A gasp escaped in a stream of air as the blade sliced his coat sleeve and bit deep into his arm. Instantly the water began to cloud with blood.
“As Steno,” he said, the words muffled by the water, his last expelled breath, but still audible and brimming with intent. The mercenary went rigid as his body turned from human flesh to stone and plummeted down toward the sea floor. Kell surged urgently upward in reflected movement and broke through the surface of the waves. From where he was, he could see the attackers’ shallow rafts, handholds spelled from wood and steel leading up from the water to the Ghost’s deck.
Kell climbed, his arm throbbing and his waterlogged clothes weighing him down with every upward step, but he made it, hauling himself over the side.
“Sir, look out!”
Kell spun as the killer came at him, but the man was drawn up short by Hastra’s sword slashing through his back. The assassin folded, and Kell found himself staring into the young guard’s terrified eyes. Blood splattered Hastra’s face and hands and curls. He looked unsteady on his feet.
“Are you hurt?” asked Kell urgently.
Hastra shook his head. “No, sir,” he said, his voice trembling.
“Good,” said Kell, retrieving the assassin’s knife. “Then let’s take back this ship.”
IV
Holland was sitting on his cot, studying the band of silver on his thumb, when he heard Lila storming up the stairs, heard the splash of something heavy breaking water, the tread of too many feet.
He rose, and was halfway to the door when the floor tilted and his vision plunged into black, all of his power bottoming out for a sudden, lurching moment.
He scrambled for strength, felt his knees hit the floor, his body a thing severed from his power as someone else pulled on his magic as if it were a rope.
For a terrifying instant, there was nothing, and then, just as suddenly, the room was back, resolving just as it had been before, only now there were shouts overhead, and a burning ship beyond the window, and someone was coming down the steps.
Holland forced himself up, his head still spinning from the shortness of magic.
He tore the abandoned chains from the wall, wrapped them around his hands, and staggered out into the corridor.
Two strangers were coming toward him.
“Kers la?” said one as he let himself stumble, fall.
“A prisoner,” said a second, seeing the glint of metal and assuming—wrongly—that Holland was still bound.
He heard the hiss of blades sliding free from sheaths as he drew his borrowed power back in like a breath.
Holland’s blood sang, magic flooding his veins anew as the intruder’s hand tangled in his hair, wrenching his head back to expose his throat. For a single beat, he let them think they’d won, let them think it would be so easy, and could almost feel their guard lower, their tension ebb.
And then he sprang, twisting up and free in a smooth, almost careless motion and wrapping the chains around his foe’s throat before turning the vise from iron to stone. He let go and the man toppled forward, clawing uselessly at his neck as Holland drew the blade from his hip and sliced the second man’s throat.
Or tried to.
The killer was fast, dodging back one step, two, dancing around the blade the way Ojka used to, but Ojka never stumbled, and the killer did, erring just long enough for Holland to knock him over and drive the sword down through his back, skewering the man to the floor.
Holland stepped over the writhing bodies and toward the steps.
The scythe came out of nowhere, singing in its special way.
If Athos and Astrid hadn’t favored the vicious curls of steel, if Holland hadn’t dreamed of using the curved blades to cut their throats—he would have never recognized the tone, would not have known how and when to duck.
He dropped to a knee as the scythe embedded in the wall above his head, and turned just in time to catch a second blade with his bare hands. The steel cut quick and deep, even as he fought to cushion the blow, willing metal and air and bone. The killer leaned into the blade, and Holland’s blood dripped thickly to the floor, triumph turning to fear on the man’s face as he realized what he’d done.
“As Isera,” said Holland, and ice surged out from his ruined palms, swallowing blade and skin in the space of a breath.
The scythe slipped from frozen fingers, Holland’s own hands singing with pain. The cuts were deep, but before he could bind them, before he could do anything, a cord wrapped around his throat. His hands went for his neck, but two more cords came out of nowhere, cinching each wrist and forcing his arms wide.
“Hold him,” ordered an assassin, stepping over and around the few bodies littering the corridor. In one hand she held a hook. “They want the eye intact.”
Holland didn’t lash out. He went still, taking stock of their weapons and counting the lives he’d add to his list.
As the killer stalked toward him, his hands began to prickle with unfamiliar heat. The echo of someone else’s magic.
Lila.
Holland smiled, wrapped his fingers around the ropes, and pulled—not on the cords themselves, but on the other Antari’s spell.
Fire erupted down the ropes.
The twisted threads snapped like bones, and Holland was free. With a slash of his hand, the lanterns shattered, the corridor went dark, and he was on them.
V
The Sea Serpents were good.
Frighteningly good.
Certainly better than the Copper Thieves, better than all the pirates Lila had come across in those months at sea.