. Flint made no comment, except when she had finished. “Seems fate is after the lot of us with a vengeance, doesn’t it? The monsters on their maps, the villains in their fairytales. Getting what we fucking deserve, is that it? The scourge of the pirates, struck down at last. Civilization and harmony restored. Is this what qualifies as a happy ending?”

“I’d hope not.” Emma felt in need of some of the rum herself, so she plucked it from Flint’s unresisting hand and took a sip. She felt it burn all the way down, settle in her stomach like a small blazing ember, and set the bottle on the floor. “We think we managed to stop Rogers from getting word to Gold in Antigua – there was a ship, the Halifax, we. . . we dealt with her. And sent David Nolan with a letter about Gold’s treason, so there might still be time to catch them off guard. We have the Jolie and the Walrus, and whatever reinforcements Sam returns with, as well as then the Whydah. Do you know where Vane went, after. . . after?”

“I never know what the fuck Vane’s doing. I’m still barely sure why he didn’t just let me die, except that he hates the bastards just as much as I do – I’ll give him that, and only that.” Flint’s lips tightened. “Is it true that all his Spanish treasure is aboard the Jolie with bloody Jack Rackham? I wonder if there’s some way to maneuver with that. Spain must be holding Rogers’ feet to the fire agitating for its return. If we let him know that we had it – ”

“What?” Emma was surprised, though not terribly, that Flint would conjure a plan that involved depriving Vane of all his hard-stolen gold – even if Vane himself had just rescued him in Charlestown. “You’d negotiate with Rogers?”

“No,” Flint said. “I would not negotiate with Rogers. I’d set up the appearance of doing that, let him think there was a chance of retrieving the stash, and then shoot him, Hornigold, and everyone else I could in the fucking head.”

Brutal as it was, Emma could not argue in the broad strokes with the efficacy of this plan, and she knew Flint better than to think he would want any kind of peaceable or bloodless solution after he had just lost Miranda, not with the rage and grief that burned unquenchably, unbearably within him. She could not deny that she wanted Rogers to pay for what he had done to Killian, that she might not mind seeing him shot properly after Anne had almost, but not quite, pulled it off the first time, but she also knew that he was just as dangerous when backed into a corner as was Flint himself. That much had already become clear from their short and regrettable acquaintance. They were also still wagering quite a bit on Sam being able to recruit help in Massachusetts, and David Nolan delivering the charges against Gold. Vane and Blackbeard might turn up in time to join an assault, or they might not.

“Rogers still holds the harbor and all of Nassau,” she said instead. “He’s weakened, but he’s not dislodged, and he has the tactical advantage in every way that matters. He has no incentive to discuss terms at all with just two pirate vessels. We’d have to let him know we have the Spanish gold right away, and we can’t afford to wait until Vane comes back. And since it is his loot – ”

“What, did you think we had to politely ask his permission?” Flint’s mouth twisted viciously. “It’s not our fault Vane’s gone again. I’m not intending to hand the gold over anyway. And do we even have a way in at all? Rogers is a – ”

“Yes,” Emma said heavily. “Eleanor.”

That caught Flint by surprise. “Eleanor?”

“Yes. She’s. . . she’s Rogers’ lover, she’s working with him to provide intelligence on Nassau and help establish English control over the island. She wanted me and Killian to make a bargain with him before. We. . . didn’t. But if we could set up a meeting – ”

Flint did not answer, still chewing over the news of Eleanor’s desertion and betrayal. They had been close, had worked together for a long time, and he must have recognized something of himself in her, in her cutthroat determination to survive and overcome no matter the cost, no matter who had to be trampled underfoot. “Eleanor Guthrie turned from the fierce fence of the pirate empire to Woodes Rogers’ devoted little helpmeet and proper English lady,” he said at last, voice quiet but scathing. “Wonders truly do never cease.”

“I don’t know why either.” Emma rubbed her eyes. “I think she loves the idea of ruling Nassau more than anything or anyone, and she’ll ally herself with whoever seems to be the best chance of achieving that goal. It doesn’t matter if it’s under the black flag or the Union Jack. Either way. We could pull it off, possibly, but once we pull this gambit, we need to have the firepower ready to back it up, if Rogers goes for the bait. And I don’t know if the Jolie and the Walrus alone can supply that. There are still at least six Navy frigates left. Those are. . . long odds.”

“Well.” Flint’s mouth went even grimmer, but the world’s most terrifying not-smile tugged at the edges. “Who says they have to know the truth?”

Emma looked at him, startled. “What do you mean?”

Flint paused, then slowly, painfully hauled himself to his feet, a phoenix rising once more, somehow, from the ashes. “Where the fuck,” he said, “are Hook and Silver?”

The answer was: not far away, as Killian had doubtless been waiting anxiously for Emma to return, and Silver – well, who knew what he was up to, but both of them were rounded up fairly expeditiously. Flint heaved the table upright, looking as if this was far more effort than he felt like going to, but somehow compelled. The four of them sat down, though the conversation was far from bounteous. Then, since Flint did not appear inclined to be the first to broach the silence, Emma did instead. Explained their plan to bluff Rogers into a fatal miscalculation by dangling the lure of the Spanish treasure, and give them a shot at launching a surprise attack on Nassau. The difficulties of this plan were numerous and obvious, and the hard details were, to say the least, in the drawing-board stage. But it was better than nothing. Not by much, but still.

“So the main problem would be getting Rogers to believe that we had a strong enough position that he had something to lose if he didn’t take up our offer,” Killian said, having as usual grasped the essentials without the need for much explanation. “Which, with just two ships, we don’t currently have. I am sensing, then, that this would be where Mr. Silver enters the picture?”

Silver smiled faintly. “See. We’re finally becoming friends after all.”

Killian looked as if he very much doubted this, but wanted to stay focused. “You could,” he said. “Convince them otherwise. About our numbers. Our strength. Our threat. Couldn’t you?”

“I’m not a Cheapside street magician,” Silver pointed out. “I can’t spin something entirely out of nothing. As well, you said the tale is that Flint’s dead. Nobody’s going to be in haste to put their necks on the line for a dead man, especially if Rogers has been so liberal with applying nooses to them already. That, though. . . that does give us something. As if the world tried as hard as it could to kill him in Charlestown, and failed. As if you are their own and especial monster. There’s power in that. Possibility. That, now. We could make something from that.”

Flint regarded him balefully, but once again, there was no real heat or conviction or hatred in it. “So what? I sail up and ask who wants to join the cause?”

“You?” Silver sounded surprised. “No. The dead man never announces his own return. As Hook said, that would be my job. Indeed, since my leg was hacked off, I daresay talking is all the use I am now. Certainly not in any actual fighting. I can create the legend of the dread Captain Flint, returned from the grave, with an army of slaves and pirates and free men at his back, but I can’t guarantee it would take root. However many redcoats Rogers has garrisoned on Nassau, there are still more of us – but they’re scared. They have not seen him lose yet. Surprised, yes, by Vane’s trick with the fireships, but not yet disadvantaged enough to make it worthwhile to turn on him. There might be something to cause them to change their minds, yes, but I don’t know what.”

“Figure it out.” Flint drummed his fingers on the table, eyes bleak and distant. He clearly did not want to be sitting here calmly talking strategy and subterfuge and possible angles of approach, did not want to keep holding himself together for outward appearances. Just wanted to burn, and burn, and burn. “And the Maroons – talk to Madi about it. Get her to make them agree to follow me, if that’s what we’re going with.”

“I can’t get Madi to make them do anything.” Silver’s voice remained mild, but there was a warning in it. “She’s a remarkable woman in her own right as well. You know none of them left the island thinking they’d have to follow anyone but her.”

Flint’s fist clenched, then smoothed jerkily flat on the tabletop, fingers working as if in search of something tangible to strangle. “So,” he said after a moment. “You lie your arse off – it should come naturally, I imagine – to frighten the island, and the English, with tales of my return with an unstoppable force. We bluff to get a meeting with Rogers. Draw him out somewhere. Promise the Spanish gold back. Then strike, and settle this for good and all.”

“It won’t be that easy, you know,” Killian warned. “Rogers is too careful for that, and he’ll be on high alert for a trap. And if we can take him alive, he gives us more leverage that way. Dead, he’s just a martyr for their side, an enduring image of the pirates’ brutality and barbarism. No surer way to draw the infighting English factions together. Even you know that, mate.”

“Whatever you say.” Flint’s voice was close to a snarl. “Mate.”

Killian grimaced, as he himself could not at all be looking forward to a reunion with his tormentor. “And are we going to tell Rackham about this? I imagine he’ll balk at offering up Vane’s precious gold, even in pretense, when he’s the trusted custodian of it.”

“Fuck Rackham, then. We’ll do it without him.”

“We can’t, all right?” Killian was clearly sympathetic to Flint’s current emotional wasteland, but an edge of exasperation roughened his tone nonetheless. “We can’t. He helped save my life, he was – is – the lawfully elected captain of the Jolie since I decided not to challenge him again for command, and there’s nothing to be gained by spurning him now, when our allies are thin enough on the ground as it is. I’ll go over and tell him.”

“Fine. You do that. Really, I don’t give a shit.” Flint picked up the rum bottle again, finished it off, and banged it down. “And how about all of you get the fuck out, anyway?”

Killian and Silver glanced at each other, then rose to their feet with rather deliberate courtesy, Silver’s crutch thumping as he braced himself. Killian turned to Emma. “Coming, love?”

“Aye, just – just a minute.”

He gave her another, longer look, clearly not fond of leaving her alone with Flint again, but nodded and withdrew. The silence this time was close to stifling, Flint all but about to go off with a bang, but Emma held her ground. When he started to look around again as if in search of yet more rum, she raised a hand. “I think that is enough.”

“Nursemaiding me now, are you?” Flint got heavily to his feet, staggered, and had to steady himself, belying his attempt to look as coldly sober as ever. “There’s a waste of time.”

“James.”

His head snapped up, unwillingly.

“James,” Emma repeated. “I know you just want to sleep. I know you want to go away from it. But we. . . we can’t do this without you.”

Flint’s lip curled, as if to say that if so, they were spectacularly fucked. He seemed briefly about to blaze back a sharp reply, but didn’t. “I keep dreaming about her,” he said instead, very low, almost as if he had not meant to, but could not hold it back. His voice was anguished and small. “Miranda. She’s – screaming. Always screaming, but she never makes a sound. There’s some monster there, some beast, that stalks us both. I can’t reach her, I can’t touch her. She wants to speak to me. Sometimes she does. Asks me to forgive her, as if she was the one in the wrong. I almost want to stay asleep for good. Stay wherever she is. I am. . .” He turned away, into the shadows, as if he could not stand for Emma to see his face, but she still heard his whisper. “I am ruined without her. Ruined. And I cannot imagine ever being whole again.”

Emma hesitated, aching for the evident and absolute devastation in his voice, his face, every raw and shattered sinew of him. She had lost her foster mother, whom she trusted and respected and admired and relied upon, whom she had loved very much and could hardly stand to think of her life without, and that was no small pain. Yet Flint had lost his wife, the woman he had been with for ten years, his partner and his solace, the woman who had given up everything to flee with him to Nassau, his last remaining link to Thomas Hamilton, to his old life in London, to any hint of James McGraw. He and Miranda had loved each other through hell, through exile and darkness and everything else that had been thrown at them, and they had not deserved this, this crushing of their dreams and despoliation of their future. Emma had no way to take that pain away, to ease that burden, and she wished that Sam was here. He would know how to make this better, even momentarily. He would know what to say, what comfort to offer. She hoped he would be back from Massachusetts soon. She and Killian – and Flint – needed him.

And yet, he wasn’t. It was only her, only them. Notwithstanding the ever-present danger of death by decapitation, she crossed the creaking floorboards, reached out, and took his hand.

Flint tensed as sharply as if she had tried to shoot him, clearly on the brink of pulling back. He also clearly wished that she would stop trying so hard to reach him, that she would walk away and let him drown, as if the loss was so raw that even comfort made it worse. Or perhaps because he was so used to doing everything alone that the idea of sharing a grief, a loss, with anyone except Miranda – when Miranda herself was the subject of the grief – that he simply did not know how. Lost even that human notion, that allowance of fragility, in the fire.

“Hey,” Emma said, her own voice barely a whisper. “There’s something left to fight for, all right? For whatever it was worth, when you said that I was Miranda’s daughter. I don’t know if you feel the same way. I doubt it. But I’m still here. In any way it really matters, I’m the mother of your grandchild, of Miranda’s grandchild. Killian is your friend. Sam is your. . . Sam. You still have something, someone, to come back to. Don’t give up. She wouldn’t want you to. You know she wouldn’t.”

“Do I?” Flint drew a shuddering, painful breath. “She wanted Charlestown burned. You heard her say it. After what happened with Ashe – ” He stopped. “She had no intention of begging his forgiveness, any more than I did. If she wanted the war to go on – ”

“She didn’t,” Emma said softly. “Not forever. Not at the cost of your soul. She always wanted the demon to let go of you, for the fight to be enough. We. . . we talked about it. Often.”

Flint didn’t answer, though the agony etched in every line of his face remained acute. The cabin was still dark, though the lamp they had lit for their meeting was burning low, wick guttering in the oil, throwing strange and shifting shadows on the walls. Emma had a sense that there were any number of things he could have said, rebuttals to be made, arguments about how very far they still had to go to have any hope of coming out the other side, and what state they would possibly be in when they did. That, after all, was exactly what Flint did: fight, no matter the battleground, no matter the subject. And he was, as anyone with even a passing acquaintance with him had cause to know, often to their detriment, extremely good at it.

Any of that, therefore, would have been far more expected than what he did. He let go of her hand, turned to her without a word, and leaned down to kiss her forehead, quietly and briefly and lightly. Then he straightened up, went to the door, and opened it, letting in a rush of warm night air. Stood there, still silently, and waited for her to go.

Emma, aware that she had done all she could for now, wanting to be with Killian, knowing that Flint did not want her to see him weep, went.

-----------------

The next fortnight was occupied with this dangerous, delicate game of cat-and-mouse. For the best effect, the story had to have time to germinate, to spread naturally, to smolder just under the surface and then catch fire, to put Woodes Rogers on uneasy notice and start to wonder if his request for reinforcements had made it to Antigua after all, or if he was cut off and about to face the Caribbean’s longest-tenured and most infamous (and now angriest) pirate captain by himself. They also had to find a place to anchor where the Navy would not stumble across them by accident, as the success of this bluff rested on Rogers believing that they had somehow assembled enough of a force to make his life very difficult if he wanted to do this the hard way. Silver had gone ashore with some of the men to get started on his task, but he likewise had not explicitly showed his face, or made himself known outright. He had instead written a letter, setting out the cost of continuing to oppose them, the danger of what was, if Rogers insisted on it, about to be unleashed. A letter signed, since the only legend who could announce the return of Captain Flint was another that must be created, Long John Silver.

In the meantime, Emma and Killian were working to find a way to pass a message to Eleanor, wondering how much to tell her, and how exactly the hell they might pull this off. Wild tales of slave risings and pirate armies might be enough to frighten Rogers into one rash decision, although even that was not guaranteed, but if he learned too quickly that it was all just Silver’s expert lies, he could strike back hard and trap them at a vulnerable juncture indeed. Their best hope was to catch Rogers off guard and take him prisoner at any potential meeting, as if they had the governor in hand, they would be able to dictate terms to the English forces. Even if so, even if he was forced to come alone, Rogers would be sure to have arranged some nasty snare in his wake. Such as, if he did not return within a set amount of time, his men had orders to torch the island and kill anyone who resisted. It would not at all be safe to underestimate him.

In this work, apart from each other, Emma and Killian were most often joined by the Maroon chieftainess’ daughter and leader of their men aboard the Walrus, Madi. Emma could quickly see the reason for Silver’s intrigue; Madi was indeed a remarkable woman, barely in her twenties but strong and steely-minded, brave and decisive, but with that slight bit of vulnerability nonetheless. It transpired that her father was Mr. Scott, Eleanor’s longtime assistant and co-manager of the Guthrie enterprise, someone well familiar to Emma from her days in Nassau. Madi also knew Poseidon and Ursula, which had rendered her reception of Killian distinctly cool, but she did at least seem willing to judge him on the merits of how he presented himself now, and to not hold past sins unduly against him. With what was at stake, they could not afford it. Not that that was likely to stop anyone else, but she, at least, could grasp it.

They did not see Flint much. He kept largely to his cabin, rarely emerging even for mealtimes, though sometimes he would appear when the scouts came back with their reports. Rackham had also kicked up a fuss about letting Vane’s treasure potentially slip through his fingers; he knew he would be the one to take the fall if his ex-captain came back and discovered it gone. But as he was unable to offer much of an alternative, he was grudgingly forced to consent. They would have to make their move soon. A few more days at most. Otherwise Rogers would realize that his message had not made it to Gold, that nobody was coming to help him, and he would accordingly do something drastic. We are running out of time.

“Is he meant to be back soon?” Madi asked, that evening. “Black Sam?”

“Aye, though who knows how long it took for him to make it to Massachusetts.” Killian checked the chart on the table, where they were engaged in the slow process of plotting out the reported positions of the redcoats, how far they had fanned out across the island. If the scouts were to be believed, they were also avoiding the plantations, which was noteworthy. Rogers might have caught wind of the fact that Sam and Lancelot had been trying to stir up a revolt, and issued strict instructions to his men not to provoke them at any cost. That means he’s afraid of the possibility. Doesn’t think it amounts to much, but he’s still afraid of it. “Or how long it took him to smooth things over with his Mariah. He’ll be back, though. He’s Sam.”

Madi regarded him inscrutably. “Are you sure of that?”

“Aye,” Killian said again. Doubting Sam was as foreign to him as doubting Emma, and needed no further articulation. “I likewise hope it will be soon. We could manage it – barely – but storming the harbor again with just the Walrus and the Jolie will be very dangerous.”

Madi raised an eyebrow, as if to say that he had not needed to tell her that, and swept her long black dreadlocks over her shoulder, tying them out of her face with a thong. Then she said, “What if he does not? What if something went wrong? It is a long voyage to Massachusetts and back. If he was captured by the Navy, or. . . worse?”

Killian looked at her queerly. “Nothing went wrong.”

“It would be comforting to be certain, yes. But if he does not return, it is my men who will have to make up the lack. Before I ask that of them, to fight alongside pirates in a battle where they could well all die, it would be only right that we knew for sure.”

“If they didn’t want to fight alongside pirates, why would they have left your island in the first place?” Killian dipped his quill in the inkwell and scribbled a terse update of their coordinates. “Besides, it won’t come to that. Sam will be back soon.”

“But if he – ”

“I said, Sam will be back soon!”

Madi gave him a long, stonily cool stare, and Killian grimaced – if he wanted to convince her that he had changed from the days when he had dealt Ursula so dishonorably, this was a piss-poor way to go about it. While the air was crackling, the door opened and Emma appeared, returned from her nightly errand to leave food outside Flint’s cabin – they were fairly sure he might not bother to eat otherwise. At sensing the standoff, her brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s my fault, love.” Killian sighed heavily. To Madi, he said, “You have a point, lass, of course. I’m just – it’s not been the best few weeks of my life, that’s for bloody certain, and I’m run raw with worrying about it all. Still, that’s no excuse to bark at you. I’m sorry.”

Madi eyed him suspiciously for a moment longer, then nodded fractionally, accepting the apology, and some of the tension eased. She turned to Emma. “Did you have news?”

“I did.” Emma looked between them. “We have a meeting with Rogers. Tomorrow night.”

Madi uttered a small exclamation of surprise, while Killian did not manage to be quite as circumspect. “Bloody hell! We do? How? What the blazes did he want, a – ”

“I’m not entirely sure. It went through Anne, to Max, who got a message to Eleanor, and apparently she influenced Rogers to agree to it. It’s a hidden spot outside Nassau, tomorrow after dark. We made it clear he was supposed to come with only a few trusted men, and we’d do the same. Obviously, it’s a gamble, but. . . at this point, I think we’re committed to making it.”

“Bloody hell,” Killian said again, looking down at their carefully curated map with its painstaking diagrams of movements and positions. As one of the few – indeed, the only, apart from Flint, and he wasn’t much use at the present – men with actual military experience, even if his proficiency was at sea rather than on land, he had been requisitioned to craft and direct the pirates’ entire plan of battle. It was also clear that while Rackham remained captain of the Jolie, nobody had forgotten the duel where Killian had come out atop Flint, Vane, and Blackbeard, and the command he had taken as a result. They had set this up as Rogers having to face down Flint once and for all, but – with Flint as shattered and eclipsed and out to sea as he was – it seemed ever more that it was full as much a lie as Silver was making it. That the true power, the true adversary who awaited his reckoning with the governor and everything he stood for, in payment for what he had done, was Hook.

“Fine,” Killian said, trying to recollect his troubled thoughts. “Tomorrow night after sundown. Do we know what sort of trick Rogers is liable to pull on us once we’re there?”

“We’ll have to be on the lookout for anything.” Emma absently tidied a strand of loose blonde hair out of her eyes, as Killian’s fingers ached with the desire to do it for her. “You should find Lancelot. We don’t have much time to get ready and be sure of what we’re going to do, so. . .”

Madi sensed the unspoken dismissal, looked between them for another moment, then nodded again and showed herself out. When they were alone, Emma leaned against Killian, burying her face in his shoulder, as he slid his arms around her and could not help but notice the shiver of need that ran through him. Emma was still healing from Geneva’s birth, Killian still felt like one giant bruise, and with the worry and uncertainty and emotional turmoil of the past few weeks, intimate relations had been the last thing on their minds. Yet they had been sleeping closely together every night, curled in each other’s arms, and he could not help but find it increasingly difficult to continue to do so in uneventful celibacy. They could touch each other, satisfy each other in different ways than full consummation, but that was still only a temporary measure. He wanted her, and he’d wait as long as he had to, but that did not mean that it was not starting to drive him slightly mad.

Emma’s eyelashes fluttered, her lips parting, as Killian slid hand and hook down to her hips, bracing her firmly against him. Her fingers combed through the curl of hair at the nape of his neck, pulling his lips to hers for a very thorough kiss, and he took a step, about to lift her onto the table and to the devil with all their charts. Her other hand fiddled at the buttons of his shirt, sliding across the plane of his chest and around his shoulder, their foreheads close, noses brushing and mouths musing. He hitched her up onto the table, stepping between her legs, turning her head to deepen the kiss, hungry and haunting. Could at least give her release, some way or another, try to ease her over for whatever was about to happen tomorrow, or –

There was a scrape at the door, a thump, and Killian broke off, Emma still in his arms and both of them flushed and flustered, to see John Silver clearly regretting his decision to stop by for a strategical update. “Please,” he said, holding up his free hand. “By all means, don’t let me intrude. I’m glad someone is enjoying themselves around here. But as we’re going to have to come face-to-face with Rogers tomorrow, I thought – ”

“It’s fine.” Emma slid off the table, pulling her unlaced shirt over her shoulders. Killian let go of her as well, the moment broken. “You can – you can look, we were – we were just finished.”

Silver raised an eyebrow, as if to say that he was well aware that he had arrived while they were in flagrante delicto, but did not demur. Stumped inside on his crutch to take over the maps, the vigil, and after a pause, quietly, they went.

The next day crept by on turtle feet. Everyone was, to say the least, on bristling edge about the multitudinous and spectacular ways in which the upcoming rendezvous could go horribly wrong, and Killian had to be clear on who all he meant to take along. Him and Emma, for a start. Rackham was in charge of the chest of Spanish treasure, which they would have to take to prove they had it. Lancelot and Madi would both be there as well, to serve as proof that the Maroons were fighting alongside the pirates. Silver would have to come, since it was his lies they were counting on, and Flint, so Rogers would know that he was in fact alive. That made seven in all, six if you considered that Silver couldn’t fight, and there was no telling what show of force Rogers would make in return. After all, the bluff could cut both ways.

Killian paced and worried for most of the afternoon, until it was time to leave. Everyone had dressed in dark clothes, strapped on considerable quantities of weapons, and Killian was half-wondering if he would have to break into the cabin and drag Flint out by the heels. But he appeared in due course, nodded curtly to Emma, and climbed into the boat with them. Didn’t say a word, but pulled the oars as if they had personally insulted him, sending them at a good clip across the glassy sunset water of the lagoon. They made a stop at the Jolie, to pick up Rackham and the chest, and then rowed ashore, tied the boat, and headed off into the trees.

It was a good walk to the designated meeting spot, an outcrop of broken shore rocks and low-lying marshland a few miles outside of Nassau, and they made an odd traveling party to say the least. Silver was missing a leg and Killian was missing a hand, so Lancelot had to help Rackham haul the chest. Madi took the lead, though sometimes, unobtrusively, she would offer assistance if Silver was struggling too much on his crutch. Flint strode silently in the rear, and Emma was clearly keeping an eye on him. They had decided to arrive several hours early, so Rogers could not get there ahead of them and entrench an ambush, and everyone was sweating and out of breath by the time they made it. The wind whistled desolately over the empty ground, whistling among the hollows of the rocks as the breakers crashed below, and Killian felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. If this went bad, it was going to be hard to get out of here easily.

There was not much conversation as they waited. The sun was well down, the moon was up, and Rackham had just opened his mouth – doubtless to ask if they had gotten the date correct or something else annoying – when they finally heard the sound of hoofbeats and saw torchlight flickering on the path toward them. They stood up in a hurry, trying to look intimidating, as Woodes Rogers galloped into view, trailed by half a dozen other men on horseback. One of them, Killian was intensely disgusted to see, was Benjamin Hornigold, and he heard Flint make a similar hissing noise of loathing. Rogers appeared to have chosen the rest of his assistants for brawn rather than brain. If this was devolving into a slugfest, he preferred to be prepared.

There was no sound but the wind as Rogers dismounted and regarded them with those cool, opaque eyes. “Good evening,” he said at last. “I have been told that there is a specific purpose to our meeting. Something about the Spanish gold pillaged from the wreck of the treasure fleet off Florida. Was I misinformed?”

“You were not.” Killian gazed back at him just as coolly, though it sent an unpleasant grue down his spine to see him again. Rogers appeared to be mended from the wound Anne had dealt him, unfortunately, though there was still a slight scar on his forehead. “Though seeing as your bloody friend Jennings stole half of it, you could have asked him about its whereabouts well before.”

“I did. Captain Jennings was unaware.” Rogers shrugged. “He said he had been parted from it quite a while ago, when Charles Vane turned on him to drive him out of Nassau, and therefore could offer no useful intelligence on it. So – ” those wintry eyes flicked to Rackham – “I understand that you are the man responsible for it now?”

“I, ah, I am.” Rackham cleared his throat. “We’ve brought this one chest to prove we have it. The full stash is safely elsewhere. We can imagine that Spain sees its return as a matter of priority.”

“They do.” Rogers’ expression did not change. “They have issued an ultimatum that if their unlawfully stolen treasure fails to be repatriated to them in full, they will no longer consider themselves bound by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht and will feel free to resume their previous state of war against Great Britain and all her allies. The governor of Havana has sent me several strongly worded letters about it, in fact. Even men of your. . . irregular sensibilities can doubtless understand that another war is the last thing we can afford.”

“I don’t know.” Flint spoke at last, voice rough as granite. “I’d be all for another fucking war.”

“I don’t doubt you would.” Rogers smiled faintly as he said it, taking in the sight of Flint from head to heel. “So the stories are true. You are alive.”

Flint continued to stare at him with utter, charblack malevolence, until Killian shifted slightly, in case he should need to stop the older man from doing something stupid. Rogers himself was surely aware of his danger, but glanced at Lancelot and Madi, seemed to decide that they did not rate an actual comment, and then said, “Well? Am I to understand that you are proposing terms, or am I not?”

“Aye.” Killian lifted his chin. “We hand over the Spanish treasure, you avert another war that neither Madrid nor London can afford, and in exchange, you and all your men leave New Providence Island for good. We remain as a free and independent state in the West Indies, to make our laws and customs according to our own authority and volition. At no point in the future may England again claim us as part of her land, expect taxes or services from us, or impinge upon our sovereignty. If she does, we will defend ourselves as necessary.”

Rogers looked completely incredulous. “You must be mad,” he said. “Mad, to think that I would ever agree to withdraw and leave a nest of thieves at large on His Majesty’s rightful territory, to plague shipping and commerce in His Majesty’s waters. Or perhaps you – ”

“How much do you want the Spanish treasure back?” Killian said coolly. “Not that much?”

“No term of exchange or armistice will involve the continued existence of the pirates’ republic.” Rogers said it calmly and matter-of-factly, without much ire or umbrage, merely a cold, ironclad certainty. “Neither myself nor Robert Gold would ever agree to it, far less the rest of Westminster.”

“Ah. See, there’s this funny thing about your mate, Gold. Do the words camera stellata ring any bells? Star Chamber?”

At that, Rogers did blink, but only once. “The Star Chamber was disbanded years ago.”

“Really? Are you certain? Because you might want to pop back in and ask Gold one more time, just to be sure. Because he’s been writing letters signed with their cipher as recently as a month ago, and, as I am sure I don’t need to remind you, the Star Chamber was a symbol of monarchical tyranny and a secret society and law unto itself. A Jacobite law.”

“Lord Robert,” Rogers said stiffly, “is not a Jacobite.”

“Really?” Killian repeated. “You’re sure? Though in this case, I think you’re right. He’s not a Jacobite. He’s a bloody lunatic who serves no king or country except his own power and profit, and he’s certainly no friend of yours. You know who I am. We used to attend the same supper parties in Bristol. You knew that Liam and I were devoted servants of the crown, and Gold deliberately destroyed us. He meant to push me into piracy all along, to make the Caribbean’s new monster, and I am sad to say that I obliged him in everything. All the while so that all eyes would be fixed on me, and not whatever he was doing. Check his books. Check anything. He’s a traitor. You already said you don’t take orders from him. Is he the man you want covering your back in Antigua, mate? You really think he’d protect you from us?”

“Protect me.” Rogers laid a light hand on his sword. “Yes, from this mighty force you claim to have assembled. Pirates and Maroons and all the bilge rats of the Indies, rising up to throw off the shackles of English tyranny. So you would have me believe. I only see seven of you.”

“There are more,” Killian said. “Many more.”

“And I have the word of a traitor himself to wager on it?”

“If that’s what you’re questioning him on, why the bloody hell is that fat shit standing next to you?” Flint had evidently had quite enough of this badinage. “Fucking Hornigold?”

“Captain Hornigold is assisting me with the defense and intelligence of the island.” Rogers’ gaze did not waver, though his grip tightened on the sword hilt. “And surely it is no treason to repent from an outlaw to an upright citizen?”

“James, my old friend.” Hornigold spread his hands in a rueful shrug. “When are you ever going to admit that in the end, you have chosen the losing side?”

Flint did not answer, merely stared back at him in such utter loathing that Killian was surprised that a crack did not split the earth open beneath Hornigold’s feet and deposit him directly into hell. Evidently, however, Hornigold took his silence to mean that he could not refute the point. “Where is dear Samuel, by the way?” he went on. “I would have thought to see him here with you. Or did he try to overthrow another one of you, and had to be hastily dealt with? My condolences.”

Killian gritted his teeth, reminding himself that there was absolutely no good result of being drawn into a bear-baiting with Hornigold, much as he yearned to stuff the bastard’s smirking mug directly up his backside. Instead, he looked back at Rogers. “Are you interested in my offer or not? Besides, you must have sent to Antigua for reinforcements. Still nothing from Gold. You sure they want you to succeed here? You know what a crocodile that man is.”

Rogers looked back at him inscrutably. “I want this chest now, as a signal of your good intentions. And a hostage. You can select among yourselves whichever one.”

“Are you mad? You think we’ll give you one of us as a – ”

“The exchange of hostages becomes necessary, where trust does not exist between two hostile factions,” Rogers pointed out, once again as coolly as if he was reading from a treatise on military strategy. “And it has not escaped my attention that pirates, among their other disreputable qualities, are not known for their honesty. So both of us will have to strain ourselves, if we intend to walk away from here with any progress made.”

“I don’t see you in a haste to offer us a hostage.”

“We’ll take Hornigold,” Flint put in. “That should do nicely.”

Killian was about to ask whether Flint remembered that the point of hostages was not to kill them on the spot, sympathetic as he was to this aim, but Rogers shook his head, almost amused. “You still think you can demand that we treat as equals, that you are owed any consideration or conciliation under the law which you have repeatedly and flagrantly flouted and showed your disdain for at every available opportunity? If you wish to enjoy the benefits afforded by it, I suggest you begin by respecting it. If you are not willing to hand over the chest and a hostage – again, as I made plain at our last meeting, none of what I ask is overweening or unreasonable – then there are other ways to settle this. As noted, there are seven of you present. Captain Flint, ‘Long’ John Silver, Captain Hook, Captain Swan, Jack Rackham, and two leaders of the Maroons. I daresay without you, your compatriots would find it difficult to carry on.”

Killian tensed, reaching for Emma. “You don’t want to – ”

“I don’t want to what?” Rogers nodded to his redcoat escorts, who slung their muskets off their backs and checked the priming. “Provoke the wrath of this mystical pirate force that I have been assured is on my doorstep, waiting to fall upon Nassau with fire and slaughter? Perhaps you take me for a fool, or are in a haste to frighten me into a miscalculation? Was I intended, then, to unquestioningly believe the word of that paragon of trustworthiness, John Silver?”

Flint looked as if he was on the verge of agreeing wholeheartedly with this statement, before remembering that it came from Woodes Rogers and therefore he could not, on principle, do so. He shifted his weight. “Do you want to take that risk?”

“I don’t know.” Rogers’ voice dropped, soft and menacing. “Do I?”

Killian remained engaged in trying to get Emma behind him, as to his eyes, those redcoats looked half a second away from opening fire and sending this exactly as pear-shaped as he had feared. They appeared to not quite dare without Rogers’ say-so, Lancelot, Flint, and Rackham all had their hands on an exotic variety of swords and pistols, and Killian gave Emma a warning look, trying to tell her to grab Madi and make a break for it. But he wasn’t sure that Rogers wouldn’t fire on two women, even in the darkness, and since Silver was no use in a fight, that put them at severe disadvantage of numbers. Or –

“I will make myself clear,” Rogers said. “Hand over the chest and two hostages – since if nothing else, this exchange has proven that your intransigence is not likely to be curtailed with one. Otherwise, I will have to give the order for the lot of you to be shot.”

At that, Flint had heard more than enough. He ripped out his sword, lunged over the boulder dividing them, and went directly for Hornigold, as Killian – judging in the same amount of time that they had rather abruptly reached the end of negotiations – pushed Emma toward Madi, drew his own, and charged Rogers. A fusillade of musket fire boomed and flashed across the clearing as the redcoats drew the same conclusion, but Killian could not look around. Rogers managed to get his own sword free of the buckler just in the nick of time, and their blades crashed with an impact strong to send sparks skidding from the edges and the reverberations up Killian’s arm. He took a better grip, changed angles, and slammed down a second blow, then a third.

Rogers was ready for him, expertly parrying his attacks and well aware of his footing on the treacherous ground, as they drew apart, circled briefly, then closed in again, swords crashing and screeching. Killian was aware of Flint punishing Hornigold somewhere nearby, another exchange of shots – Lancelot and Jack were firing, he thought at least one redcoat was down, Silver had spread his arms trying to shield Emma and Madi (that was, however slightly, a point in the git’s favor) but Emma herself did not appear inclined to hang back and let the men handle things. She was, after all, a pirate captain in her own right, the only woman in the Caribbean to claim the honor. She drew her sword and leapt for the nearest redcoat.

Madi herself dove for a rock, which she threw hard at the soldier coming for her, and he went down with a curse, clutching at his bloodied nose. At that, Killian lost track of everyone else again, the thought locked in his head that if he could just handle Rogers right now, he could save them, he could save everyone. He remembered his own admonition against murdering the man, that a public demise would be exactly what the English needed to rally together and finish the fight, but if Rogers got himself killed in some midnight backwater duel, if they could just pull the threads and make it unravel – it would be over, they would be safe – Gold might send another deputy to Nassau, yes, but their back would be broken –

“You’re making a foolish choice, Jones.” Rogers was out of breath, but only slightly, a long lock of sandy-brown hair falling in his face, as they sized each other up for the next attack. “After everything – ”

“Aye.” Killian almost laughed, despite himself. “After what you bloody did to me, you still somehow think there’s a chance I’ll decide to come over to your side again? And here I thought you were supposed to be a smart man.”

Rogers looked as if he was about to reply, but at that moment, they were distracted by a crash, a thump, and a sickening squelching sound from behind them, and they both whirled around, just in time to see Flint throwing his full body weight into driving his sword as deep into Benjamin Hornigold as he possibly could. He pulled the blade out with a shriek and grit against bone, and as Hornigold was going down, swung it like an axe into his neck, blood spraying in his face as he bared his teeth. Hornigold seemed to be trying to say something, choking and gurgling, but couldn’t make it out. He convulsed once more, and went still.

Rogers stared at the fallen body of his loyal stooge for a brief, spellbound moment, then lunged like a striking cobra, grabbing Madi by the hair and dragging her in front of him, as another of the redcoats kicked the pistol out of Rackham’s hand, punched him in the belly, and doubled him over. A third went for the chest, then hauled it up toward the horses, which had been rearing and shying at the sight and sound of the free-for-all. Rogers forced Madi backward, sword at her throat, as Jack kept struggling, received a thumping blow over the head for his trouble, and slumped like a sack of oats. Flint whirled around, but was stopped dead as Rogers trained a pistol on him with his free hand. “Please,” he said. “Give me a reason, I beg you.”

The redcoat hoisted Jack’s limp body over the back of his horse, hog-tying him, as the other two took custody of the chest. Rogers pushed Madi in front of him, keeping the gun pointed unwaveringly at Flint. “Two hostages,” he repeated, breathless and snarling. “Two hostages, and the chest. That was what I asked for. Well, I appear to have them now. You could have handed them over far more peaceably, but you didn’t. All the Spanish treasure, returned to me by sundown tomorrow, or both of them die, as well as all the remaining men accused of piracy that I hold back in Nassau. Then I will search the entire island, deploy my ships to find however many you claim to have, and order them all sunk without quarter or cessation. Any man who survives will then be hanged. This is your final warning. Do not test me.”

With that, he spun around, grabbed Madi by the arm, and shoved her onto his horse, then mounted up as well, raising a hand to beckon to the other two. Gathered up the reins, gave them a final, blazing, hell-black look, and galloped away into the darkness.

----------------

It was a long, grim, dangerous retreat back to the beach. Even the momentary and much-deserved vindication of finally killing Hornigold could not disguise the desperation of their situation. If Madi died, the Maroons would, at best, desert the pirate cause immediately – at worst, they might actively turn on them. Jack was, in a coldly pragmatic sense, not an irreplaceable loss, but he was the captain of the Jolie, Anne would not stand to let him die, and might take reckless risks trying to rescue him. As well, Rogers had of course additionally acquired the chest of Spanish treasure, which left them without anything else to use as negotiating leverage. Either they meekly handed over the rest of it, or they dug in and prepared for an all-out battle on both land and sea waged to the bitter end, and with casualties guaranteed to be ruinous. Everything hung from the slenderest of threads.

Killian’s mind was racing, and his stomach was leaden. He could not help but blame himself for his own failure to take down Rogers in time, as if that had been the final real chance they had to stop him, and he was viciously second-guessing the decision to risk a parlay with the dangerous bastard in the first place – which had been mostly his as well. The ragged remnants of the pirate cause had put their faith in him to serve as their general and commander, and all he seemed to be doing was leading them from bad to worse. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.

It was very late by the time they made it back to the Walrus and the Jolie, yet there was no chance of anyone sleeping. They had to face the Maroons and admit what had happened to Madi, and while at least Lancelot could vouch for their version of events, it was a violently fraught atmosphere. Anne was also as pleased as could be expected to hear that Jack and the chest had been captured, and there was so much shouting on all sides that an outsider stumbling on the scene would have concluded that they were the adversaries, not the allies. Flint would hear of no reproach for making Rogers even angrier by killing Hornigold – did it matter, when he was clearly determined to do them all the harm he could, provocation or otherwise? – and Killian’s own culpability in the matter did not escape censure. What the hell was his plan now? Why should they trust him? Why not just hand over the Spanish gold, and try to get away why they still could? Nassau was a lost cause. Find another island to call home. The English might well come along to boot them off that one too, but at least it would buy them some time.

It was in the middle of this rancorous scene that the lookout ran in to make it even worse, by telling them that he had spotted a ship approaching, and everyone crowded above decks. It was close to sunrise by now, so the faint dawn glow illuminated an eerie redness on the horizon behind the newcomer – the portent of war, Killian thought, could stand to be not quite so on the nose. He found himself praying it was the Whydah and Sam, but it was only one ship, and not nearly large enough. But it was, for better or worse, just as familiar. The bloody Ranger.

Within another quarter-hour, Vane had drawn abreast, close enough to shout over the railings, as even Flint, for once, could not muster a sardonic comment on his timing – said timing had, after all, saved his arse in Charlestown. That did not mean he was pleased to see him by any stretch of the imagination, but he had to bite his tongue, as they were so sorely in need of any help at all that Vane’s particular brand of insanity had the possibility of being useful. “You what?” he rasped, when he had been brought up to date on recent events. “You took my fucking treasure, then let Rogers capture it and Jack?”

“You weren’t here.” Killian looked at him coolly. “And unless you’re planning on making yourself bloody useful, and fast, we’ll likely have to hand over the rest of it.”

Vane looked as if he could not believe that they kept getting themselves into situations from which he was obliged to exert himself to retrieve them, especially it involved this risk to his capital, but he was also aware that with Rogers on the warpath, now was not the time to split hairs. “In case you didn’t notice,” he said instead, “I haven’t had any fucking trouble fighting him. Rogers, that is. I burned his blockade once, I’ll do it again if that’s what this has come to. I want Jack and my money back, and I intend to get them. The rest of you – ”

“We’ll fight,” Flint said. “That’s not even a question at this point. And once Bellamy returns – ”

Something flickered across Vane’s face, which all of them noticed, bringing an abrupt and uncomfortable halt to the conversation. Killian took a step forward, feeling as if something had come to ferocious life in his gut and was about to claw its way out. “What?” he demanded. “Did you – on the way back here, did you hear something? What?”

“I ran across a small trader under pirate colors,” Vane said after a moment. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Called the Mary Anne. When I drew in alongside her, I found eight men from Bellamy’s crew aboard. They said there had. . . there had been a storm.”

Killian’s heart felt as if it was about to burst from his chest. “Storm?”

“Aye.” Vane looked at him straight. “They said they had taken the Mary Anne as a prize, that all of them had then been caught in a terrible gale off the coast of Cape Cod, and they barely survived. Waited and waited for the Whydah to appear, but it didn’t. Never did. I wouldn’t wait for your friend to return. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“You’re lying.” It burned out of Killian like a fresh-fired cannonball. “You’re lying.”

Vane barked a mirthless laugh. “The fuck reason would I have to lie about it? They weren’t. Looked like a bunch of milk-white cowards, rattled to the bone, just wanted to be out of there. So I stopped another ship, the Swallow, and they had the same tale, said it was spreading across the Cape like wildfire. The Whydah was wrecked and sank in the storm, only two men survived, and both of them were caught and taken to jail to be tried for piracy. John Julian, one of the Indians, and Thomas Davis, a carpenter. Bellamy’s dead, Jones. You’d better fucking face it.”

Killian felt as if the world was giving way beneath his feet. He couldn’t even look at Flint and Emma, even knowing that they must be reacting in the same way, that this was flaying and burning any hope they had of a miraculous deliverance, an eleventh-hour arrival of extra forces prepared to fight – and more than that, Sam. It could not be. Sam could not be dead, he simply couldn’t be. It made no sense, it was not right, it was not just, it was not. It was not. It was not. And if Flint was already utterly delirious and destroyed and reeling from losing Miranda, this second blow on top must be the complete and final confirmation of the burning hatred that the world seemed to hold for him, his unbridled temerity in ever loving anything or anyone anywhere. Just then, Killian was not sure he was handling it any better. He wanted to seize a pistol and shoot Vane on the spot, even though there was that old saw about what you were not supposed to do to the messenger. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted this to be a dream. Vane might be mistaken. Had to be. Had to be.

Killian tightened his grip on the railing with his one wretched hand, as if he might be shaken off into space if he didn’t. He was aware that the last thing Sam would have wanted was for him to plunge straight back into the darkness, to give rein to Hook again, and careen out of control down that old, terrible road. There was no person or entity to swear vengeance on for Sam’s death, if it had been quite literally an act of God that took him out – Killian could hardly murder the wind and weather, could not swear to make nature itself pay for this outrage. He did not know if that was better or worse. At least it freed him from the temptation to start a new obsessive crusade to bring the man responsible down, but it also meant there was no easy answer, no obvious way, to pay back the immensity of this outrage. Meant that he would just have to accept it, of all the impossible, unbearable things, and try to pick up the pieces.

He struggled to say something. He could not get his tongue to form around the words. Everyone was looking at him, he felt as if his spine had been snapped, and yet he could not even let himself think about this, could not grieve, could not break. Not when this terrible, final task remained.

Killian lifted his head, and said, “We fight.”

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