White hot pain brought Elisabeth back into consciousness with a scream. She lay panting for a few long moments, glad to be able to breathe without the gurgle of blood in her chest. The healing charm faded, leaving only a pleasant warmth and healed ribs in its wake. The sound of hammers and saws came to her as she settled back into her body.

  “You with us, captain?” Moira’s brusque voice cut through the noise.

  “Aye.” Elisabeth pushed into a sitting position, and opened her eyes to survey the state of her ship. Lotte gave her a quick nod, and moved on to administer healing charms to other sailors. The captain turned her attention to Moira. “Status?”

  “We nearly lost the main mast. And some sails and rigging. The deck’s beat up. The rail’s gone in a handful of spots. But we’re not taking on water.”

  “Can we sail?”

  “No. Not without the rigging, not without the sails.”

  “Can we scavenge from the wreck over on the beach?”

  “We’ll try.”

  “For sails, use any cloth in the hold. If you need more, requisition spare clothing. You can take whatever you need for that from my quarters.” Elisabeth got to her feet, allowing for the initial sway of dizziness. “Where’s the prisoner?”

  “Cressia’s got him on the foredeck.”

  “I’ll need a boat when I’m done with him.” She paused to adjust her coat. “And Moira, good work on defending the ship in my absence.” Elisabeth walked away without another word, trusting the quartermaster to arrange for the boat, even with all of the hubbub on the ship.

  The prisoner stood at the rail, gaze focused on the distant horizon. Elisabeth watched him as she walked up to stand next to him. His rounded shoulders and drooping neck was the posture of a man resigned to his fate. He didn’t turn to face her, but his hands rose to grip the rail, knuckles white.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Roger.”

  “Well, Roger, that was a nice bit of work.”

  “Thank you,” he hesitated, and then turned to her. Elisabeth mirrored him, taking the opportunity to study his features: his brown hair was cut short, and was spiked with sweat, his eyes were a dark brown like the shade of freshly turned earth. A scar pulled his lip down on the left side of his face.

  “I…I want to learn from you,” he stammered at last, a blush spreading over his tanned cheeks.

  “I’ll not lie—you’ve earned a boon. But you can’t stay on this ship. Look around, I run a crew of women. And I call on the dead. I have no touch for fire.”

  “But…what I did just now—I’ve never done anything like it. Nothing as big. I didn’t know I could until here and now, with you.”

  She waved the idea away. “That wasn’t me.”

  “I just want to learn!” He whined. The tone grated on Elisabeth’s nerves.

  “I’ll give you your freedom. And you can find yourself a tutor. Plenty of fire witches out in the world.”

  “I want to stay here! I want my boon to be a place on your ship!”

  Elisabeth’s patience ran dry as he kept pushing his demands. Her hand shot out, crushing his throat, squeezing until he wheezed. In her other hand, she crushed a dampening charm, keeping him from setting her alight. From the corner of her eye, Elisabeth saw Cressia signal to the crew, but the captain didn’t care at that moment, her sole focus was on the young prisoner in her grip.

  “Your boon will be your freedom when we reach port,” she hissed into his face. “Now get back below.” She released him, pushing him hard enough that he stumbled.

  “That’s not what I want! I want to stay here! And to learn!” Undeterred, he yelled at Elisabeth, his voice cracking, the words gasped as he recovered his breath, but no less loud for the effort. She almost admired his guts, but only almost. She called up her magic, dropping the temperature on the deck so his breath fogged. A tendril of power wrapped around his torso, and she pushed it into his chest, sliding it around his heart. His eyes widened. It was clear that fear finally found a foothold in the boy. Elisabeth used the spell to squeeze his heart, felt it skip a beat, two, three, and then loosened her hold on the organ. He fell to his knees, gasping again.

  “You’ll go below, and you’ll leave this ship when I tell you to.” She repeated. “I have nothing to teach you.” With that, she gestured to the two sailors she saw waiting a few feet away—women summoned when Cressia sensed trouble. The women grabbed an arm each and began to drag him away, back to the room in the hold they kept for prisoners. Once they laid hands on him, he began to shout again, but Elisabeth turned her back. There was nothing for him on the Silence, and his outburst only proved to her that the decision to remove him from the ship was the right one. She’d give him to Henry Mortimer, she concluded. Placing the boy on her ally’s ship kept him within view. Her gut told her not to lose sight of him, not with the strength of his magic and the temper he’d just shown.

  With that bit of business complete, she left the foredeck to find a longboat waiting for her, with one sailor ready to row her back to shore. She was surprised to get even that with the work that needed to be done to get the ship seaworthy again. Moira was nowhere to be seen—it was likely the quartermaster was overseeing salvage at the wreck already. A good thing, too—Elisabeth wanted to leave as quickly as possible now that the bargain was struck with her sisters and the location of the Atlas Stone was revealed. Delay now was unbearable.

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  Elisabeth sighed, no longer able to put off the climb into the waiting boat. With only one sailor to row, the trip to shore took longer than the one earlier in the day. The quiet in the aftermath of chaos allowed her thoughts to wander, and they drifted back to Henry Mortimer. Was he waiting for them already? She wondered. Unlikely, she thought. Not enough time had passed. If the stories about the Jester were true, Henry Mortimer was hunting. Soon enough, the Silence would join him, but for now it was time to return to Hag’s Rock. She turned her attention to wondering what manner of creature the sisters fought below.

  The kraken was a formidable foe, she was curious what other sort of creature the protectors of Rowan’s Shroud sent to deter their prying. The only thing she knew with certainty as she stepped back onto the beach was that her sisters were alive—no new ghosts clawed at her attention, though her mother’s spirit stood beside the boulder that led to the caverns the hags called home. And the wards still thrummed in her bones, strong and steady, despite the dead kraken in the bay, and whatever monstrosity likely lay dead in the ritual chamber.

  “Go see what tasks Moira needs tending,” the captain instructed the woman on the boat. “I’ll signal when I’m done here.” She didn’t wait, just walked away, trusting that the sailor was going to obey her orders. The angry wraith faded, but Elisabeth felt its stare on her still. She pushed a shield around herself and continued walking, crossing into the caves without incident. The trek was easier without the entourage and tributes. There was no need to cajole anyone into entering the necromancers’ lair. When she reached the first chamber, the one with the table and candles, walls covered in bones, only Emilia was there waiting, leaning heavily on the table, gaze caught on the flickering flame of a candle.

  Her sister looked tired, dirt and blood streaked over a pale face drawn into exhausted lines. Her rag-tag clothing was torn in a few new places, bloodied scratches beneath. A bruise covered the left side of her jaw. Elisabeth didn’t need to ask about the fight. It was clear who the victors were, but seeing Emilia disheveled was unsettling.

  “They’re below, harvesting,” the hag said by way of greeting, explaining the absence of Eve and Esther.

  “You’ll want the kraken, too.” The sea monster held an immense amount of power. None of them wanted it to go to waste. Pieces of both creatures would end up in jars in the ritual chamber, used when the sisters felt the need. Elisabeth understood their ways, but was relieved that her own practice didn’t require reliquaries of dead things lined up on a shelf.

  “Aye. You took what you needed from it?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t see the point in lying. “What did they send to you below?”

  “A creature. We have no name for it. Huge. Fangs as big as you. Wings. Eyes large and terrible, a vastness of stars in them. Tentacles, too, that lashed like whips. Formidable, but as all living things susceptible to death. Made quite the mess, though.”

  “Sounded like it. I almost wish I’d seen it. Think they’ll have more of those in the Shroud? ”

  “You always did want to see and learn things none of the rest of us even dreamed of, sister dear. And if you’re going to find one of these things, the Shroud is where it’ll be.”

  “True.”

  “I have a favour to ask of you.” Emilia chewed on her lip, and then nodded to herself. She gestured to the empty chairs, bones rattling in her clothes. “Come and sit.”

  Elisabeth didn’t budge, instead she hooked her thumbs into her belt loops and rocked back on her heels. “I’ve agreed to much already.”

  “You have, but this favour is for me alone.”

  “Tell me what it is, and I’ll decide.”

  “Come and sit.” Emilia waved at the chairs again, sending ripples through the candle flames. Elisabeth considered for a moment longer, and then walked to join her sister, sitting in the chair closest to the exit. Emilia sat next to her. In the corner of the room, their mother’s ghost lingered, an angry blue throb of light. The weight of the spirit’s attention was a physical sensation along Elisabeth’s skin, sending it crawling with gooseflesh. She frowned at it, and swatted at the small magic with a spell of her own, putting in place a further shield. Emilia glanced at the matriarch, and then cleared her throat.

  “You remember our brother, I’m sure.” She spoke softly, lips barely moving.

  Elisabeth nodded.

  “When he left, he wanted to prove himself. The family legacy was an obsession for him, you know. The only son of an infamous pirate captain, but he was a poor sailor. And then he was surrounded by sisters who could conjure the dead, and siphon life, and he had no magic of his own. I felt for him, our brother.” Emilia paused, eyes darting back to the ghost in the corner. Elisabeth never thought of Ezekiah, their brother. His feelings, his dreams, were never of interest to her, not when they were children, both clamouring for their father’s attention, and not now. Emilia took a deep breath and continued, “he swore to bring back an artifact from Rowan’s Shroud. A thing he claimed he saw in a dream. A telescope. He said it would make him rich. I thought he was mad, and I did try to dissuade him, but that boy was stubborn, just like you.”

  “You think he made it to the Shroud?”

  “Aye. We lost sight of him, and with him having no power of his own to hide from us, we’re sure he’s behind a barrier. If he died, his ghost’s trapped there, if he’s alive, well, we don’t know. We can’t see. The favour I ask of you is to bring him home—one way or another.” Elisabeth studied her sister for a long, silent moment. She saw hunger in her dark eyes, the way wrinkles sat around her tense mouth. Emilia cared for Ezekiah, this had always been true, but the pirate captain suspected that it wasn’t the sole reason for her request. They all had their motives. Truth be told, the telescope, if it was real, sounded like an item she wished to acquire. And she was going into the Shroud, come what may. Looking for her wayward brother, and the object he sought, was an easy enough excursion.

  “If I can find him, I’ll bring him home…one way or another,” she finally conceded.

  “Thank you.” Emilia looked at the door that led deeper into Hag’s Rock. “Eve and Esther don’t need to know about this conversation.” Her gaze swung back to Elisabeth.

  “Agreed.”

  “Now you best be on your way. Repairing your ship’ll require your oversight, I’m sure.”

  Elisabeth nodded and both women stood.

  “Goodbye, Elisabeth.” Emilia walked away first, bone charms clattering with every step, heading back into the warren of tunnels, and to the ritual chamber. She would want to claim her own pieces of the creature they slew.

  “Farewell, Emilia.” She spoke to the other woman’s retreating back, under her breath, so she doubted she was heard. With one last glance at the ghost in the corner, she walked away as well, heading back toward the tunnel that led to the beach and her ship. At the threshold, an unexpected chill ran down her spine, and the hairs on the back of her neck raised.

  “I haven’t forgotten that you abandoned them,” her mother’s ghost hissed in her ear. “And you’ll pay the price for it.” A shove of magic propelled her out of the chamber and into the tunnel. “You’ll pay.” Elisabeth did her best to ignore the wraith’s ominous words as she made her way back to the cave’s entrance. Beneath her bravado, she wondered how much power a dead necromancer held. Would the ghost be able to curse her daughter? She wasn’t sure. She shrugged the thought away as she stepped onto the beach to see the sun drop to the horizon in a blaze of red and orange. The Silence sat at anchor, the rigging patched, make-shift sails furled. Tension drained from her body. It looked like they would sail with the tide, leaving Hag’s Rock in their wake within hours.