The Rose and Thorn

by qqueenofhades

Sequel to The Dark Horizon. The New World, 1740: Killian and Emma Jones have lived in peace with their family for many years, their pirate past long behind them. But with English wars, Spanish plots, rumors of a second Jacobite rising, and the secret of the lost treasure of Skeleton Island, they and their son and daughter are in for a dangerous new adventure. OUAT/Black Sails.

25. XXV

-XXV-

The first thing Jim Hawkins was aware of, once the pounding in his head and other disorientation that accompanied his recent excursion into unconsciousness had somewhat worn off, was that he was in the brig. Which brig exactly was a matter of consultation, but he had unfortunately seen the inside of enough of the things to be sure. He was sprawled on some rather squalid straw, still soaking wet from his plunge into the ocean – he remembered falling from his rope after the sound of a gunshot, was momentarily afraid that it had hit him, but he was fairly sure it hadn't. Then he had woken up on a deck with a lot of shouting and blurs, someone who unfortunately did not look like Geneva standing above him, and someone else dragging him off to the ongoing commotion of a brawl behind him. He thought he could pick out a familiar voice – that someone who sounded like John Silver had been shouting for him – but couldn't be sure. That, combined with the dragging, and of course the overall result of the brig, seemed to confirm it beyond a doubt. He wasn't on the Rose. He was a prisoner on the Hispaniola, under Lord Gideon Murray's dubious mercies, and also beyond a doubt, heading for Skeleton Island. Is this where you get that annoying little saying about being careful what you wish for?

Jim shifted position with a grunt of discomfort, having unpleasant flashbacks to that week he had spent trussed up in the bowels of Bristol city gaol with Liam Jones, falsely accused of burning down the Benbow. That reminded him, he still owed Lady Fiona Murray a punch in the face for that, and if anything useful was to come of being ambushed and tricked by her total brat of an adopted son, they might be able to catch up to her. Also, or at least he hoped, if she was remotely in a position to do so, Geneva would be chasing them with the Rose. Had her uncle made it back? Or was he still here somewhere as well? Perhaps put into more stringent confinement, or –

As it was reasonably plain that Thomas was not in the brig with him – in fact, lucky for Jim, he got the place all to himself – he had to hope that Thomas had made it off, as the alternative was not pleasant. Jim didn't think that Gideon would risk shooting such a valuable hostage point-blank, but then, he had rather abruptly lost control of the situation. If he was trying to ensure that his threats had teeth… perhaps Jim should have wanted Geneva to lose her much-loved uncle, some sort of twisted payback for his father, but, as was fairly clear, he didn't. Didn't want that, and did want several other things. MacSweeney had better keep his freckled mitts off her, or alternatively he could try, which was certain to be very amusing for all parties not named MacSweeney. A wry grin pulled Jim's mouth. Too bad I'd miss that.

With that, he sagged back against the wall and groaned. Of all the times to admit that you were seriously in love with the girl whose father had murdered yours, this had to rank near the bottom. Of course it had been a crush from the start, albeit tempered with a never-ending series of misadventures and unhappy revelations, but this… well, this was different. If even this couldn't make him be mad at Geneva for more than a few days, it was plain that there was nothing he would ever be able to hold against her, nothing he wouldn't forgive her for, and the way she had been looking at him… perhaps it wasn't quite so unrequited as all that. There could be a chance, a real chance. Assuming I get out of this damn hellhole. Wasn't love supposed to make a man do great things? If he got up and ran at the bars right now, would they burst aside in a glorious shower as he charged forth, hair blowing, to his fair lady? Probably not. Worth a try, though?

Jim squinted up through the slats, trying to work out what time it was. Early morning, maybe, though it was hard to be sure. It was ominously quiet above, which was probably a bad sign. At least no shooting, which he had a feeling he would have noticed, distracted state or not. Would they be trying to sink the Rose outright, now that Geneva had blown the lid off the little Jacobite secret (God, she was so bloody clever, he had no idea how she'd put that together, but of course she had) and there was no more objective need for them? It certainly seemed an unnecessary risk for Gideon to run if he was trying to scoop the Skeleton Island horde for the Stuarts, and Geneva had caused him more than enough trouble. Jim didn't think he was here in an attempt for Gideon to coerce her, but rather to keep Silver's arm twisted. Somewhat less effective at the task than Thomas and Madi, but then, that had gone sideways. And Jim had thought Silver liked him, a bit, once. There was no way to know if that would extend to risking himself again to protect him.

Jim stared up through the dim timbers, supposing it was too much to hope that someone was deputed to feed the prisoners. He wondered where Geneva was, if she was all right. He was just considering if it was worth it to shout until someone showed up, when he heard a creak on the ladder and the slow, deliberate thump of a descent. Someone made their way through the shadows, then reached the bars. "Hawkins."

A very unhappy shock of recognition went through Jim like a broken spar. "You?"

Israel Hands grunted in sardonic amusement. His damp, grizzled hair was knotted out of his scarred face and seawater was still dripping from his beard like some vengeful incarnation of Poseidon as he leaned on the grate. "Aye. Me. Was the one pulled you out of the water, boy, after you fell from the Rose. That ginger cunt of an Irishman let me out, when he was putting the redcoat in. Fuck of an irony, wouldn't you say?"

Jim didn't answer. He hadn't known who his rescuer was, being unconscious for most of the excitement, but he'd thought at worst it was one of MacSweeney's lads, or one of Gideon's, seizing the opportunity for a new hostage after the others were escaping. This added an entirely new and completely unwelcome wrinkle to his presence aboard the Hispaniola, and he did his best to affect a cool stare. Hating to ask Hands anything, but still needing to know, he said, "Thomas – Thomas Hamilton, what happened to – "

Hands shrugged. "He got off. That's why they're keeping you close. That Lord Gideon, he's promised me a full pardon if I assist in the recovery of the treasure for His Majesty, King James Stuart of Great Britain and Ireland." He sounded the names out with a mocking tenor that left Jim in no doubt of Hands' actual feelings on the subject. "That's where you come in. You get our friend, John Silver, to tell you where the cache is, and anything else that I might need. He knows, he bloody well knows, and you have half a chance at winkling it out of him."

"You think so?" Jim scoffed, trying to sound appropriately dismissive. "Me get it from him? Much less pass it on to you? Why do you think I'd ever – "

Hands grinned a rather ghastly, tobacco-juice-stained grin. "You're the one behind bars now, boy, not me. And by my lights, don't have a terribly good chance of getting out alive, unless you decide to be useful. Even if Silver was so foolish as to try to spring you, you think you'd get far, him hopping on one leg? As I said. You get him to tell you where the cache is hidden, and I'll let you out. I'll cut you in on a share of the money, and put in a good word for you to Lord Murray. Otherwise, I'll tell him all them things I heard about you in Bristol, get him to drum up some charges, and have them hang you on a branch." He shrugged. "Deserter from the Navy, was it?"

"Discharged," Jim growled. Dishonorably discharged, in fact, but that was a very pertinent distinction, as outright desertion was indeed punishable by death. "And aren't you just a bloody little ray of lunatic sunshine, same as ever?"

"I told the Jones chit, back on the Rose," Hands said. "Whatever is there on Skeleton Island, it's mine, and if Lord Murray needs to think I'm helping him get it, that is what he'll think. As I also said, I won't have John Silver fucking it up. The last thing we need from him is where to find the treasure, otherwise I'd have bludgeoned him to death with his fucking leg already. He's not telling me, so…" He trailed off significantly. "He's telling you."

"And you think we're working together, why?"

"Because you'll rot down here forever if you don't. Seemed obvious, and you a bright lad. Don't want to get back to the lass at all?" Hands took a goading step. "Or I could shout for the redcoats and tell 'em you're useless as a hostage. Should I?"

"Jesus," Jim said. "You're the fucking worst."

Hands did not appear terribly ruffled by this assessment of his character. "Just trying to live, boy, the same as any man in this world. I've no reason to bear a grudge against you particularly, but I'm not one to risk you stopping me. Easy, eh? Easy. I'm sure Silver will find an excuse to drip down here like piss down a leg. All you do is get him to talk – that one fucking loves to talk, shouldn't even be that hard. Then I kill him, we retrieve the treasure together once we arrive on the island, and lie low until the Rose gets there after us. Imagine it will, after all. You'll be reunited with the bloody girl and have plenty of money for it. In't that what you want?"

Jim didn't answer. Yes, he did want the money, not least to rebuild his mother's inn, and yes, he very much did want to get out of this briny hellpit and see Geneva again, but even that was not enough to make him overlook the clear and patent danger of entering into commerce of any kind with Israel bloody Hands. Not that he presently had many other options, but still. Silver had told him about his father's death at Killian Jones' hand in an apparent attempt to sow division between him and Geneva, and then of course God knew what had gone on with the mutiny, so it wasn't as if Hands was asking him to buy this with some unforgivable death. Long John Silver, the pirate king. Even Billy Bones had feared him, otherwise why worry that he might follow him? Jim remembered seeing Silver shoot the mutineer easy as anything in the hold of the Rose, and then stamp Job Anderson to death on the deck. But he helped me save Madi. Trusted Geneva. For what reason, or if he's switched sides yet bloody again, I don't even know.

"Think fast, boy," Hands advised. "I'll be down here again in a few hours – we're not that far out from Skeleton Island, according to Silver. Could be landing by nightfall. You'll want to know what you're doing. Till then."

With that, he turned and stumped off, as Jim watched him go balefully and thought of several really excellent and profane things to say under his breath. He leaned back against the fetid straw, heard some scratching that sounded like rats, and got to his feet instead, pacing the few steps allowable in the cramped floor space. At least his clothes were almost dry, as if that counted as an upside. He was just about to see if any other prisoners had left a rind of cheese or heel of bread somewhere in the straw, though the rats had most likely gotten to it first, when he heard more footsteps on the ladder, and the slow clunk of a peg leg. Oh, bloody hell, here we go.

Jim sat back down, as if to look less as if he had been waiting for this, as John Silver limped into view, face well lacerated with cuts and bruises that he must have taken while being swarmed by half a dozen redcoats earlier. He reached the brig, steadied himself as the Hispaniola rolled unexpectedly beneath them, and then held out a piece of hardtack and a withered apple through the bars. "Here," he said quietly. "It's not much."

Jim was hungry enough that even this modest offering looked like manna, and he tried not to run too fast to retrieve them. He flicked a maggot out of the biscuit and sucked on a corner, trying to soften it to the point of edibility. They stood there in silence for several moments, one on each side of the grate, as Silver looked away whenever Jim tried to catch his eye. Finally, when the hardtack was gone except for crumbs, and the apple had been gnawed to a core, Jim tossed it into the straw, heard the rats start to fight over it, and said, "Well."

Silver grimaced, rubbing the back of his ringed hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have ended up here. I've tried to convince Lord Gideon to free you when we reach Skeleton Island, but he suspects – rightfully, I imagine – that you would run back to the Rose as swiftly as you could, and give away our position. So – "

"Like with the mutiny?" Jim tried to keep his voice level, but anger ran rough at the edges. "You said you'd go out to talk them down, and then instead you appoint yourself their king and try to carry it through to all ends?"

"I did what I had to do." Silver reached out to grip the bars, almost as if he was willing himself to be behind them instead, that he and Jim should trade places on the instant. "Even I am not a sorcerer, could not change their minds altogether. Why not make myself their – as you say – king, and ensure that they vented their spleens without harming you, Geneva, Madi, or Thomas? Tempers would have cooled, sense would have returned – or I would have made sure that it did – and then I'd hand the ship back to Geneva. That was the idea. You yourself threw somewhat of a wrench in it, when you set off the flare to alert this very vessel."

"Forgive me for not miraculously understanding that you had a wise plan to save us by betraying us first," Jim said coolly. "Then again, isn't that how it seems to work with you?"

"You are…" Silver paused, chewing over his words. "You are not incorrect, I suppose," he said after a moment, bitterly. "I blame none of you, least of all you yourself, for the notions you have formed of what I do, and who I am. That was no lie, after all. You saw Long John Silver, and you were right to be afraid of him. That mask and mantle is one I put on at the uttermost end of need, and each time it poisons me a bit more. Perhaps the day comes – perhaps has already come, long ago – when the mask is all that remains. And that is the last thing in the world that still frightens me." His grip tightened. "I do not expect nor merit your forgiveness."

Jim regarded him silently. "So you will. . . get me out, if you can, once you have already handed me over to Lord Murray? Or do you just intend to – "

"If I can at all get you back to Geneva," Silver said, "I will. No doubt you have further questions as to why I acted in regard as I did with the two of you, which we, frankly, do not have time to delve into. We will, by my estimate, reach Skeleton Island by nightfall. I lost sight of the Rose some while ago, but I would be quite sure they are still on our tail somewhere. We are coming into the island from the east, so someone else could be on the western side. That won't do them much good, the Walrus wrecked on the east side, so we'll not be far from the cache when we land. If it's still afloat, that is. Otherwise, Flint's chest is slightly inland, by a distinctive rock. Hopefully, it will take Murray long enough in retrieving it for Geneva and Thomas to catch up."

Jim's stomach turned uncomfortably. He almost wanted to warn Silver to be careful, that Hands could be skulking behind a bulkhead and waiting to glean this exact information; he had not even asked for it explicitly, but did that make him complicit in Hands' schemes? He and Silver remained looking at each other; Jim was several inches taller, but he still felt as if he was standing in the older man's shadow, somehow. Finally he said, "So I'm supposed to trust that, am I? Just wait here in the brig until, at some point, you'll be back to fetch me, and – ?"

"Then we will assist Lord Murray in his valorous mission, of course." Silver looked at Jim for a long moment, head cocked to the side, almost as if he was waiting for him to understand something else. "I'll see if I can bring some more food. Otherwise, yes. Don't try anything reckless. Promise me that."

It was on the tip of Jim's tongue to ask what good Silver could possibly think would come of him promising, or why it mattered, or what theoretical reckless thing he could even attempt in his current predicament. He already knew, however, that he was not about to get any answers. As Silver turned to go, however, Jim blurted out, "Don't you think someone could – "

"Do I think someone could what?"

"Kill. . . you." He wasn't being very subtle about this at all, but the time was past for playing it conservatively. "If you're the only one who knows the location of the treasure stash, and then you tell them that, they don't have any further use for you, they – someone might – "

Silver smiled, which never reached his eyes. "Your concern is appreciated, Mr. Hawkins. Thank you. We'll speak again shortly, then? Good day."

With that, he moved off, as Jim watched him tensely, half-expecting Hands to jump out at him and open his throat with a whaling knife on the spot. But Silver climbed up the ladder, back toward the deck, so surely Hands couldn't murder him there in full view of everyone? Jim was left with the unsettling sensation that he had missed something, or there was some sort of current at work beyond the obvious, though he was at a loss to say remotely what. Silver had not defended his actions in the least, but nor had he apologized for them, or definitively renounced Long John – if anything, he had given Jim a veiled warning that that part of him would only continue to grow stronger. And what does that mean for any of us, but woe?

Time continued to crawl past, the weak grey sun appearing and disappearing through the cracks. A cabin boy appeared at some point with something more resembling food, which he shoved at Jim without speaking. Once he had eaten it, Jim was quite sure that the finite pleasures of captivity had now been exhausted, and kept looking up sharply at small creaks or cracks. It had to be going on late afternoon, and the ship's pace had slowed in a way that meant they had to have spotted their destination and were preparing for a cautious approach, when the unwanted shadow once more darkened his door. "You, boy."

Jim let out an irritated breath. He had thought about lying down and trying to sleep, as it was plain that he would soon be needing his energy one way or another, but that seemed liable to get him eaten by rats or fleas, so he had been propped uncomfortably against the wall, half-dozing. "You," he said, just as coldly. "We there yet, then?"

"They've sighted the island, yes. Should be ashore in less than an hour. So." Israel Hands folded his arms. "You have something to say to me, boy?"

Jim could not help but be reminded of Captain Smollett again, whom he had generally gravely disappointed during his time on HMS Adventure – not that Smollett and Hands had anything whatsoever in common except that sneering, disapproving way they called him "boy." It got under his skin, even knowing that was the exact point of it: that he was a boy, a gullible, aimless, useless child, who could not aspire to true manhood or respect or valor. Hands had already threatened to snitch on all Jim's misdeeds in Bristol, which he must have heard over the grapevine, as if every merchant and longshoreman and quayside whore in the entire city had nothing better to do than gossip about James Joseph Hawkins Junior's manifest inadequacies (though the whores, at least, wouldn't have personal experience). As if Killian Jones hadn't ruined Jim's life by depriving him of a father, at least not directly. No, the full and sole responsibility for the dog's breakfast he had made of his life would, in that estimation, rest with him. Boy. It kept ringing like a far worse taunt. Boy.

"Well?" Hands prodded, into the silence. "You go deaf?"

"I – no." Jim threw his shoulders back and stared defiantly at Hands. "Silver told me."

"And?"

"You think I'm an idiot? I'll tell you when we're on shore. Otherwise, you'll pole-ax me here and leave me for the rats." Jim smiled, trying his best impression of Silver's sleek, dangerous demeanor. "Tit for tat, isn't that how the saying goes?"

Hands' face went slightly purple, a vein twitching in his temple in a way that made Jim hope for a fortunate apoplexy. No such luck, however. After a moment, he growled, "And how do I have any proof you aren't lying?"

"Well," Jim said. "You don't. But aye, you can go ahead and take the risk, if you actually feel like killing me before you've made completely sure. Good bloody luck trying to get it out of Silver after that, but perhaps you like a challenge."

Hands ground his teeth, but it was fairly apparent to both of them that Jim had called his bluff. He considered, spat, then produced a large keyring he had clearly stolen, unlocked the cell, and collared Jim roughly, pulling him out and toward the fetters hanging on the wall nearby. Once he had locked Jim's wrists into a pair of these, he grabbed the chain and marched him toward the ladder, a low commotion of voices audible from above. Jim climbed awkwardly with his cuffed hands, and finally stepped out onto the deck of the Hispaniola, where Gideon, the redcoats, and Silver had gathered to witness their final approach. A broad white-sand beach stretched across the mouth of a shallow bay, palm trees dark in the lengthening shadows, and beyond, a wall of dense jungle rose almost straight up into the interior, with the summit of some distant green mountain just catching the last of the light. It looked like any other remote Caribbean island, hardly worthy of its mystic and legendary pedigree, and Gideon surveyed it narrowly. "Are you sure this is it, Mr. Silver?"

Silver arched an eyebrow. "Believe me, the one subject on which I can be trusted unconditionally is Skeleton Island. As I said, we are approaching from the east, so it looks different to what you may expect. If you want to put together an expeditionary party – and surely these irons are not necessary for Mr. Hawkins – we can get on with retrieving the treasure."

Gideon turned with a look of some annoyance. "Who put him in irons?"

"He did," Jim said, rattling them in Hands' general direction. "Really sure you want that one sneaking around your prisoners?"

Gideon's lips went thin, but he made a brusque motion, and one of the redcoats removed the fetters. Jim, Silver, and Hands were loaded into the ship's boat with Gideon and a dozen redcoats, and as the soldiers started to pull the oars, crossing the wine-dark water toward the beach, Jim did his damndest to come up with his next move. Hands would probably try to pull him off into the trees, to improve the chances of him alone hearing the location of the treasure stash, but if Silver then told the entire party, that wouldn't do him much good, as they would all know where to go. Hands could definitely kill Jim anyway for frustrating him, but –

In a few more minutes, and with Jim having figured out exactly nothing, the keel of the longboat ground on the shore, and the redcoats jumped overboard to haul it clear of the waves. Jim stepped over the side, boots touching Skeleton Island sand for the first time, and tilted his head back to look at the impressive prospect of the trees. They were thick and dark and still as a solid wall, until he had no trouble at all imagining that this place could gulp up a man, a hundred men, and keep them confused and wandering for months or years, never coming across each other and never remembering where they had already been. All at once, Jim wasn't terribly sure that he wanted to go in there himself. The place seemed almost sentient, and far from friendly.

Silver got up slowly, cautious on his peg leg, and climbed out of the boat, watching as the redcoats slung muskets on their backs and scouted for suitable branches to make torches. "I would not advise a nighttime expedition into the jungle, gentlemen," he said. "This place is hard enough to navigate in daylight, you'll get yourself miserably lost if you try it in the dark. There are all sort of hidden perils – caves, ravines, waterfalls, poisonous serpents, mud sloughs, the lot. Scout it briefly, but I'd advise returning to the Hispaniola for the night, and starting tomorrow."

"First," Gideon said, pointing at him. "You tell us where the treasure is."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Hands tense. By the way Silver shifted position, almost imperceptibly, he must have noticed it as well. Then, with a significant look at Hands, he said, "Well, since there's no sign of the Walrus, it must have sunk after all, which means that Flint's cache is the only one that remains. It'll be about half a mile inland from here, more or less true west, by a distinctive-looking rock. Nothing that a man with a peg leg could not walk, so if you find yourself in rough terrain, you're off course."

The redcoats glanced at each other, then huddled up for a conference, as Gideon stared into the trees and Silver casually tilted his head at Jim and Hands. Both of them started after him, Hands reaching for the pistol tucked into his waistband and Jim's heart pounding in his throat, until they reached a slightly hidden spot behind a tall rock. The instant they were out of sight of the redcoats, Hands drew the gun and cocked it. "You were lying about the location to those sons of bitches, weren't you? I'll have the proper spot, and now."

Silver raised his hands slowly, eyes on Hands' trigger finger; after all, they had learned back on the Rose not to underestimate the damage he could do if he got off a shot. "Perhaps," he said. "But you claimed to be aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge when Blackbeard was killed by Woodes Rogers, and that by default, the portion of the lost treasure was yours. You know, of course, that Rogers then sailed the Revenge to Skeleton Island, so surely if you were aboard at the time, you would be much more certain of the exact coordinates?"

"No more talk, you oily motherfucker." Hands trained the gun on the center of Silver's forehead. "No more tricks. Where is it?"

"You don't know, do you?" Despite the gravity of the situation, a grim smile twisted up Silver's mouth. "You've never been here. You don't know that the Walrus did in fact sink on the western side, not the eastern side, so it wouldn't be here even if it was still partially afloat. You don't know – well, now you do, I suppose – that Flint's cache isn't on the eastern side at all. You're a liar, Israel Hands, and you have no more entitlement to Blackbeard's share of the treasure, if it could even be retrieved, than you do to be king of England – though given our hosts' political sympathies, it seems that office is once more up for grabs. Am I wrong?"

Hands stared at him, the vein going more furiously than ever in his temple, eyes bulging. He did not, however, rush to shout Silver down, and in that silence, Jim could hear the truth. Finally Hands said in a grating rasp, "Fine. I was exiled from Blackbeard's crew before the Revenge and her bloody captain met their end here – and a fucking good thing I was, otherwise I'd have been killed by Rogers and the Navy scabs too. But you are wrong. I'm still the last survivor of Blackbeard's cohort, so the treasure's mine anyway. And now you're going to tell me, or – "

Silver's eyes flicked to Jim, then back to Hands. "You see," he said. "You would have been correct if you said you were the last survivor of Blackbeard's crew. But at the time of Blackbeard's death, he was sailing in cohort with the Walrus – and I need not remind you of my own position aboard that vessel. So we're both survivors of Blackbeard's cohort, and there's the fact that Billy Bones is, at last report, alive as well, so that makes three of us. You'd have to kill us both to actually be the sole inheritor of the treasure, and while I am directly before you and available for such an opportunity, Bones' whereabouts are unknown. The redcoats are going to get rid of you anyway, as you're a mad dog, so frankly, you've failed. Comprehensively, in fact. You're not going to get to that treasure, not if anyone can help it, and now, Jim, NOW!"

Jim had been poised on his toes, not knowing where this was leading but ready for the signal nonetheless, and with that, he jumped at Hands, tackling him flat just as he was about to shoot. He and Hands hit the sand together, rolling and struggling furiously, as Hands grappled for the dropped pistol, but Jim got to it first. The world seemed to slow, stretch out, as he snatched it, whirled it around, and saw in his mind's eye Hands shooting at Geneva, the fact that he would have blown up the Rose, everything, all of it. He had never killed a man before, but he did not hesitate. Pointed, cocked, and pulled the trigger.

The explosion of the gunshot made seabirds rise in a screeching swarm, echoing off the trees, as Hands fell backwards, a red-black hole drilled into his forehead. It was followed by the shouts of the redcoats from down the beach, realizing that they had let their hostages wander out of sight and start playing with firearms. Still operating purely on instinct, Jim grabbed the extra pistol from Hands' belt (of course he wasn't the sort of bloke to half-ass it with one gun) with one hand and Silver with the other, yanking them backward into the thick drape of moss. There was a narrow channel of hard-packed sand, clearly a tidal rivulet, and it provided firm enough footing for them to both to run, so to speak. Silver kept slipping and struggling even so, and Jim was not about to be caught again on account of him, so he slung Silver's arm over his shoulder and half-carried him. Just ahead, there was a dark hole at the foot of a large rock – judging by the high-water marks almost to the top, this would all be submerged when the tide came in – but they didn't need to hide for long. Jim dragged Silver down into it, and they landed with a splash in a foot of briny, stagnant tidepool, just as the redcoats ran past, shouting.

The fading light flickered weirdly on the weed-wracked boulders that tilted over their heads, and Jim could hear his harsh breathing echoing like the ghosts of a hundred more men, crammed impossibly into this tiny space. He could not quite straighten up all the way, and even Silver had to stoop, the two of them staring each other down without speaking, tense all over for any sound of the redcoats returning. Then Jim pulled out the second gun and aimed it at him again. "What the hell," he managed, still panting, "did you do?"

"You'll need to be more specific." Silver sat down heavily on one of the slimy rocks, the current eddying around his mismatched legs. "Careful, Jim, another shot and they'll – "

"I'm aware." Jim didn't lower the gun. "So what you told Hands about the location of the treasure was a lie. You told me the same thing back on the Hispaniola. Why?"

Despite himself, Silver looked rather grudgingly impressed. He raised a hand to his face, then dropped it. "I suspected Hands would try to use you to leverage me for information," he admitted at last. "I told you so you would have something to pass onto him, and either prove or disprove my theory – proven, as we saw back there – that he had in fact never been here before. I couldn't risk doing it any other way. You had to believe what you were telling him."

"And if I had told him, he'd likely have killed us both."

"Yes." Silver leaned forward. "But you didn't. You don't have to trust me, and I am well aware you have every good reason not to. But if nothing else, both of us – Geneva, we have to – "

"Did you see the Rose? Do you know if they're chasing us?"

"They fell out of sight a few hours after Gideon's men pulled you and Hands out of the water." Silver's eyes flicked up at the hole above their heads, clearly listening hard. "If Geneva is clever – and she is – she's luffing or lollygagging, trying to make them believe they lost her."

"Unless they did lose her."

"I doubt it," Silver said. "And so, I think, do you. Besides, before I was taken off as a prisoner, I took the liberty of concealing a copy of the coordinates for Skeleton Island in Geneva's surgical kit. She's the only one who's been using that, tending to Eleanor, and it's the one place the fucking redcoats, stripping the place down for extra money, won't have looked. So even if the Rose genuinely did fall behind, they will know how to find us again."

"If Geneva finds those coordinates, and realizes what they are, in time."

"I believe in her," Silver said simply. "Do you?"

"Aye." Jim answered without hesitation, and their eyes met in a moment of brief, poignant mutual understanding, Then they glanced away, both going hurriedly silent at the sound of tramping footsteps overhead. One of the voices came perilously close to the hole, but then moved away. It took several minutes after it had faded for Jim to speak again. "So that's our plan? Hide out here from the angry redcoats, until Geneva hopefully reaches us and we can find a way to get back to the Rose and off this island? Just… that?"

"Not entirely." Silver glanced down at the water, which had been around his ankle when they entered, and was starting to creep up his calf. "The tide is coming in, Jim, we can't risk getting trapped down here. We – all right, all right."

"I'm not finished." Jim brandished the pistol, which had been what made Silver sit back down precipitately. "Is that the plan?"

"In its broad strokes, more or less."

"What about the money? The treasure? The whole reason we came here? Flint's cache, what might be the only remaining chest from the 1715 treasure if the Walrus is gone? Where is it?"

There was a very long pause, as they heard the continuing hiss and sigh of the incoming tide. Then Silver said, "I don't know."

"What? This whole time – Skeleton Island being the 'one subject on which you could be trusted unconditionally?' What else was this for, if not – "

"This was never about the treasure." Silver almost looked as if he had not meant to say that, but couldn't stop himself. "My interest in a venture to this place was never about retrieving it. It was about catching up with Billy Bones, and knowing that this must be where he was headed, the one priceless piece of information he had to trade. It was knowing that if he was alive, he would try to hurt or kill James Flint and his family. I was trying to save them. That is what I wanted."

Jim opened his mouth and shut it. Finally he said, "Why do you owe that to Flint?"

"Because I – " Silver looked down at the rising water, clearly desperately uncomfortable that he had no escape hatch, physically or otherwise. If Jim didn't help him climb out, he would be stuck down here to drown, if Jim didn't shoot him first. There was no way to back out or avoid the subject, and he closed his eyes, as if commending the tattered remnants of his soul to whatever god could be bothered to have it. "I killed him here. Not physically, but in all other ways. He had decided to die before we left Nassau, because he had lost Miranda Barlow and Sam Bellamy both, back to back, and felt he had nothing more to live for. He would have taken us all down with him; if I had not arranged for the Rose to switch sides, Emma Swan and myself and all his men would have been stranded here or shot by the redcoats as well."

Jim gave a brief start of surprise at hearing the name Rose, at which Silver nodded tersely. "Emma took it over after Skeleton Island, she passed it to Geneva, her daughter, when she was eighteen. In any event, we had come here to stash the Spanish treasure before the battle of Nassau. Woodes Rogers tricked and killed Blackbeard and took command of the Queen Anne's Revenge to follow us. Flint went ashore with a chest while the Revenge, under Rogers' command, and the Walrus, under Emma's, were shooting it out. I followed him in a row boat, snuck ashore unnoticed in the commotion and went into the woods. When I caught up to him, he must have already buried the chest. He asked what I was doing there. I said that I had come to…" Silver paused. "I said I had come to ensure that no matter what, he did not return."

Jim nodded once, indicating him to continue. The tide was now close to his knees, even standing, and seemed to be increasing its pace, they did not have time to spare. "And?"

"We saw the Walrus burning," Silver said, almost dreamily. "Flint had already sworn he wanted no more of the war and wanted to go and die – though his death, as I said, would have meant all of ours as well. But seeing his ship aflame ignited that old hunger for vengeance in him, and he would have gone back to continue the fight. He told me that his last wish of Emma had been for her to save me, and I should go now, where there was still time to honor it. And that was when I had to look him in the eye, draw my gun, and tell him that first I had to kill him."

Silver paused for breath, then plunged on. "We said several things to each other. There is not time or necessity to recount them all. I reminded him that all his loved ones – Thomas Hamilton and Miranda Barlow and Sam Bellamy – were dead. I reminded him of what a monster and a madman Flint was, how the only thing he had ever brought to the world was woe and terror, and how he had to drown that man in the sea, as he had once said he so dearly wanted. I said that if he made any move to follow us, I would have to shoot him like a dog then and there, and I wanted no part of that crime, but I would take it upon myself at uttermost need. At any price, including my own soul, Captain Flint was not returning to the world, or to Nassau, or to myself and Emma, and the lifeline I had fashioned for us on the Rose. In a few minutes, I destroyed our entire relationship of months and months, everything we had done for each other and with each other, in service of some mad promise of a future for everyone. It was an absurd gamble. The battle of Nassau was being fought at that very moment, but not yet won. We could have returned to a world where Gold and Rogers and their ilk were victorious, and I had just, by my own hand, destroyed our last and most fearsome commander. I could have subjected us all to the noose if I was wrong. It turned out, of course, that I was not."

Silver stopped, looking wracked and ruined, rubbing both hands across his face and clearly silently begging Jim to leave it there, but Jim still did not budge. So he gulped a final breath and finished as tersely as possible. "Suffice to say. Flint did not follow me. I left him there, knowing full well he was likely to die anyway, stranded on a dangerous island far from anywhere, while I had consciously kicked out all of the crutches he clung to in order to walk, as much as I cling to mine. I made my way back out to the Rose, and returned with Emma to Nassau. That is Long John Silver. That is what he – what I did – a cruelty that perhaps even Flint never quite achieved. I have lived ever since haunted by the guilt and the madness and the question of it, if there was any other way, if there was any other choice. And of course, I was, as ever, a liar. Miranda and Thomas were not dead. Flint survived, escaped Skeleton Island, reunited with them, and has lived many happy years since. I am glad for it. But my crime is not atoned."

"So?"

"I don't know where the treasure is." Silver looked up at him. "I bought you all with the promise of something I once again cannot pay. More lies, more trickery, in an attempt to erase the cost of the previous lies and trickery. I can't help you find it, or rebuild your mother's inn, or anything else you thought you were gaining from this absurdly dangerous venture. I brought you and Geneva and the others here to be sure that Billy Bones was stopped. Instead I've done – " He swept an unfathomably bitter hand at them underground in the boulder cave, the water licking at their thighs, the gun Jim still had trained on him. "I've done this."

There was enough of a silence to hear the rush of the tide. Jim's finger trembled on the trigger, very close to pulling it, to dispatch this man freely admitting he was as bad as Israel Hands in his way, if not worse. At least Hands made no secret of his indiscriminate destruction, while Long John Silver's was of a more protracted and poisonous and personal sort, slow and baneful, like the waves scouring a sandbank out hollow until it collapsed beneath your feet. He didn't know what to say, how to react. This seemed so absurdly beyond anything he had any right to pass judgment on that he wanted to ask to be recused. But it was him. It was this. It was them.

Jim paused a moment more, then stuck the gun through his waistband, waded through the rush, and grabbed hold of Silver, lifting him toward the opening of the hole. Silver snatched for a slimy root, trying to get enough purchase to pull himself out, as the water was now coming in full-throated and climbing with every second. Then he grappled at the rock as the root broke in his hand, and Jim thought perhaps they would in fact both drown together here, deserved or otherwise. But then Silver clawed out the dirt, pulled himself free and onto the ground overhead, and reached both hands back down into the hole. "Jim. Jim!"

The water level was close to Jim's chin, and he reckoned he only had about another thirty seconds until it was over his head. He gulped a good breath and fumbled for the same handholds Silver had used, boosting himself up in an attempt to grab Silver's arm. There was a look of something close to sheer terror on Silver's face, as if his penitence would be to watch someone else he cared about die in front of him on Skeleton Island, and he leaned in as far as he possibly could, almost losing his balance. Their wet hands slipped and skidded, and Jim was almost dislodged from his precarious grip on the rock by the slap of the water against his back. He had only one more bloody crack at this – again, Geneva in his mind's eye, as when he had shot Hands, Silver saying, I believe in her, do you, and the ease and unanimity of his answer.

Aye.

Jim threw his strength into one almighty leap, grabbed hold of Silver's hand, and shot out of the hole like a greased weasel, somersaulting onto mud and sand and rolling. The world was open again, unfurling to every side rather than the confined space of the rocks, and the tide still crashed and boiled hungrily below, clutching up for him. Then Silver hauled him to his feet, both of them looked around madly, and fled up the bank, into the dark jungle beyond.

---

Thus far, Samuel Jones' view of the vaunted and mysterious Skeleton Island was mostly fog. It cleared here and there in a few places, revealing the high, steep headlands that bracketed each side of the deep channel they were rowing down, or rather that Billy was rowing down. He pulled the oars with curt, tireless strokes, as if he didn't presumably hit land again, he'd row right out into the Atlantic Ocean and probably across the damn thing to boot. Frankly, Sam would not have minded if he did, only that would mean he was stuck along for the ride. And after all this nonsense, he was not intending to get on a godforsaken sailing ship again for as long as he lived. His family would just have to be disappointed.

Conversation, to say the least, was minimal, there not being a great deal to chat about between oneself and the crazy revenge-bent bloke who had kidnapped you. Sam didn't exactly think that Billy would be brimful of eagerness to fill him in on whichever of his plans this one was, and tried to stare off into the distance haughtily, as if he didn't care anyway. Anything to distract him from the throbbing pain in his arm; it felt as if he had a red-hot poker in place of a bone, no thanks to Lady bloody Fiona and her dagger of heart-eating insanity. Better hope I don't have to throw anything at anyone, eh? Surreptitiously, he tried to pull the bandage away to see if it was healing at all, and grimaced horribly as the cloth stuck to the gash. Yeah, never mind that.

He managed to keep up his mien of more or less dignified silence until they rounded a bend in the channel, and saw a ship on its side in the water – masts cracked and splintered, boards missing from the sides, and the remnants of the sails tattered and bleached and torn. It clearly had been a wreck here for a while, and Sam tried not to look at it too closely, in case there were still bits of its crew scattered around. "What the – " It came out before he could stop it. "Well, that's just bloody charming, isn't it?"

Billy glanced at him with grim amusement. "What, you think people never tried to find the place before, what with all those rumors of incalculable riches? Some of them even made it."

"And then they died, clearly." Sam glanced at the ship's broken mizzen where its colors would have flown, trying to determine if it had been English, Spanish, French, or something else, not that it mattered. "What, is the place called Skeleton Island because it's got an army of the undead defending it?"

Billy snorted, not bothering to dignify that with a response. But after a pause, he said, "I was trapped here for three years. In that time, I saw at least two ships arrive. Intended to go down and beg passage off. Both times, before I even got close, they were already destroyed. I'm not even sure what happened. Nobody comes here and leaves unscathed, or without a terrible price."

"Well, that's just grand," Sam said. "Bloody reassuring. I feel much better about everything now. So what, you came back? Didn't get enough of the place the first time?"

"I didn't come back because I ever wanted to see this fucking shithole again." Billy kept rowing, sculling them past the broken shell of the ship and onward into the channel. "I came back to settle everything it left undone. And you're going to help me do that."

"Bite me," Sam said. "Because I won't."

"We'll see." Billy didn't appear terribly concerned. "Lady Fiona will follow us down here, at least, and she has Gold on board. And don't tell me your family isn't on your tail. They'll all come back one last time, mark my words. And as I said. This place is – well. It'll do the rest."

"Cursed island. Got it. Everyone dies." Sam, despite his flippancy, felt cold sweat beading on the back of his neck. Hard to tell, however, if that was fear, or the fever he was fairly sure he was starting. If his arm got infected… well, he had plenty of other ways he was liable to snuff it, as Billy had made abundantly clear, but that would definitely be one of the most miserable. "Can't accuse you of not being thorough. But on that note, one other question. What happened to Jack?"

Billy's expression flickered, but it was hard to say how. "What about him?"

"Did he…" Sam tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He didn't want to cry, not now, not here, not in front of this big blond bastard. "Is he dead?"

Billy paused, then shrugged. "Aye."

Sam opened his mouth, then shut it. It felt as if someone had crumpled something cold and sharp and unhappy in his chest, too hard to breathe around or ignore, just hurting and hurting. Tears stung his eyes, and he shook his head, looking back at the distant, fog-shrouded cliffs. All his clever barbs seemed to drain out of him like a leak, and he remained silent as Billy kept rowing. Some time passed in silence, broken only by the cawing of circling seabirds high above. Then they rounded one last bend in the channel and beheld the eye of the skull, the blue hole at the heart of the island, with the water that was hundreds or even thousands of feet deep. And still visible close to the shore, twisted and hollowed, was the shell of a blackened hull that Billy clearly recognized, to judge from the expression on his face. Sam twisted around to look, and felt a chill go bone-deep down his back, "Is that – the Walrus? Is it?"

"That was the Walrus, yes," Billy said, after a long pause. "Apparently part of her has managed to remain afloat all these years. Characteristic for the tough old bitch. She did not go down easy."

Sam glanced at him sidelong, wondering if any residual affection for the ship and his friends among the crew might remain for Billy, even given his all-consuming hatred of Flint. But if Billy had gone to the Navy and offered to help Woodes Rogers to kill those friends point-blank, evidently not. Sam stared hard at the mangled wreck instead, trying to imagine it in its glory days as the most feared sight in the Caribbean, Captain Flint and his murderous fiends beneath the dancing skeleton, swarming aboard to reave and raid and pillage and do other pirate sorts of things. That had also involved a lot of shooting, and other less savory activities, but Sam could not help a brief and morbid fascination with this living (well, so to speak) bit of family history. It all mostly felt like stories to him anyway, but it was real. It had happened.

Clearly less enthused by the sight than he was, Billy indeed did his best to act as if it was not there, and in another ten minutes or so, they were riding and bumping up on the empty, eerie beach. Sam sat where he was, not feeling in the least like being cooperative, until Billy barked, "Out of the boat, Jones."

Sam glared at him, then slowly and deliberately got to his feet, the world feeling somewhat farther away than usual. He stepped out of the boat, heard something crunch under his boots, and looked around to see that in regard to this at least, Skeleton Island was well named. This beach was where the battle between Woodes Rogers' redcoats and the crew of the Walrus had been fought, where the pirates had been shot en masse as they were exposed and defenseless, and it was a literal boneyard. Scraps of decaying fabric clung to yellowing rib cages, grinning skulls polished to a macabre sheen by twenty-five years of tides and scavenging seabirds, bits of vertebrae and other smaller pieces heaped up with the weed wrack and shells and spent musket balls, broken debris washed up from the Walrus, and other detritus. They must be literally standing on the bodies of Billy's old friends and shipmates, all those men Sam had just been trying to imagine in their heyday. Billy Bones among the bones. Gorge rose sharp and foul up the back of his throat, and he had to swallow hard. Almost none of his grammar school catechism had managed to stick, but he wanted to say some sort of prayer anyway, to get the transparently haunted air of the place off him. Cursed no longer seemed nearly such a stretch.

For his part, Billy bent over the boat and slung as many of the guns over his shoulders as he could, until he looked more like a small walking armory than a man. When Sam reached for one of the guns himself, Billy made a sharp move to stop him. "No."

"Come on, mate. Look at this place. You're not going to let me have a gun?"

"No."

"I can shoot," Sam said. "I was a soldier in Governor Oglethorpe's army." That seemed ten thousand years ago, and several worlds away. "And if it's not just dead men here – you're expecting them to follow us, remember? Besides, my arm is manky enough, I probably can't actually shoot it. Maybe give someone a smart club over the head, though."

"You think I'd let my prisoner have a weapon?"

"Look," Sam said. "It's clear to both of us that I definitely can't row all that way back. I kill you, there is no way off the island for me. So you can leave me unarmed if you really think one injured kid is that much of a threat to you, or you can let me have a motherfucking pistol."

Billy looked almost impressed for a moment, though that was probably the fever hallucinations. Then he reached in, pulled out something that looked small enough for a lady to hide in her stocking, and tossed it to Sam. "There. Feel better?"

"Not really." Sam tried to think where to stash it. Putting a gun through your belt always felt like an invitation to accidentally shoot off your balls, but there was nowhere else obvious. Finally, he made sure that it was not cocked and slung it at his waist, trying to exude more casual, menacing competence than he remotely possessed. Billy still had about fifty of them anyway, so this toy used for threatening cheats at cards was not any actual danger. "So now what? More hiking?"

Billy grunted in answer and set off across the beach, bones cracking underfoot with every step, as Sam debated the merits of using his single shot to hit him in the arse, just for hollow satisfaction. That would probably get him killed faster, though, and he might need it later. Instead, thinking bitterly that the entire point of human civilization to date had been to get man as far away as possible from nature, and that on the remote chance he survived this, he intended never to be more than ten miles away from a city again, Sam followed him.

They made it into the trees and climbed steadily, following some faint track in the undergrowth that Billy seemed to know – if he had been here for three years, he was most likely familiar with the island's hidden bogs and byways. If he'd had any breath, or actually gave a damn, Sam would have asked how he had escaped, but Billy would probably think that was some cunning trick to work out how to do the same for himself. Not that cunning, really. As Sam had already freely admitted, he had no chance of rowing back out alone with his wounded arm, and if someone (such as his family) did sail down the channel after them, he still needed to get away from Captain Vengeance here and pray that they all got out without something else horrible happening to them. Jesus, this place gave him the creeps. As soon as they were inland enough from the shore to mostly be away from the birds, a choking, preternatural silence fell, barely broken by the usual rustling and croaking from thick jungle underbrush. Presumably there were animals here, or something else that Billy and Grandpa had eaten while they were marooned, but if so, Sam saw no sign of them. The canopy hung thickly to every side, blocking sound and sight. He had wondered at first how you stayed sane here, and then realized quickly that you didn't.

At last, after a long, legs-burning climb, they reached a high point from which they had a fairly good vantage point over the harbor below, their boat looking tiny on the sand and the burnt-out shell of the Walrus more black and desolate than ever. There was a small waterfall here, which Billy allowed Sam to drink from, and while it tasted faintly of sulfur, it was wet and decently cold, and he gulped it gratefully. "So what?" he said, starting to wipe his mouth with his bad arm, wincing, and using the other one instead. "We wait here until everyone arrives, you shoot at them if they attempt to climb up, and I – what? Provide moral support? Reload your guns?"

"I'd rather not kill you," Billy said, after a slight pause. "But as hostages go, you're useful. Nobody will risk storming my position if there's a chance of killing you, and anyone who does, well, I imagine we both want them dead. I'm not taking any risks this time. I have to see the bodies with my own eyes, before I will believe the job is finished."

"And then what? Piss on their graves?"

Billy paused, then shrugged. "I don't expect to leave this place alive again," he said simply. "For all intents and purposes, I died here anyway, long ago. One or another of your family or Lady Fiona's men or someone else will most likely kill me. But at least I'll know it's over."

"That's bloody pointless," Sam said. "Die so they can die, kill knowing they'll be killed. My mum was friends with you. Friends. You protected her and brought her to Nassau and started her off as a pirate with Flint's crew. You've already admitted you don't terribly want to kill me, and it must be because of her, because it's damn sure not for Grandpa. Couldn't you listen to your better judgment, for the first time in the last what, two decades? You used to be a good man, Billy. Better than most people in that world, by the sounds of things. Now – what, you want to be the worst? You can still make a different choice. I told you back on the Titania, get me home to my family, and they – "

"And I told you," Billy said, "that Flint was just as likely to kill me anyway for it. That he hasn't forgotten our grudge, and therefore there was no safety or point in me doing the same. Besides, Fiona Murray, Robert Gold, James Flint – they're all terrible people, they're all threats to everyone whose paths they cross, they'll never stop burning and burning until there's only ash. Why is it wrong to dedicate myself to destroying them, if it means the world will be saved from everything else they could do to it? I know you've grown up with Flint, you can't see what he is, but trust me – "

"Actually," Sam said. "I can see just fine. Seen him for most of my life, while you, by your own admission, haven't seen him since your last fight on this island almost a quarter century ago. Could you possibly admit that sure, Gold and Fiona are bloody mental – not that I'm entirely sure that gives you unlimited license to kill them – but you're mistaken about Flint? That all right, he used to be like that, but he's changed?"

"No." Billy's jaw tightened. "I'm not mistaken about him, and he hasn't changed. And I'm not forgiving him, so don't waste your breath. Sit over there and stop talking."

Sam paused, then spun deliberately on his heel and went to perch on the fallen log indicated. He watched as Billy set up a sniper's nest, stacking bits of leaf and wood and moss to conceal his spot from all sides, lining up the guns regimentally. Sam had a sour, sick feeling in his stomach, only incidental to the continued pain in his arm, the knowledge that his worst fear was likely going to come to pass in front of his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn't exactly physically overpower Billy – he could try, but that was clearly going to end in abject failure. What else? Shout a warning to anyone trying to get up here? Make a break for it? But where? Where? Any ship that appeared in the channel was as likely to be an enemy as miraculous salvation, and even if his family did come here, there was almost no chance that they were all leaving alive. The bones scattered on the beach below made that gruesomely clear.

Several hours passed. Billy finished his fortification, scouted out some fruit – a pair of underripe mangos – and tossed one at Sam. It was green and grainy, but he was hungry enough that he ate it anyway, juice dripping off his chin. It had to be going on late afternoon, but the light had remained so uncertain, his sense of direction completely shot to hell, that it was difficult to be sure. It finally started to fade, receding off the tops of the thick-crowded trees, dusk creeping along in its wake, chill enough that Sam hugged himself hard. "No fire, I suppose?"

"No." Billy looked incredulous that he had to ask. "We'll wait, until – "

Just then, the eerie silence was broken by the faint, distant crack of something that had to be – that absolutely was – a gunshot. Where or how far away or in what place exactly, Sam had no idea. But he realized all at once, just as Billy did, that it meant they were not, in fact, alone here. Someone could have sailed up on the other side of the island, or from the south, or from any other approach rather than down the channel, and – Sam didn't have a fucking clue who it was, obviously. It could be Lucifer and a band of ancillary demons up from hell for a lark, at this rate. But it was something, it was a chance, it was someone, and with that, he made up his mind.

As Billy wheeled toward him, Sam dove for the sniper's nest, grabbed one of the muskets, and swung the butt-end at the older man as hard as he possibly could. Billy had expected him to try to shoot the tiny pistol, and thus he left himself completely off guard for a blow, which cracked against his temple with a horrible splitting, juicy sound. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he went down hard. Nor did he get up. He was out cold.

Sam didn't even think about staying around long enough to finish off an unconscious man. All he wanted was to get out of there. He whirled and ran, battling through the clinging trees, in what he thought was the direction that the shot had come from. His breath punched him in the cut-up chest, and he did not dare look over his shoulder for fear that he would see Billy – or worse – charging after him. He ducked under low-hanging branches, lost his footing on wet rock and plunged headlong, and slid uncontrollably on his arse into a fast-moving stream. The stream, in turn, deposited him over a small waterfall and straight into a crack in the rock beyond, which – as Sam realized as he was falling again – was in fact the entrance to a cave. He flailed, hit the green terror soup below with an almighty splash, and was completely engulfed.

After a wild moment, he surfaced, unable to fight the current and swept along with it toward the mouth of the dark passage beyond. It was clear that he was about to go underwater, with no telling whatsoever when he was going to come up, and he gulped a desperate breath of air as he was dragged under, bumping and banging against solid rock in the pitch darkness and bitterly regretting his decision to hit Billy over the head and run. Just when he thought his lungs were going to burst, however, he shot free and into the sump below, nearly braining himself on a sharp stalactite. He sucked more ragged gasps, bobbing like a cork, with just enough time to recover before the process thereupon repeated again. And again.

Sam was finally washed out into a lower chamber, who knew how far from where he had gone in, with a crack halfway up the wall that indicated a potential spot to climb out. He managed to paddle to the large stalagmite nearby and grab hold of it, letting his legs sway beneath him, eyes stinging from the blood dripping into them from the all-new gashes on his face. He snorted and snuffled, determined not to cry but racked with dry sobs nonetheless, shaken and terrified and completely alone in a cave on a cursed island with a crazy man behind him and doubtless even crazier men ahead. If he panicked now, and completely lost his head, he was done for.

Sam allowed himself a few more moments of muffled sobbing, until he hauled in a rattling, both-lung-gasp of air and did his absolute damndest to pull himself together and think about this logically. Right, he was going to swim over, climb up to that crack, and – oh Jesus, sweet Jesus, was that a skeleton across the way, staring directly back at him? Mother fucking hell.

It was indeed a skeleton, clearly other some poor sap who had wound up in here and not been able to get out. It was tangled up in the vines just across the way, and given that one of the vines was moving, it was almost definitely a snake. This was almost ludicrously terrible, like every nightmare he had ever had mashed up together, and Sam breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, on the hopeful off chance that he would wake up in bed at home. He, however, did not, and remaining in here with Mr. Boney and his slithering friend had abruptly lost whatever meager charm it possessed. Right. He was getting out. Now.

Sam kicked off and managed to make it across the chamber to the slippery flowstone at the far side. The crack was just above him, five or six feet out of reach, and if he jumped for it and missed, he'd probably fall and break his neck. Trying very hard not to speculate unduly about how Mr. Boney had died, he eased out onto the rock, having to grab a stalagmite in order not to slide straight back in again. Maybe he could use a vine, if that wasn't also a snake. The bandage on his arm had torn off during his crash course through the cave passages, and the gash was bleeding again, looking less pleasant than ever. It twinged terribly when he raised it above his head, and he hissed. Once more, he did his best to survey his options in a logical and cohesive fashion, and to ignore the small screaming voice in the back of his head. You're trapped. You can't climb out of here. You're trapped.

Deep breath. Deep breath. Someone, anyone else would know what to do here. Not him, not like this, when there was only one thing left to try, and of course, he was not good enough.

Sam sucked in a breath. Then he yelled at the top of his lungs, "HELP!"

He could hear it ringing away in the darkening jungle beyond, bouncing off the trees. No sound, no stirring or shouting in return, answered him. He waited a few minutes, then yelled again, with it taking absolutely everything in him not to give in to total despair. Might as well just go back, tie himself up next to Mr. Boney, and wait for the –

It was faint, so faint, that Sam couldn't be sure he'd heard it. But he thought he could discern a crunching sound, like heavy footsteps through bracken, and then it was closer still, and closer. Then something dropped down through the hole: a twisted vine, strong enough to use as a rope, and Sam didn't waste another moment with questions. He grabbed hold of it, ignored the now-screaming pain in his arm, and braced his weight, walking up the wall until he could grab hold of the mouth of the crack and pull himself out onto mercifully solid ground. He lay there, coughing and shaking, until he finally got himself together to look at his rescuer – and recoiled.

The man was gnarled and grizzled, wearing a ragged brown jacket that was spattered with blood on cuffs and sleeves, but that was not the most alarming feature of his appearance. It looked as if someone had tried to shoot him in the head at close range, but the bullet had bounced off his skull and traveled just under his scalp, causing it to bleed a lot but not do any permanent or fatal damage. It definitely had bled. One eye was almost gummed shut, and the other stared out from under craggy brows like a spark in a depthless pit. He had two rifles slung on his back that appeared to be British Army standard-issue, and that, combined with the blood, led Sam to conclude that this insane-looking literal headcase had been murdering redcoats recently. But what the – what the fuck – Jesus, was this ever going to –

The madman regarded him appraisingly through his one good eye. Then he let out a low, rasping chuckle. "You must be Geneva Jones' brother," he said. "Look just fucking like her. The name's Hands. Israel Hands, at your service."

---

The moon was starting to rise by the time they passed under the eaves of the cliffs and bumped against a rocky spit of deserted beach. Jack barely noticed. The whole world felt like a blur. Flint let go of the oars with a muffled curse, and they sat there in silence for several moments, before Jack recollected himself, swung out of the boat, and pointed the gun sharply at Flint when he failed to follow. "Well? Let's get the fuck on with this."

Flint glared at him. "I'm sixty-seven years old, you just punched me three times, and I rowed us all this way with you threatening to shoot me. Forgive me if I'm not racing like a Royal Ascot winner."

"Just don't talk." Jack felt like a dish that had been thrown from a high cupboard, to smash into a thousand little bits on a stone floor. "Get out, lead me to this famous hidden cache of yours, and then we can get this over with. Now!"

Flint paused as insolently long as he dared, then slowly stepped out of the boat as well. "I see," he said. "All this time, and the treasure actually is what you want? I'm surprised. Back to the Spaniards, is that it? At least the ones you're already betraying can't betray you, is that how it works? Or perhaps you feel if you can bring it back to purchase their goodwill, at least somebody actually believes in you?"

"I swear to fucking Jesus I will shoot you." Jack pointed the gun dead between Flint's eyes. "But I'm not interested in wandering all over this island for months or years like you did. So – "

"So if you're going to kill me once I show you where the treasure is, why the fuck do I have any incentive to do that?" Flint folded his arms. "You know, this isn't the first time I've been held at gunpoint on Skeleton Island with someone promising to shoot me if I disobey them, or if I don't agree to martyr myself. I was the terror and the storm last time, but this time, you are. Listen to me, Jack. Listen to me. There are sins you can't take back. If you kill me, you'll lose whatever you do have left. I'm not saying that on my own behalf. I'm old, I've lived my life, and I died here once anyway. Perhaps it was always going to end like this. But Sam won't forgive you."

Jack jerked as if Flint had physically hit him. "Sam doesn't need to know."

"So what?" Flint almost laughed. "Murder me and lie about it to his face, is that your brilliant plan? As if the identity of my killer will somehow be a mystery to my family, after you were last spotted punching me and dragging me overboard at gunpoint? Perhaps you think if you weep and say you are very sorry, they'll soften toward you, if we're such a blind and weak bunch of fools? They won't, and they aren't fools. Do you think you're the only man in the world to want vengeance, or vengeance on the Navy? Do you have a fucking clue who I am, or who Killian is? Or were you just sticking your fingers in your ears and humming when he was talking to you?"

"Fuck you," Jack said reflexively. "I know, I don't care, it doesn't matter, it – "

"Shut up." Flint took a step, daring Jack to pull the trigger on him. "Shut the fuck up and listen to me. I'm sorry that you were robbed of your vengeance, that your wife lied to you and broke your trust, and you didn't get to look into your father's eyes as you killed him. I am. But this isn't going to solve any of that. I know who you are, I have been you, I have stood in your shoes, I've felt there was no way to go on after losing the man I loved, except by wreaking blood and terror on the world that took him away. But I did. I did, I found him. One of them, at least."

"Wh – "

"Please," Flint said. "Don't expect me to believe you're not in love with my grandson."

"I… that…" Jack struggled for breath. "That's beside the point, I – "

"Then," Flint said, "you're a fucking idiot, and for better or worse, I don't think you are. So tell me, if you weren't going to hand the cash over to the Spaniards, what were you going to do with it? Exactly?"

"I…" Jack wrestled the words like a great strangling serpent around his chest. "I was going to give it to Lady Fiona and Billy."

This time Flint did laugh aloud. "Never mind. You are a fucking idiot. You think it's the money they want?"

"I don't know," Jack snarled. "I didn't care. I was going to trade it for Sam."

Flint raised both eyebrows so far they were in danger of escaping into his hair. "Oh? But of course, you aren't in love with him?"

"It doesn't matter either way. Buy his freedom, they can have their precious money, I don't give a shit what they do with it. Dump it in the sea, for all I care. That way, we're done, we're square, Sam's life is saved, we can go our separate ways. If they don't want the money, I'll trade them you. Billy wanted me to kill you, did you know that?"

"Really?" Flint said, voice dripping with enough sarcasm to fell an ox. "Couldn't possibly have seen that coming. Let me have a moment to recover from the shock. Why not him?"

"Because," Jack said, not knowing if this would hurt at all, but determined to find out. "Because I'm, as you fucking well know, Sam Bellamy's nephew."

That did – he wasn't sure what, but it was something. Flint went very still, the reaction of a man who had just taken a very serious wound and was trying to avoid letting it on to his opponent, so he wouldn't know at once where else to attack. He turned his face away, struggling for his previous cold glibness, unable to muster a response for several moments. Jack tried to enjoy the fact of a formidable opponent brought to his knees by such a simple sentence, but it just hurt, a dull, constant throb like a diseased tooth. His hand was shaking, so he tried to steady it. Flint must not think for an instant that he was off the (ha) hook.

"I see," Flint said, after close to a minute of that hideous, suffocating silence. His voice was less than steady. "I nearly have to give Billy credit. That's a level of cold bastard to which even I didn't think he could aspire. Yes. The only thing more poetic than killing me was to have Sam's ghost do it. My last punishment, for that and everything."

"I still could." Jack raised the gun, even though his hand was shaking more than ever. "I could do it right here."

"You could," Flint agreed. "And there is certainly an argument to be made for my deserving it. Of all the people that – that he told me I had lost, last time on Skeleton Island, your uncle was, it turned out, the only one that I truly had. I found Thomas and Miranda again, in time. But Sam, no. Sam was gone. The ocean had taken him, and it never gave him back. Until it did, just the other day. Until you emerged from it, and we thought for the briefest, most foolish of moments that we somehow had him back. It transpired, of course, that we did not."

Jack opened his mouth, then shut it. "So? Did you just think that I – "

"Oh for Christ's sake, you fucking bastard!" Flint exploded, finally provoked beyond all endurance. "We loved him! All of us! We loved your uncle, and yes, like humans, we saw him in you! I've lived for over twenty years with the guilt, the grief, the loss of him, of knowing what I did to him while he was alive and that it was never what I should have, the fear that my wife wished she died to be with him, that it was me that killed him! Killian, Emma, Miranda – they all loved him too, and they were easy with him, they gave him what he deserved, they were soft. I was the hard one, I was the selfish one, I was Flint! I drove him away, I was the reason he felt that he had to leave us, that he sailed into that tempest in Cape Cod and he never came back! I'm the reason, as I always was, that I lost someone I loved, that I betrayed, and now you stand here and tell me to my face that you want to do the same thing – that moreover, it is to my grandson, who carries that man's name, and his legacy! Fuck you. Fuck you!"

Despite himself, Jack was caught off guard. He wanted to bark back, but all his clever reprisals seemed to have deserted him for the moment. He struggled to steer the confrontation onto any ground he knew, could control, and gestured at the beach. "Is this where the Walrus wrecked? It doesn't look like it."

"No," Flint said. His eyes were lethal emerald slits, glowing like a cat's in the night. "I took us further down the coast in order to avoid the dangerous passage I was warning everyone about, back on the Griffin, before you staged your little abduction fancy. This is somewhere southeast of that. So you see, we're not actually near anywhere near the cache. If you're going to shoot me, get it over with, and happy searching. I'm not lifting a fucking finger to help you. Fuck you. Good thing, in fact, that your uncle is dead. You'd break his goddamn heart."

Jack was about to fire back, as ever, that he didn't care, but the words got caught on his tongue. He knew that likewise, Flint had thrown the gauntlet, that if he didn't kill him right now, it was clear that he wasn't going to, couldn't follow through on his threats. So what – kill him anyway, to prove he was not to be trifled with, that he was capable of this vengeance, that he was not that small and scared and hurt boy, that he was a man? Kill him, and lose everything else?

The silence stretched out, taut and twisted and terrible. Then Jack stalked forward and pressed the barrel of the gun to Flint's chest, staring down his nose at him. "Lead me to the cache," he said, "or I take you back to the Griffin and shoot you in front of your family, so they don't even have to be in any question at all about it. That's your choice, and unless you want to fail your grandson like you failed his namesake, you can – "

"About that," a voice said from nearby, about a dozen yards down the dark beach. "Put down the gun and turn here. Hands up. The both of you."

Jack and Flint both froze, the tension between them still surging almost at breaking point. Then they turned – and went absolutely motionless.

Some completely mad-looking individual in a bloodstained brown coat, one eye swollen shut, forehead and beard stained with more blood, and grizzled hair pulled back in a ragged topknot, was facing them, lit ghostly by the silver moon. He was holding a large gun in one hand, and Samuel Jones with the other, the former cocked and pointed at the latter's head. Sam's face was white and stunned, staring at Jack and his grandfather locked in preparation for mortal combat, eyes the size of dinner plates as the madman gripped him with gnarled fingers. "You make any sudden moves," the madman went on, "and I will blow his brains out for both of you to watch, how about that? Couldn't have fixed it better. You'll be Captain fucking Flint in the flesh, just the man I was looking for. Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. Skeleton Island. No better place for them, wouldn't you say."

Jack and Flint remained frozen. Then, very slowly, Jack backed away and put down the gun, letting the lunatic see him do it. He and Flint, beckoned by another impatient jerk of the head, raised their hands. Sam's eyes kept flicking madly between them, burning with confusion and betrayal and disbelief. "You – " he managed. "Jack, how, how are you – ?"

"It's a fascinating story," Flint said. "Involves quite a bit of trying to kill me and stabbing the rest of our family in the back, I'll fill you in later. And who would your… friend be?"

"Hands." The lunatic leered. "Israel Hands. Reckon you've heard of me?"

The name meant nothing to Jack, but it clearly did to Flint. His nostrils flared. "That frothing dog Thatch drummed off his crew, once upon a time? Yes, I've heard of you. Too insane for Blackbeard, now that's an accomplishment. How the fuck are you here?"

"Likewise. Fascinating story." Israel Hands grinned. "Taking it you haven't seen Mr. Silver yet. Oh yes. He's here too. That will be an enjoyable reunion, won't it, if one of you doesn't kill the other first. Now. You're going to lead me to the cache, and any other treasure on this entire fucking island, or I shoot the boy without demur. Is that clear enough for you?"

Flint was rigid from head to heel. He took half a step, then another. Hands grabbed Sam harder, free arm crushing his throat, and Sam uttered a strangled whimper, struggling for air. Then Flint raised his voice and shouted over Hands' shoulder, "Hey! HEY!"

Hands spun to look, and in the split-second of distraction, both Flint and Sam moved. Sam stamped madly on Hands' foot, grabbed his arm and twisted out from his grip, slamming the gun out of his hand, as Flint dove for it, snatched it up, whirled around, and fired, all in one fluid, ruthless motion. The sound of the gunshot echoed across the shore, and Jack thought he should move, should do something, but he was paralyzed, transfixed. For a wild, terrible moment, he thought Flint had hit Sam. Then Israel Hands touched the spreading wet stain in his chest, looked confused, and toppled face-first into the sand.

Flint didn't stop moving. He grabbed Jack's fallen gun, aimed it, and shot Hands again, this time in the back of the head, so his skull exploded in a brief, grisly shower of brain and bone. He twitched, gargled something indecipherable, and went limp, blood pulsing in slow, shallow ripples across the sand, dark as ink in the moonlight. Smoke rose in gentle curls from the barrel of the pistol, still clutched in Flint's hand as he pointed it. Nothing else seemed to breathe.

Sam, finally, was the one to break the spell. He hurtled across the beach and flung himself into his grandfather's arms, and Flint hugged him tightly, still staring balefully at Hands as if expecting him to get up and keep fighting. He didn't, given as he was quite thoroughly dead. Finally, Sam let go, but just enough to clutch Flint by the forearms and stare at him. "How – the others, are they – look, it's a trap, over by the bay, Billy's set up a nest, I don't – "

"We're going to sort it out," Flint said grimly. "We're going to sort out everything. Come on. Someone will have heard that."

As they bent to retrieve the two rifles that had been slung over Hands' back, Jack took a convulsive step. "Sam."

Sam paused, straightened up, and stared at Jack as if he had never properly seen him before. There was a hot, strange look in his eye, an oddly restrained fury, when he spoke. "Billy said you were dead."

"Aye, well, Billy lied, didn't he?" Jack likewise wanted to be out of here. "I – "

"So were you on the Titania the whole time?" Sam, just for a moment, looked very much as his grandfather had when shouting at Jack earlier. "I thought if you were alive, if you had the choice, if you were able to at all, you'd come back. Billy said you would too. So what? You – you actually listened to Lady Fiona? And earlier – what was – was that the plan? Billy told you to kill Grandpa and then he'd – I don't know, tell you whatever you wanted to know about Howe? As long as you stayed out of sight and let me think you were dead?"

"No," Jack said, feebly, instinctively. "No, Sam, that wasn't – "

Sam kept staring at him with that fixed, glassy expression, more than slightly feverish, and altogether furious. Finally he said disbelievingly, "You lied to me."

"Sam. Sam, listen to – "

"Tell me," Sam said, low and hot and terrible, "the truth."

Jack felt a sudden and terrible realization pass over him: that he had done to Sam exactly what Charlotte had done to him, that he had betrayed his confidence and his trust in the service of his own revenge, and let him think the worst, never bothering to correct his suffering and his misapprehension, so long as it was useful. He took another step, desperate. "Sam!"

Sam raised the rifle he was holding. "I don't think I want you to come with us."

"Believe me," Flint said, "you don't. Leave him here – if it's true what Hands was on about and Silver is also on the island, I'm sure they have a use for each other. Sam, come with me, I'll get you off this godforsaken hellhole somehow. Your mum and dad are here, they've been looking for you. The whole family has. You're almost home."

Sam did not need telling twice. He scuttled straight to his grandfather's side, and Flint put a protective arm around him, drawing him close, with one final, burning look at Jack warning him that he followed at his peril. Jack could not have moved anyway. He stood there, Israel Hands' corpse still sprawled at his feet, watched them go, and only heard, in his head, the screaming.