-XXXVIII-

The moment the incoming ship cleared the breakwater of the harbor, she opened fire. Liam stood dumbly on the deck for a split second longer, spyglass pressed to his face in some misbegotten hope that one more inspection would somehow prove it to not be who it was, and then whirled away with a roar, pushing Regina down, as the battery struck, sending up a hail of splinters and cracking a beam. They were still just that bit out of range, preventing them from taking the full bore of the cannon, but that would not last more than a few minutes. The Jolly Roger was only lightly gunned, the wind was with the newcomer, and even if they managed to get up enough canvas to run for it, there was nowhere that they would not be chased. The account was far too long, and far too terrible, for that. They had to make their stand here, and fight Captain Henry Jennings for what, Liam knew coldly in his gut, would be the final time. For which of them, there was no way to say, but death hung tangibly in the air, over the burned city of Charlestown, over Miranda pale and lifeless in the cabin, in the remorseless approach of the Bathsheba, as her bow-chasers blazed brightly again, and the air whistled and hissed, the water splashed, the hull thumped. By the next volley, they'd be dead to rights.

"Go!" Breaking out of his reverie, Liam spun around, grabbing Regina by the arm. "Get the nurse, get Geneva and Henry, and get below, into the hold! Now! Don't come up until I find you!"

"As if the hold's going to be safe, if Jennings scores a direct hit!" Of course, even now, Regina would have to argue with him. "We'll be trapped by the water before we have a chance to escape!"

"If we sink, we're all dead. It's the safest place for now, we can't let him get the children, go!"

Regina opened her mouth, thought better of it as a cannonball screamed just past the shrouds, and darted inside, emerging shortly with the nurse, a petrified-looking Henry trying very hard to be brave, and a squalling Geneva. She steered them across the deck and down the hatch as Liam shouted at the crew to prepare for action. They carried only minimal stores of powder and shot, as they knew that any gun battle would end poorly for them anyway, and they hadn't wanted the extra weight to slow them down on the crossing to France. There was no way they were blasting their way out of this, and Liam looked around wildly for something else. If there were wrecked or burned ships in the harbor, if he could trick Jennings into fetching up on one of those – he could not let that mad animal on here with Regina and the children and Miranda, he could not –

Briefly and uselessly, Liam hoped that Jennings was actually dead, and that this was just another enterprising captain who had taken over his ship and his crew, but he already knew that he wasn't. Perhaps all along, this had been inevitable. That it always had to end like this. One last battle, one last time. Only one would walk away from it.

The Bathsheba was running up hard on their fore port quarter, clearly intending to prevent them from getting any space to slip free, and Liam dashed to the helm, driving them for the vee of open water just beyond. If they were boxed in here, it would be like shooting ducks in a gallery – at least if he made it out and down the Carolina coastline, he could find some convenient sandbar or shallow reef. The art, of course, would be only tearing out the Bathsheba's hull and not their own, and as both vessels were of comparable size and draft, anything that jeopardized Jennings would endanger the Roger as well. But there was no other choice.

The next bombardment chewed through one of the foresails on the spar, as the two ships were now almost level broadside, and Liam bellowed at the men to load and light one of their precious volleys. The five-gun array was nothing near enough to daunt the Bathsheba permanently, but it might get their attention, and he felt the deck kick and sway under his feet as they spoke. Eat shit, you son of a bitch. Liam had a sword and a pistol, which felt like very slender surety in any hand-to-hand fight. He had of course taken two serious wounds, which – even mostly healed – would unavoidably slow him up as well, and while Jennings might be somewhat damaged, at least cosmetically, from whatever Miranda had done to his face with the oar, this would only have made him angrier. I cannot let him get on board. I cannot.

When the smoke cleared, however, Liam saw a direly unpromising sight. The Bathsheba was still closing, the Roger's measly six-pounders appeared to have irritated rather than impeded them in any significant fashion, and the Charlestown headland was coming up fast to starboard. It was clear that Jennings intended to crush them against the rocks if he could, rendering the Roger helpless and prime for boarding, and then – no, what came next was too horrible to imagine. Why is he here? Not that it mattered, not really, and all Liam could come up with was that Jennings had probably been sent after Vane, his former partner in crime and co-robber of the Spanish wrecks, upon receiving word that Vane (and Flint, of course) had done their worst to the city. That he should stumble upon the chance to have his final confrontation and vengeance upon Liam, Regina, and Miranda as well was mere and morbid serendipity.

"MORE SAIL!" It was a symbolic order at best; their foresail was torn, their topgallants were already flying, and the wind was against them, but Liam couldn't stand watching this, the way the two ships were veering inexorably closer and closer, like a catastrophe in slow motion, like a nightmare from which he could not wake. The water purled and frothed white, the Bathsheba's starboard battery boomed like the drums of hell, and he felt a horrifying scrape and jolt from the keel. The Roger's draft was eleven feet, and here by the headland, they must quickly be getting shallower than that. In a minute more, they'd be stranded, aground, and completely defenseless.

Liam wrestled the wheel once more, feeling them swing and snap and struggle against what seemed to be the crushing fist of fate itself, and managed to buy them a few more yards, just clear of the shoals. Still the Bathsheba was closing, and he could see men on the other deck with throwing grapnels. There was only one order left to give, one final stand to be made. Fine, then. Fine. If nothing else, William Raleigh Jones would do his duty to the last.

"PREPARE FOR BOARDERS!"

The next moment, hooks came flying out of the night and mist – hooks, Liam thought, hooks, how bloodily, fittingly, perversely appropriate – and latched onto the railing, biting out sharp divots of wood and trailing ropes like Medusa's snakes. They were followed almost instantly by the hooting, hollering hordes of Jennings' men, piling over and bristling with every sort of deadly weaponry. Oddly enough, however, none of them seemed to be using it – yet. They were holding in check, arrogant in the knowledge of their superior numbers and armaments, over the Roger's valiant but tiny crew and almost total lack of resources for an extended fight. They're toying with us. Jennings has been waiting too long. He doesn't want us dead before he enjoys himself. The very fate they had gone overboard to escape in Jamaica, now, here.

The last figure, the tallest, the most casual and vindictive of the lot, emerged from the mist like the Devil stepping from the clouds of brimstone, loosed from a crack in hell to visit mere anarchy upon the world. His shaggy sun-white hair was tied back from his face, as if to give Liam the best inspection of its new look. Twisted and scarred and hideous down the left side, lip pulled back over his teeth, eye milky and bloodshot, as if Ulysses had tried to blind the Cyclops and not quite succeeded. It was clear, however, that Jennings had suffered absolutely no impediment to his marksmanship, if the pistol he drew and pointed dead at Liam was any indication. "Good evening, Captain Jones. Just caught up with your little brother recently. So lovely to see you again as well."

"Killian?" Liam knew that he shouldn't say anything, that this was already enough of a disaster and would only get worse, but as ever, the mention of his brother caught him hard under the chin. "What the fuck did you do to Killian, you sick bastard?"

Jennings grinned broadly, rendering his disfigurement even more ghastly. "Just got to see if he was interested in talking, alongside Governor Rogers. He wasn't, you'll be proud to know. Though since it got his arse skelped raw, I'm not sure that was the smartest decision."

"You what – you tortured him?" Liam felt his fists clenching, his anger rising in his chest like a cutting black tide. All he could think of, any way to head Jennings off from finding their precious passengers, was the same. "Fine, well. You must have plenty of the same you want to do to me. Don't you want to fight me? Hurt me? Come on, take me."

"And why would you be in such a hurry for that?" Jennings studied him thoughtfully, head to toe, with that same amused ease with which he did everything. He rested a hand on the hilt of his cutlass, and Liam saw the gleam of his old ring, the one Jennings had taken from Emma so long ago and never given back. "You and I know each other too well, Liam. As I've told you so many times, we're all but the same. Who are you protecting? Who else is here?"

"Nobody."

"Oddly enough, I think you're lying." Jennings raised a hand, beckoning to his men. "Search the ship. Stem to stern. Anyone you find, I want them brought up here. Alive, for the moment."

Liam lunged at the first of them, throwing his shoulder into them hard, and while it knocked them back on their heels, it clearly confirmed to Jennings beyond a doubt that his hunch was correct. He cocked his pistol, twisting it into Liam's skull behind the back of his ear. "Not yet, Jones," he said lazily. "You're not going to die for quite a while, I'm afraid."

Liam grabbed at the muzzle, twisting it aside and almost getting up enough leverage to rip it out of Jennings' hand, but Jennings punched him viciously with the other, making his teeth clack and his breath choke as he stumbled back. Still he tried to reach Jennings, not caring if he was shot, as anything in the entire world would be easier to bear than what was about to happen, but Jennings dodged adroitly away. Then he gestured to more of his men, who had had their hands full with subduing the Roger's crew. "Tie him."

Liam kept fighting as they lashed him to the mainmast, biting and kicking, until another blow full across the face stunned him and left him briefly unable to resist as they finished the knots. Blood was dripping in his eyes as he heard the hatch creak, and saw Will, Regina, Henry, and the nursemaid with Geneva marched out before Jennings, who wore an expression as if Christmas had come early. A moment later, another few crewmen emerged from the cabin, dragging Miranda's body, which they dumped on the boards. "Her too! Can you even bloody believe it, Cap'n? All of 'em!"

"So I see." Jennings licked his lips, considering his tantalizing options, as Geneva continued to scream and he looked briefly aggravated. "Silence the brat, or I will."

The nursemaid joggled Geneva frantically, face white; she clearly had not expected to walk into the middle of hell on earth (escaping the other hell of Charlestown, that was) when she agreed to come aboard and feed a hungry child. Jennings paced deliberately down the deck, stopping to dig the toe of his boot into Miranda's side. "This," he announced, "was the cunt who made me so very pretty, lads. But then, we knew her well, didn't we? Seems she's been paid back for that mistake, but surely there's more to be done?"

"Don't." Liam knew he was begging, knew there wasn't much he could do, there was nothing he could do, but he would have wanted to have his shoulder annihilated by a falling spar, or to be stabbed by his half-brother, a hundred, a thousand times before enduring this. "You can have me, Jennings, you can bloody do whatever you want to me! I'm your enemy, fuck you! Fight me!"

Jennings eyed him up and down, slowly and insolently, then turned to the nursemaid, putting a finger beneath Geneva's chin. "Pretty child. Not yours, I'm wagering?"

The nursemaid opened and shut her mouth in terror, clutching the baby closer, as Will Scarlet decided just then that he had had more than bloody enough. He broke free from the crewman holding his arms, whirled and kneed him in the balls hard enough to bend him double, and ran straight at Jennings, who turned an instant too late. Will tackled him flat to the deck, punching every inch of him he could reach, as Regina took advantage of the abrupt confusion to likewise stamp on the foot of her captor, slam him in the face with her elbow, and race toward Liam. She pulled the boat hook off its mount – the same kind of hook that Killian had made into his namesake and replacement hand – and slashed at the knots with them, unraveling the ropes as they fell with a slap. Liam wrenched free, drew his sword, and sheathed it in the belly of the first privateer to lunge at him, so far that it burst in an explosion of blood out his back.

The chaos was complete for an insane thirty seconds, as the nursemaid shielded Geneva and Henry against the capstan – whatever they had been planning to pay her, it was clearly not enough. Then Jennings rolled off to one side, managed to grasp his pistol as it skidded away on the boards, and – as Will leapt at him – shot him at point-blank range.

Will's leap turned into a stumble as he went down hard, clutching at the bloodied hole in his side. Jennings fumbled for another pistol, clearly intending to finish the job, but at that moment, a second gunshot stunned everyone, and they looked around madly for its source. Henry, leaning out around the capstan, had somehow managed to get his hands on a gun, aim it at Jennings through the melee, and score a glancing hit, tearing through his coat sleeve and leaving a bloody streak. Not a serious wound by any means, but still a wound, and Liam felt a sudden, blazing pride in his foster son. It was followed at once by even more consuming terror.

Will was down, still alive but losing blood fast, as Regina made for him, dragging him away, as she tore her skirt and struggled to stanch the wound. Jennings, for his part, seemed briefly thrown, raising a hand to touch the gash on his arm. "You," he said. "You shot me."

Henry looked as if he wanted to answer defiantly, but he was just an eleven-year-old lad, and this elder Henry was the most terrifying individual to ever walk God's green earth. Man and boy remained frozen, staring at each other, until Jennings looked away with a jerk, sweeping his loosened hair out of his eyes. "I'll let you choose, Liam," he said, almost pleasantly. "Which one dies first, which one keeps you company, and which one the crew gets for their sport."

"Go to hell." Liam took a better grip on his sweat-soaked sword. "Go to hell."

"There isn't one, if you ask me." Jennings turned to face him, one eye that unsettling pale color and the other more bloodshot than ever, half in the glow from the ship's lanterns and half in absolute darkness. "Nor heaven either. It's a queer sort of god that would permit men like me to flourish, don't you think, and men like you with your poor, useless decency to wither? In fact if there is a god, I rather suspect He is exactly bloody like the rest of us. And there's no devil either. Nothing beyond this life but the void. How unfortunate for all those addled sheep who live their lives under the thumb of tyrants, thinking it will get them a fine prize in the hereafter. There's only silence beyond. Only darkness. Hell is now. Hell is here."

Their gazes remained locked on each other for a moment longer, as they circled like lions at the kill. Jennings' hand went again to the hilt of his cutlass, and he drew the heavy blade with barely a flick of his wrist. "Come on, Liam," he said, almost tenderly, with the insane rictus of a smile. "Let's finish this."

That, at last, was the one thing Jennings had ever said that Liam could unequivocally agree with. They took half a step forward, half back, and then rushed at each other at once, Liam slamming his sword down in a vicious two-handed sweep. Jennings knocked it off contemptuously and flicked his at Liam's chest, as Liam had to move quickly to avoid it, driving down and keeping up the attack with all the fury of months, of years, of their entire sordid history. Of watching Jennings cut off Killian's hand, of hearing that he had sunk the Blackbird and taken Emma and Miranda prisoner, of their fraught interview in Boston, of Regina trying to drug him, of Jennings grinning as Liam Junior stabbed his elder brother, of Liam then hearing what Jennings had done to him in turn. Of Jamaica, their captivity on the Bathsheba, of fighting for their lives in the boat until Miranda brained him with the oar. Of hearing that Jennings had tortured Killian one more time, to this, to now, to the flashing, flaring, crashing edges of their swords, to the looming loss of everything, everyone, the rest of Liam's family that Jennings had not already managed to take from him. It gave him a wild strength beyond even desperation as they dueled, darting in and out among the helm and the deck and the splinters from the bombardment, over and under and side to side, low and high and everything in between, blades whirring and tumbling in lethal Catherine-wheels of steel. Sparks flew where the edges kissed, and Jennings bared his teeth. "Come on," he said again, in a serpent's hiss. "You wanted this, Jones. Fight me."

Liam did not waste his breath in a reply, swinging his sword at Jennings so hard that when the other man twisted out of the way just in time, it bit several inches deep into the aft mast. He pulled it out and ducked Jennings' retaliatory blow, as neither the Bathsheba's men nor the Roger's made any move to interfere, mesmerized by the beauty and terror of the spectacle. It was understood, word unspoken, that this was Liam and Jennings' battle, and they alone had any right to finish it.

Liam could feel his shoulders – especially his bad one – starting to burn with the exertion, wearing down under the relentless, crashing force of Jennings' attacks, the point of the cutlass biting constantly for his face, for his heart, for his stomach, and he had to keep summoning up everything he had to turn it away. I am losing. He knew it with a terror to pierce his very soul. Whatever he had, everything he had, everything he was giving, it wasn't enough. Jennings was still stronger than him, and he was slowly but steadily gaining the upper hand. A blow slashed the side of Liam's sleeve, and then caught him briefly on the hip, sparking brief and breathtaking flares of pain in each. Then Jennings' knee came up, slammed Liam hard in the belly, and he lost hold of his sword, staggering backward. The next thing he knew, he was down.

There was a moment in which all the world held its breath, and then the bloody tip of Jennings' cutlass lifted Liam's chin. "Look up, Jones," he said. "Unless you want to meet your death cowering like a fucking craven."

Liam had nothing left, no trick up his sleeve, no clever move, no sleight of hand. He was breathless, disarmed, bad shoulder ablaze with agony, and his sword was six feet away. He'd never get to it before Jennings gutted him like a fish – he thought briefly and madly of deboning herrings on the Pandora, of the smell when they came to Boston, of doing it for Killian, trying not to let him get hurt – and this, then, was it. Jennings would kill or at least seriously maim him, render him unable to interfere in his leisurely torture and disposal of the others. After this. After so long, after everything, Liam Jones had failed, and all he could do was watch the sword descend toward his face with almost hypnotic slowness. Smite him, and –

And then, for the third time, a gunshot cracked across the deck, taking everybody utterly off their guard. The sword veered off, as Jennings took a stumbling step backward, mildly perturbed more than anything. Looked down at the spreading crimson stain between his ribs, and then up at Regina, still holding the smoking pistol with both hands. "You," he said again. "You shot me."

Regina didn't answer, white to the lips, as Jennings took a step toward her, reeled and had to steady himself, and in that moment, Liam lurched to his feet. Didn't think of anything but his sword, of reaching it, even as everything seemed, once more, to be moving impossibly slowly. Then it was there before him, and he was bending to grasp hold of it, and Jennings was turning toward him, and this was the only chance, this was all, this was everything. Liam swung it back with both hands, and drove it into Jennings with every bit of his strength.

He felt the other man convulse, even as their faces were close enough to kiss, as they stared directly into each other's eyes. Liam pulled the blade back, feeling it scraping against bone, not trusting that this was close to enough, and plunged it into Jennings again. This time he went down, pulling Liam with him, still trying to fumble for his own dagger, but couldn't summon the strength to draw it. Liam wrenched the blade out, yelled at Regina and the nursemaid, "DON'T LET THEM LOOK!" and had to hope that they turned Geneva and Henry's heads away, that they didn't see. There was no time to be sure. He took one final, almighty swing, and parted Captain Henry Jennings' head from his shoulders in an explosion of blood that was, in the torchlight, black as the very deepest hell. Now. Here. It was true, then. It was true.

Jennings' body folded slowly to its knees, still twitching, reaching for its weapons in a final act of defiance. Then it slammed into the deck, crimson rivers coursing from the stump of its neck, as the head rolled away. Even then, Liam raised the sword with both hands and drove it ferociously into the corpse's chest, stabbing once and then again, until there was nothing but a mangled mess. He was soaked in Jennings' blood, could taste it metallic on his lips, sweet as spring rain. Saw his dead half-brother's face before him, smiling sadly. I'm sorry, Liam Junior whispered. Forgive me, brother. Forgive me.

Liam stabbed again. I'm sorry, he thought back, burning. I'm sorry. I failed you and Killian. I couldn't protect you. Not enough. Not in time. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

It was finally Regina who had to get to him, to force the sword out of his hand, to grab his face and make him look at her, to make him surface from the depths of the drowning sea. "He's dead," she was saying, over and over, half in tears. "Liam. Do you hear me? He's dead."

Liam could not be sure. Jennings would rise again. He always rose, would always hunt them, even from beyond the grave. They would never be free, he would never be free, of the possibility of it, of the return. Nonetheless, his fingers opened, and the sword fell from his hand to the sodden deck, alongside the butchered remnants of the Caribbean's most feared privateer. The mist had turned to a light rain, pattering Liam's face and the bloody deck, making the lanterns spit and hiss. His hands were shaking, and he could not make them stop.

Jennings' crew remained where they were, staring at the fallen body of their immortal, invulnerable, inexorable captain. Then, one by one at first and then faster, they began to back away, panicking and scrambling over the lines back to the Bathsheba, none of them with any thought in their head but flight. They cut loose from the Roger and took the wind, as Liam himself could not remotely summon up the wherewithal to give the order to pursue. He sank slowly to his knees alongside Jennings, thought about taking his ring back from the man's finger at last. How angry he had been to see it on Jennings' hand, the first time in Boston. Thought of how he had given it to Killian as a promise that they would be slaves no more. The symbol of a lie. Of his infernal bargain with Plouton, of the deaths of the entire Benjamin Gunn, of the sinking and the sack and the sundering. Cowering like a fucking craven. Jennings' last words burned into him. As I've told you so many times, we're all but the same.

Liam did not want it. He did not want it. He sat back on his knees, still in shock, as the rain kept falling. Then Regina was kneeling next to him, gripping his hand hard, trying to steady him, familiar enough with the darkness herself to know exactly what he was going through. "He's gone, Liam," she said again. "He's gone. It's done. It's done."

Liam didn't trust himself to agree. Instead he leaned to one side, was briefly and comprehensively sick, and remained crouched and gasping when it was over. Then he managed to look up at the Roger's crewmen, who were all staring at him. "Get that thing off my ship," he managed. "Sew it in sailcloth. Three cannonballs. I want it away."

They scuttled to comply, hauling Jennings' corpse off the deck and retrieving the head; there was no point in the last stitch going through the nose, the traditional way of ensuring that a seaman was really dead before he was dumped, but they did it anyway. Others were tending to Will, who was in very precarious estate indeed. "We need to go back," Liam said, staring at his wound. "Back to Charlestown, he can't sail like this, he – "

"No," Will managed, coughing. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare go back to that fuckin' place on account of me, Liam. Fish out the ball and sew me up – one way or another – but we go to France. You know we can't turn back. We can't lose everything. Not now."

Liam didn't answer, couldn't bring himself to, even as he was academically aware that Will was right. Now that they had a wet nurse for Geneva, and now that the final battle with Jennings was done, they had to get out of here. They couldn't render all the sacrifices that Emma and Killian had made, trusting them with their children, in vain. They couldn't go back to Charlestown one more time, that transparently cursed and forsaken and burned place, already knowing what it had cost them. At best, they could tarry a few hours under cover of darkness, to see if Will pulled through or if he didn't, and then set out for the long Atlantic crossing at dawn. They could not turn away from what was before them. They could not look back.

Liam's grief was too deep and savage for words, twisting him in half until he was not sure he would ever be able to breathe properly again in his life, to stand up straight, to remember his name. He heard a splash as the crew tipped Jennings' body over the gunwale, watched it swirl and eddy in the tide rush, had a brief and horrible impression that it was trying to swim back to the ship. Then it dipped, once and then again, and slowly, finally, went under.

Dully, Liam knew that Miranda had to be sewn up and put overboard as well, that there was no way her body would keep for a six-week-long voyage, even if he might have wanted to grant her the dignity of a final resting place in France. Yet once again, he could not quite bring himself to it. He rinsed the blood off in the rain barrel, then turned to the nursemaid, intending to instruct her to get Geneva and Henry away from this horror. Instead, rather to his own confusion, he said very quietly, "Can I have my niece, please?"

The nursemaid – he had to ask her name, but not quite yet – looked startled, but did so, and Liam lifted the baby into his arms, still feeling a faint tremble in his fingers and momentarily afraid that he would drop her. She had exhausted herself with terror and somehow managed to fall asleep, and he felt tears spring to his eyes as he braced her against his shoulder, assuring himself that she was solid, still breathing, alive. Then, not knowing exactly what he was doing, only that he had to, he carried the tiny girl to her grandmother, and laid her gently on Miranda's chest.

"Liam – ?" Regina, who had gone to get the medicines she had unsuccessfully tried on Miranda earlier, and was now administering them to Will, looked up with a start. "What are you – ?"

He shook his head, holding up a hand. Kept staring at them, had a sense of a coin tossed in the air, flashing and spinning, spinning. On what side it would fall, and how, he had no notion. Life and death and life and death and death and life again. The price was paid. Oh God, it was paid.

For a moment, a few moments, still nothing. Geneva's small fist clutched the filthy fabric of Miranda's torn dress, and she slept on. Then, so faintly that Liam was sure he had imagined it, her body stirred ever so slightly. Up and down. As if riding on the wake of a slow-drawn breath.

Regina caught it as well, and stared. Neither of them moved, tense beyond words, waiting for it not to come again, until it did. And then, after the same nerve-wracking interval, a third.

There were many prayers Liam Jones could have uttered then, if he still believed in God, and yet, he did not know that he did. Too much had burned for that, too much had fallen, until he was not at all sure that Jennings was not right. Yet he stood there under the cold and empty stars, and saw what seemed no less than a miracle, and perhaps, for a stolen moment, he did. No way to say if it would last. No way to say if Miranda would wake again, or if Will would survive. If this was only the reprieve before they had to part ways for good, a brief spark of hope to make the final loss more crushing. But just now, that did not matter. Nothing else did.

Liam turned away, and straightened up, and faced his crew.

"Raise canvas," he said. "We sail for France."

Nearly all of the voyage back to Nassau was a blur. Emma did not want to believe that David Nolan's terrible news was right, that Flint and Miranda were dead, but she also knew that she had no luxury to pretend otherwise. On a coldly practical level, there was also no way to say what had happened to the Walrus, and if they were down a third of their impromptu pirate fleet, it raised their already-stiff odds to all but impossible levels. They could still hope that David made it to Antigua without, say, being destroyed by Blackbeard, and delivered the charges and proof of Gold's treason, but that did them no good in the short term, and could just as well end up going nowhere. Emma had to fill her head with these logistics, determinedly occupy her thoughts and her time, or otherwise she would have to face the staggering reality of having lost both her daughter and her mother at once – as well as, in Flint, the remotely closest thing to a father she ever really remembered having. If she wept a single tear, the dam would break, and she could not let it. Not now. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

Killian could clearly tell that she was suffering, but he also seemed to sense her desperate need to keep herself together, and did not directly ask her how she was, all too well aware of the answer. As before, the Whydah's crew did not require much attention or direction from them to sail the ship, but both of them kept stubbornly persisting at it anyway, as the only alternative was to sit and drown in their thoughts. Driven hard on the back of the trades, they managed to return in just a bit under two days, dearly hoping that Woodes Rogers had not managed to execute another catastrophe in even this comparatively short span of time. They had to take extreme care on the approach, to avoid being spotted by any wandering Navy ships, and finally made it back to their more or less sheltered anchorage on the leeward side of the island. There they found the Jolie, still loaded with Vane's stolen Spanish gold, and a very nervous Rackham waiting for them.

"Flint's dead?" was the first thing out of Jack's mouth, once they had acquainted him with the account of their most recent misfortunes. "Bugger me if I believe that. Any word of Charles?"

"No," Emma said tightly. "All Captain Nolan said was that Lord Peter Ashe had held Flint and Miranda prisoner, and that they were dead. We don't know what else happened, or where Vane is. We don't know if it's true, or what we'd do even if it wasn't."

"Fuck," Jack said, which nobody could argue with as a way to sum up the situation. "Well. That does leave us rather literally between a rock and Woodes Rogers, doesn't it? Not to mention that we still can't risk going far with the gold, if Charles would come back and find it missing."

Charles Vane's feelings about the safety of his treasure haul were, in Emma's opinion, the least of their concerns at the moment. "Did Sam and Lancelot go inland to the plantations? Make any headway on possibly recruiting slaves?"

"They did." A crease linked Rackham's brows. "Go to the plantations, that is. And haven't come back yet, in fact. So either they're doing so riotously well with volunteers that they can't handle them all at once, or something, somewhere, with a nearly innumerable possibility of potential causes, went regrettably sideways. Given the general state of our fortunes thus far, one would find no difficulty at all in wagering on the latter."

"Bloody hell." Killian raked his fingers through his hair, which was beginning to get rather long, tousled dark locks ruffling in the wind. "And Rogers? Still hanging pirates?"

"We sent a few scouts out. They say he's stopped for now, but they don't trust it." Jack sat down on the hatch cover next to Anne, who from her windblown appearance had been doing most of the scouting. "We're fairly sure that he still thinks the Halifax made it safely off to Antigua to alert Gold to the situation, but either way, he is certain to be preparing some spectacular reprisal. That man does not like to lose, or to be humiliated, and over the past several days, we have done both. And Jennings is gone, that can't be good. Likely went after Vane, so. . ."

Killian and Emma absorbed this in communal grim silence. While on one hand it was always at least something of a relief to hear that Jennings was no longer in the immediate vicinity, they were all too aware of the damage he could do anywhere else he had gone. No immediate solution to their dilemmas had thence appeared to them, so they bid Jack and Anne good night and went back to the Whydah, crawling into Sam's bed and staring at the ceiling. Both of them were exhausted to the bone, but sleep felt very far away. And as well, something else. Something that neither of them could quite put their finger on, but disturbed them further.

"Something's wrong," Emma said at last, sitting up. Her hair fell loose around her face, her heart pounding fast and short. "Geneva and Henry. They're in danger."

Killian had been having rather the same sense himself, with absolutely nothing rational to explain it, and had been hoping it was just an extension of the general feeling of doom which seemed to have fallen over them. He could feel something just as ominous and unexplainable about Liam, and did not want to countenance even the possibility of it being real, of what else they could still have left to lose. He sat up and put his arms around Emma, pulling her close, as if he could somehow shield her from a peril that neither of them could even properly name. A storm at sea? One of Gold's ships catching up to the Jolly Roger? Something still worse? Whatever it was, it wrapped strangler's fingers around their hearts, pulling tighter and tighter, until neither of them thought they could stand it a moment longer – and then, as they were still holding each other as hard as they could, it broke over their heads like a crashing wave, washed into shore from the tumult of the tempest, fetching up on the sand among all the other flotsam and jetsam. They both gulped raw, ragged breaths as if coming up for air from the deepest of dives, and Emma clutched at his shirt. "Are they – ?"

"I don't know." Killian rested his chin on her hair, heart hammering. "I don't know what just happened. Only that. . . something did."

Emma made an inarticulate noise against his shoulder, tucked into his neck, as Killian tried to steady himself. He somehow thought he would know if it was wrong, if their family was dead, but then again, perhaps he wouldn't. He only had the sense of a great and powerful change, some fulcrum shifted, as if whatever the world had been a few hours before was no longer what it was now. After a few moments, he leaned down and kissed Emma's forehead. "Sleep if you can, love," he whispered. "I'm here."

She pressed herself closer, knuckles white with holding onto him, as he could finally glimpse the sheer agony beneath the fragile façade she had ever more tenuously been holding together. Then another breath shuddered out of her, and she settled almost bonelessly against him, their weary, battered bodies sinking into the comfort of the bed, the quiet of the night. There was some sort of peace, almost, as if in the wake of the storm passing, sweeping all clean. Killian Jones did not know what. He did not ask. All that mattered to him was that Emma Swan breathed.

Sam and Lancelot returned shortly before sunrise. Killian and Emma found this out when they were startled from a shallow sleep by the sound of the cabin door opening, and Sam ducked through, looking even more tired than them, clothes worn with dust and salt. Upon seeing them try to sit up, he firmly waved them down, shucked his boots and jacket, and crossed the floor to climb into bed with them, settling on Emma's other side so he and Killian could both hold her. They lay there in the silence of the pearly grey predawn, listening to the Whydah creak softly beneath them, until Killian asked quietly, "What about the slaves?"

"I don't know." Sam blew a long strand of black hair out of his face. "Lancelot and I made it into a few plantations – barely made it out, in more than one case – and gave them our pitch, but we've had no miraculous uprising. Not that I can blame them. There is far too much at stake for them to risk it without complete assurance of success, and that, of course, is one thing we cannot give them. A few did seem interested, aye, but that will not make an army."

"Ah." Killian struggled to control his dismay, knowing that this had only been a slight possibility in the first place. "So. . . not much help to be expected from that quarter?"

"I wouldn't think so." Sam sighed. "We did everything we could, I swear."

"Of course you did. I'd never blame you for it, you know that."

Sam smiled at him over Emma's head, but his eyes remained drowned. He clearly did hold himself responsible, as if there was something else he could have done to make a difference in their fight, as if it would be his fault if he had not found it. After a moment, he said, "Did you hear anything about Flint and Miranda?"

Killian grimaced. "We. . . did."

Sam seemed to understand at once from the look on his face that whatever they had, it was nothing good. His lips went white, and he glanced away, clearly unable to press just yet for details. After a long pause he said, "We'll have to come up with something. Rogers is getting his feet under him, he's garrisoning Nassau to within an inch of its life, and the hangings will start again at any moment. With Flint or without him, we still have the Jolie and the Whydah. Either we make another attack with those, or we find help elsewhere. Did you deliver the message about Gold to David, I'm guessing?"

"Aye. Who knows what comes of that, but we did." Killian wished it felt like more. "And the Jolie still has Vane's gold on it, so if we take it into battle and it sinks – "

"We can't afford to keep it out of action just to serve as a treasury vault," Sam pointed out. "As well, between that and my own recent rather remarkable success, we have all the money we could possibly spend in several lifetimes. There are swords and sails for hire. Jennings and his scabrous bunch aren't the only mercenaries in the Caribbean. French flibustiers, my old mate Olivier La Buse if we could find him, and for that matter, plenty in the colonies. I've been thinking about making a trip back to Massachusetts for a while. It's my old haunts up there, Williams and I know plenty of men willing to sail with us for a little coin, and there are no shortage of ships on Cape Cod. With just some of the treasure, I could get us an actual fleet."

"Could you make it there and back in time?" Killian asked, frowning. "Be at least a fortnight, even assuming the best weather. If Rogers moved on us before then – "

"The war won't be over in a fortnight," Sam said decidedly. "For better or worse."

"Aye, but – "

"We'll keep it in mind, eh?" Sam put a finger to his lips. "Have to do something."

Killian supposed this was true, and subsided as gracefully as he could, though still with a faint misgiving he could not quite wish away. The three of them slept for another few hours, and then woke up, put back on whatever bits of clothing they had taken off, and trudged topside. The day was fine and warm and clear, but their situation was growing increasingly urgent. Lancelot had returned to the Jolie to relay the same news to Jack and Anne, that they could not count on any support from the slaves, and while their current spot was more or less out of the way of potential discovery by the English forces, it also meant they were doing exactly bugger-all of good. It sat well with nobody to keep hiding while the occupation grew stronger, and it was finally decided that Sam, Emma, and Killian would take the Whydah up the coast, while Jack, Anne, and the Jolie stayed behind to hold their position. The Whydah was the faster and more maneuverable of the two, and while she did not run quite as many guns, she still could take anything the Navy felt like throwing at them. As well, everyone felt in need of a few straight answers.

They made their way cautiously up the eastern side of New Providence, sailing just in sight of land, double lookouts posted to warn of approach from any direction. Most of the day passed with nothing, and the three of them were just debating whether they could risk a closer venture to Nassau, when a shout went up from the forecastle. "Sails!"

They crowded to the rail, Sam and Killian clicked open their spyglasses at once, and stared – then stared again. "Christ," Killian said. "I don't believe it. Is that – is that the bloody Walrus?"

"Looks like it." Sam's face lit with a brief, fierce joy, as all of them felt their innards turn over at this merciful twist of fate at long last. None of them, however, expected this reunion to be pleasant, and they made as much sail as possible, hastening out to meet their battered compatriot, which looked rather literally to have been through hell. It was blackened and smoke-scarred, gunports still open, a stark and menacing death's head. When Sam shouted up at the deck, Killian found himself briefly wondering who – or rather what – was going to emerge. Didn't know that he was entirely ready to see it – to see, he greatly feared, himself. A man driven beyond all endurance and all restraint and any and all flicker of hope, a man in the darkest place of his life, and who saw no means of getting out. Who was not at all sure he should even bother.

The man who stepped onto the deck, therefore, bore a passing resemblance to James Flint, enough to be recognized as him, but who looked like nothing that Sam, Killian, or Emma had ever quite seen. He regarded them with no apparent interest or disinterest, gritted and bloodied and grim and raw as an open wound. Then he said, "You lot."

"Aye, it's us." Emma's relief to see him was plain, but she could also clearly tell by his face that half the news had, at least, been true. "You're. . . you're alive."

Flint snorted, as if to say that was debatable. His fists tightened white on the railing, as if stopping himself from breaking it only with a terrible effort of will. "Was I dead before?"

"We'd heard so." Killian looked up at the older man, sensing the pain and rage and heartbreak boiling off him as tangibly as poison. "Mate, what did – "

"Does it matter?" Flint's voice growled at the very edge of control. "What's happened on Nassau?"

"It. . . it, well. . ." Nothing but absolutely horrendous news all around, it seemed. As briefly as he could, Killian explained the circumstances, the blockade of the harbor and the ever-increasing grip of Woodes Rogers' war on the pirates, from pardons to punishments, to worse. He downplayed his own part in this transformation, noting only that Rogers and Jennings had unsuccessfully tried to make him talk, that Anne may have shot the governor in the course of the rescue attempt, and that Vane's fiery blitz of the Navy ships had made him even more sorely aggrieved. It was, in short, a spectacular clusterfuck.

Flint listened without speaking, a muscle going in his cheek. Then he glanced at the man standing to his side – it was, Killian was surprised and disquieted to see, John Silver, leaning on a crutch and not quite entirely restored from having his leg brutally hacked off in Jamaica, but still surviving, evidently. "You tell them," Flint ordered. "You're the fucking talker."

With that, clearly barely holding himself together, he whirled on his heel and vanished into the cabin, as it was left to Silver to elucidate the full extent of the past few weeks' catastrophes. He crossed to the Whydah, as he did not want to shout over the decks of both ships, and that at least afforded them more privacy. Once they had retired to the cabin, he told them everything. In sum: Flint and Miranda had arrived in Charlestown, managed to obtain an audience with Ashe, and then confronted him with their knowledge of his treachery. Silver was unclear on the details, as only those three had been present, but it had exploded like a barrel of Greek fire. Miranda was shot, Flint had been taken prisoner, and held in preparation for public execution, until Vane arrived in the nick of time. The pair of them ripped Charlestown to shreds, Flint killed Ashe, and sailed off blindly, attacking the first ship he came across and killing everyone aboard, then taking the Walrus into the heart of a monster storm. Blown far off course and set adrift in doldrums, they finally fetched on a remote island that was home to another settlement of Maroons, who had not been inclined to appreciate the invasion. It had taken a lot of work from both Flint and Silver, but they managed to talk themselves, and the entire crew, out of being killed. As a matter of fact, they had also proposed an alliance, and several members of the colony were presently on board, under the leadership of their chieftainess' daughter, Madi.

This unexpected piece of moderately hopeful news, after the disappointment of recruiting the slaves of New Providence, briefly plucked up sorely downtrodden spirits, and the sight of Sam bolstered the case; these Maroons were in contact with their brethren on the island led by Poseidon, and knew of his reputation as a friend to their kind. It was plain, however, that none of them trusted the other pirates as far as they could throw them, and that Flint's mental state was, to say the least, extremely precarious. Silver said he had been having nightmares and terrors and worse, and that while he had pulled himself together sufficiently to deal with the Maroons, that was only a flimsy bandage on a gaping heart wound. "Not that he's said so. He can't. But I think the poor bastard would rather be dead, and with Miranda, than try to live without her."

At that, Emma flinched as if she had been the one shot. She had been hanging for dear life onto Killian's hand during this entire story, and this final confirmation that Miranda was dead seemed to snap her spine. She searched Silver's face as if desperate for him to tell her that there was a mistake, but he only looked down, uncharacteristically grim and serious. A monstrous silence reigned over all of them, until at last Silver turned to Sam. "On the ship we took," he said, "there was, as it happens, a letter for you. Flint didn't know, and didn't care – he shot both the captain and his wife, and most of the crew. I have it, if you want it."

"A letter for me?" Sam was clearly surprised, and more than slightly wary. "Who'd risk their skin writing to a convicted pirate captain?"

"No idea. But the ship's log said she was out of Boston, and if I recall, you have a number of acquaintances there. Presumably one of them heard that the ship was making for the West Indies, figured that would be close enough for it to somehow find its way to you, and got it aboard."

Sam still looked wary, but nodded once and held out his hand, as Silver fished the battered letter from his jacket. Killian expected him to name his price, as this man so rarely traded valuable information (or anything, really) without a favor obtained in return, but for once, Silver simply gave it over. Sam slit the seal, unfolded it, and read it through. Then without a word, he leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and did not move.

"Sam?" Startled from her own grief by this unexpected reaction, Emma frowned at him. "Sam, are you all right?"

"Hey." Killian, equally concerned, leaned over. "Sam. Sam, what is it?"

Sam still did not stir for another long moment. Neither Killian nor Emma wanted to read what was clearly a most upsetting and personal letter without his permission, and they were also not sure that they wanted Silver privy to the information, but as he was the one who had brought it, they could hardly throw him peremptorily out on the spot. The silence remained acute. Then Sam straightened up and said, "Those fucking Puritan bastards."

"What – ?"

"Mariah." The word was punched out of Sam as if at a blow. "Mariah Hallett, remember her? My lass in Eastham, in Massachusetts, with the fucking father who wouldn't let us be married? She – she was. . ." He looked down at the table, gripping it hard. "She fell with child, evidently, after my visit there last summer, the one where I met you, Emma, and took you aboard the Whydah. But it. . . it was born too early. In a fucking stable, where Mariah had to take refuge after her most-holy parents threw her out of the house. It is – was – a boy. A lad. He lived only a few hours."

"Jesus Christ." Killian felt punched himself. "Sam. Jesus. I'm so sorry."

"After all I did for them." Sam rocked back in his chair, eyes unseeing. "After all the money I gave them, the disputes I settled, the friends I made along Cape Cod, the time I spent there – the fine folk of Eastham shunned Mariah, threw her in jail for unlawful fornication outside of marriage, and would not even let her bury her son – our son – properly. I'm surprised they didn't burn her at the fucking stake, unless they're saving that for the grand finale. Jesus. Fuck those people. Fuck them!"

"Sam. . ." Emma reached out, face crumpled with pain, trying to put her hand over his, but he jerked it back. "Sam, I. . ."

He didn't answer, continuing to stare fixedly at nothing, as the horrible irony and tragedy of it hit both of them broadside: that Sam had given up so much, fought so hard, been so steadfast and so generous in so many ways so that Killian and Emma's child could live, that Geneva Elizabeth Jones had even had a chance to be born, and as a result, he had lost his own, never even knowing it until it was too late. They couldn't ask him if he was angry, if he regretted it, if he wished he had done differently, because either way, it would be too unbearable. For once, even Silver had nothing to say, tactfully pretending not to be there, as it seemed as if the dragon of loss and tragedy would spare no one from the grip of its jaws. First Flint with Miranda, and now Sam with Mariah and their unnamed son, and Killian and Emma with whatever they had endured with their own missing children last night. On and on, inexorable.

"I have to go," Sam said at last, roughly. "I'll take my treasure, I'll try to recruit men and ships for the cause, as I was planning earlier. But I have to go. I have to at least apologize to Mariah, even if she wants nothing to do with me ever again. I wouldn't blame her. But I – Jesus. I can't leave it like this. Jesus."

Killian and Emma looked at each other, then back at him, unable to deny him. They knew if it was either of them, they would have been desperate to do the same thing, even as their own hearts broke with the need to try to put it right for him, when it was so far beyond their power to do. Sam had already faced so much and barely come through it – but he had, he had, he was somehow still struggling forward, the kindest and bravest and best of them, even if he could no longer believe in it himself. He did not deserve this. He did not deserve any of it.

"All right," Killian said at last, quietly. "If you wanted just to go to see her, and to hell with trying to recruit reinforcements, I'm sure nobody would blame you. Or – "

"No," Sam said. "I made a promise to you, that I'd fight with you until the war was done. It's not. And if anything good can come out of this, anything at fucking all, then I'd be twice as much a fool to let it slip away. I'm doing it."

Killian looked at him wordlessly. "Sam," he said at last, very quietly. "I love you. We love you. Come back to us, all right?"

Sam considered him, then nodded once. "I'll leave Charlie," he said to Emma. "Whatever happens in Massachusetts, I don't want you to have to worry about your brother too, on top of everything else. If you two want to take him and return with Mr. Silver here to the Walrus, I intend to leave at once. No point in wasting time."

The Whydah set sail at twilight. After he had bid farewell to Killian and Emma with a long hug and a quick kiss for each, doing a better job of holding himself together for their benefit than he at all felt, Sam ordered the canvas raised and the course charted, grateful for the distraction of the work. He did not blame them, as he loved them too much and knew it was not their fault, that they had had no more pleasant fate in having to give Geneva up with no certainty of ever seeing her again. Nonetheless, he wanted to be away from them. He already had the whole of the voyage to be alone with his turbulent thoughts, so perhaps it was jumping the gun a bit to get started just now, but he couldn't stop himself. Jesus. Whenever he stopped being stunned, it was likely to hurt even more. Or worse, it wouldn't.

Sam had loved Mariah, as he loved most people when he came to know them, and he still had meant to go back for her when the war was over, even though her father was not likely to have changed his opinions at all on the suitability of his nice Puritan daughter marrying a pirate. But at the same time, Sam could not have given up either Killian or Emma, or Flint and Miranda, in the different ways that all of them mattered to him – Miranda, at any rate, seemed to have been settled for him – and that he would have been all right if he had not, in fact, seen Mariah again. That guilt, that knowledge, was almost worse than the grief. That she had given up so much for him, that he had taken her presence and her love and her ability to be returned to whenever convenient for granted, and he had done this to her as a result. With the best of intentions, and with his own cursed inability not to connect too deeply with this, with everyone, he was the person who bore the most responsibility for Mariah Hallett's current predicament, not the Puritans. They might have thrown her from her home, forced her to give birth in a stable only to see her child die, and imprisoned her for fornication and carnality, but Sam was the one who had left her there.

They sailed all night and all the next day without a halt, changing the crew shifts and taking advantage of a favorable wind. It was just over a thousand nautical miles from Nassau to Boston, and while they did not have the trades to speed things up, that was, strictly reckoned, not much further than the distance between Antigua and Jamaica in the Caribbean. It still worked out to a journey of at least a week in most cases, but then, most merchants and traders did not sail as if the Devil was after them, flying every scrap of canvas for as long as they could and running their crew to the brink of collapse from exhaustion. Sam worked harder than all of them, trying to shut up his yammering head. Whenever he did snatch a few winks of sleep, Hume had a disturbing tendency to appear in his dreams.

It was the morning of the fifth day out when the waters began looking somewhat familiar, and Sam reckoned they had to be close to the Nantucket Shoals, which was a tricky and dangerous bit of ocean that took careful negotiation. Numerous ships had been wrecked here, and he did not intend to add his name to the list. On the other hand, Nantucket was only about thirty miles south of Cape Cod, and if the weather held up, they could be there by nightfall.

Here, the Whydah happened across an apparent happy stroke of luck, in the form of a two-masted ship that surrendered quickly after a warning shot across the bow: the Mary Anne, bound from Boston to New York with a cargo of wine. Sam knew that he had been running his crew ragged, and that they deserved a spot of reward for all their exertion, so he ordered the spoils divided up and the drink passed around. For the time being, they were limited to the five bottles in the captain's cabin, as the Mary Anne's anchor cables barred access to the hold, so they drew her alongside, took her into tow, and decided to make full investigation of her delights later.

Sam checked the charts again and took a heading. He reckoned they could make it to Provincetown, the largest settlement of any size on the Cape, as the Whydah could stand to take on fresh supplies after all her venturing, and it was not far to Eastham from there. He sent a small crew over to take command of the Mary Anne, and they set out again.

For the next few hours, the weather was miraculously cooperative, the seas gentle and the wind steady, and they made good time north, despite the contrary currents from the shoals. Around three in the afternoon, however, one of those pernicious New England sea fogs arrived from nowhere and dropped over them like a ghostly shroud, so that the Whydah and her captive lost sight of each other at more than a few lengths apart. Sam ordered them to halt, checking the mercury in the glass. It had held steady earlier, but now it was falling, and fast.

"Fuck," Sam muttered to himself, already regretting his decision to be so munificent in taking the Mary Anne in tow. He had barely started to chew over what to do, however, when they were interrupted by a third ship sailing into the middle of things: a small trading sloop, the Fisher, with a captain who promised he knew the area well, and would help guide them around the hook of the Cape to Provincetown. Whether he felt this was preferable to being robbed by pirates was unclear, but no need to look a gift horse in the mouth.

A few hours later, however, Sam was cursing his rash capture of the Mary Anne more than ever. It was now fully dark, the wind and weather were getting worse, and the wine-sozzled eight men of his crew aboard the prize had caused her to fall well behind, obliging him to once more slow up and wait. "Hey, you lazy sons of whores!" he yelled, having to raise his voice considerably over the crash and thunder of the waves. "Sail the bloody ship, then drink!"

It was hard to see what, if any, response this evoked, and Sam felt a brief, unpleasant flicker of fear. The wind was shifting on them, coming from south by southeast, and what with the seas as high as they were, that meant they were being shoved hard toward the uncharted coast of Cape Cod, which was not the friendliest of places in the best of times. As well, the mercury was still plunging. This is not good. Sam had idly wondered if the captains of the Mary Anne and the Fisher might be interested in donating their vessels to the pirate cause, but at this rate, he was going to be lucky to keep any of them afloat. He could have made more speed in the Whydah, gotten out and away, but he was hampered by the need to keep his captured ships, and the men on each, together in the rising storm. I'm not leaving them behind.

By ten at night, the long-brewing gale had turned nasty. Rain pounded the deck and the sheets, lashing sideways, and bolts of lightning as bright as Zeus' heavenly darts scalded the ink-black sky, followed by booms of thunder that rattled Sam's teeth in his head. The seas kept climbing, waves twenty or thirty feet, so that despite all his best intentions, he had lost sight of the Mary Anne and the Fisher altogether. Huge, violent blasts of frothing white spray kept breaking over the deck and in towering sheets of spray at the foot of the – cliffs?

Oh, fucking hell.

In the completest of all imaginable ironies, Sam realized all at once that he knew exactly where he was: precisely where he had meant to go, the village of Eastham on Cape Cod, the place where he had drawn Jennings away from Boston so Flint could have a go at rescuing the captives, the place where he met Emma for the first time and they became fast friends. The raging wind and water had driven them here, down the coast and toward the high sea cliffs that bracketed each side of the beach. If they could make it there, there might be some hope of a safe landing, though it would involve deliberately running the Whydah aground. If not –

Sam shook his soaking hair out of his face, spinning around on the deck. They were being tossed and slammed like a spoiled giant's plaything, and there was only one possibility of salvation that he could see. "HEY!" he bellowed, yelling at the top of his lungs and still barely heard over the screaming madness. "LOWER THE ANCHORS!"

His men slipped and struggled toward the capstan, fighting the bucking braces with all their might to get the half-ton anchors free. The Whydah's bow pitched and plunged into the trough of a seemingly endless wave, and Sam had a moment to be desperately grateful that he had not brought Charlie Swan along. He did not fancy explaining this to Emma if – when, damn it, when – they made it back to Nassau.

There was another splash as the anchors went under and their lines paid out, jerking and catching them to a croaking, straining halt. There was a moment of almost perfect silence and stillness in the heart of the storm, when they did not budge at all, locked in place as the ocean continued to throw its fit to every side. For that time, just that alone, Sam breathed.

Then he felt a jerk. Then another one. And then another, and that one did not stop. The anchors were dragging. They were on a direct collision course with the cliffs whether they liked it or not, and picking up speed with every writhe and thrash of the sea.

"CUT THE CABLES!" There was only one chance left, one small hope. They were currently being bashed backwards, stern-first, and if they could get swung around and go aground bow-first, there was some small hope of keeping the Whydah intact, of giving the men enough chance to swim for it. "WE'RE GOING ASHORE, LADS, HANG ON!"

Sam grabbed an axe with the others and hacked madly at the straining cables, fighting the sodden hemp with every blow, until finally they split and parted. Then he whirled on the helmsman. "TURN HER! TURN HER!"

The helmsman hauled on the wheel with all his strength, trying to fight the Whydah through the slamming, screaming, snarling tempest. But they weren't turning. They kept plunging, helpless as a leaf on the wind, toward the mighty cliffs of Eastham, faster and faster, heading in stern-first and completely out of control. Sails tore loose, ropes snapped, and Sam could hear the sound of cannon breaking their mounts belowdecks and rolling like juggernauts. The ship tipped violently as the cargo in its heavy-laden hold broke loose, all the spoils of their weeks of wildly successful plundering, all the treasure he meant to use to purchase reinforcements for their cause. There was only this, now. Only inevitability.

There was no way to brace for it. One moment the cliffs were looming directly overhead, and the next, the mountainous waves slammed the Whydah into them with a force great enough to launch men clean off the deck and rigging and into the howling sea like bullets. Sam felt something snap in his shoulder, a blazing pain raced up it, and then he was engulfed in the blackness of seething saltwater to every side. He thrashed at it with his good hand, kicking and swimming as hard as he could, utterly unaware which way was up, until he broke the surface seemingly by chance. The deck of the Whydah was there, yes, but now it was over his head. It had no bloody business being over his head.

Sam sucked a desperate breath, clawing at the slick wood, then twisted out of the way in the barest nick of time as a cannon fell out of the next wave and crushed the man next to him into bloody pulp. Jesus, Jesus, no, not the Whydah, not his beautiful girl. Not his treasure, not his crew, not this, not this. He had meant to go back to Mariah and beg forgiveness for his sins, and yet by the looks of things, he had not started to be appropriately punished for them. He could see Robert Gold in his head, and Josiah fucking Hume, and all the leering faces watching him being marched to the gallows on Antigua. Whatever great cosmic debt he had incurred to the universe for his survival then, it seemed about to be paid in full.

Dimly, Sam heard an almighty, shattering crack, and twisted his head around just in time to see the Whydah's mainmast split, plummeting into the frothing abyss of whitewater and taking the full rig of its sails with it. The hull couldn't be far behind. The ship was barely recognizable as a ship, pounded into matchwood by the unforgiving might of the tempest, and Sam realized, in a very calm way, that he was about to die.

Very well, then. He did not want to die thinking about Gold and Hume and the sight of Robin Locksley dead in his arms, of grief and pain and darkness. He wanted to die thinking of Emma Swan's smile, and Killian Jones's strength, and the night he had kissed James Flint and Miranda Barlow and taken them to bed to breathe for the first time in ten years. He wanted to die thinking of Mariah Hallett, who had loved him despite the terrible injustice he had done to her, and he wanted to die thinking of a clear and perfect night under the Caribbean stars, and rum on a beach with his friends, with his family. He wanted to think of little Geneva Elizabeth Jones, and even her stubborn uncle Liam, and David Nolan. He wanted to think of home, and his sisters. Remembered their kisses and their tears as he left their poor farm in Hittisleigh, in rural Devonshire, a boy from nowhere who meant to be a man that everyone would know, and told them that he was going to make his fortune.

Another wave slammed him down, down and down, such a long way down, into the blackness of the undertow, and the crushing force of the submerged boulders. Sam was aware of the pain, but only distantly. He was not coming up this time, he knew, and he felt his air begin to run out, his mouth fill with salt and sand. He breathed one last time, and only water rushed into his lungs. But in his head, brilliant as a burning star until it began to fade, until all the lights went out, he was air, and sun, and fire, and there was no defeat, no death, no sundering. Only him, and the darkness that moved over the face of the deep, and the soft arms of the sea.