Page 109 of Foul Days

“Do you have any idea if we’re going in the right direction? Since Blackbeard fell overboard…”

“You mean, since I threw him.”

“Since he fell.”

Kosara looked around. She had no idea where to even begin. Of course, she’d read plenty of romance novels taking place on pirate ships. She knew the wheel was something like a bicycle’s handlebar, which could be used to change directions. The masts were the long poles on which the sails hung, and the hold was the place where the young captain often found himself shirtless while the heroine’s loins burned.

Kosara fished the compass out of her bra, ignoring the way Asen quickly averted his eyes. She opened the lid. As far as she could tell, they still moved in the right direction.

“Safina,” she shouted, just as she’d heard Blackbeard do, “steady as she goes!”

Nothing changed.

“Will it work?” Asen asked.

“With a bit of luck.”

Asen said nothing, but it was written on his face what he thought about their luck so far. They stood there for a long moment, the silence stretching between them.

“Listen, about earlier—” Kosara started.

Asen waved a hand. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. We have enough problems as it is.”

Kosara didn’t dare hope, but she’d noticed that “we.” “You mean you won’t abandon me and go back to Chernograd?”

“What? No. A bit too late for that, don’t you think?”

Kosara stifled her sigh of relief. But then, the doubts started to surface again. How come he still wanted to go to the palace? What exactly did he hope to find there?

Not now, she told herself sternly. She’d pushed him enough for one night. Now, all that was left for her to do was apologise. Easy. No problem. She could say she was sorry. She’d apologised before, surely, and she’d survived. She took a deep breath. “I just wanted to say—”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Go to bed, Kosara. You look like death.”

She gave him a pointed look, her hair dripping salty water on the carpet.

“I mean, you look exhausted,” he said. “Goodnight.”

He turned around and left her there, soaking wet, shivering under his coat.

She walked back to her cabin and hid under the blankets. The nightmares lurked in the dark corners of her mind, ready to pounce as soon as she fell asleep. She was simply too tired to stay awake.

Blackbeard’s face floated behind her shut eyelids, pale and swollen, seaweed rotting in his hair. “Where’s my compass?” he shouted over and over again. “Where’s my compass?”

He splashed among the waves, fighting to stay afloat, and around him, the sea spat out corpse after corpse: Irnik, Algara, Nevena in her blood-splattered nightgown …

Kosara woke up early the next morning, tangled in the sheets. Her face was wet with tears and cold sweat. She could still hear Blackbeard.

“Where’s my compass? Where is it?”

One of the rusalkas must have stolen his voice. Kosara’s skin crawled. She knew she couldn’t listen to his raspy screams and stay sane for much longer.

Thankfully, Blackbeard’s screams weren’t the only thing she heard. The sound of waves crashing against the shore echoed in the distance. Through the open window, the breeze brought the smell of brine and seaweed, but there was something else, too. A smell which sent a shiver down Kosara’s spine. Magic.

The Zmey’s palace was close.

* * *

When Kosara emerged from her cabin in her mother’s fiery-red gown, with her eyelids painted in flame-bright orange and her lips the red of smouldering coals, Asen was waiting for her. He leaned on the wall, watching the sea through a tiny circular window.

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