33

“Nico!” My scream and the shot shatter the air at once.

Nicolas dives at the last second. The shot passes him and hits Rodgers, who stands against the wall as if frozen there by shock. The shot strikes him in the throat. His eyes widen, hands going to his neck, and perhaps later I will wish I had done something to help him, but in that moment, I do not care. I cannot care. I only care that the shot passed Nicolas, and he is safe. Jenkins will need to reload, so there is time to disarm him. I run at him, gladius raised.

Jenkins points the gun downward and rotates a lever. Then he’s lifting and pointing it again. It is already reloaded? How is that possible?

What matters is that it is reloaded, and Nicolas is still scrambling out of its path. There’s movement behind him. Emily, lurching from the captain’s quarters, her hands still bound. She’s right behind Nicolas, and that gun is rising.

My blade strikes Jenkins in the arm. His gun still fires, but the shot veers to the side. It hits Nicolas in the forearm, sending him staggering back. There is a gasp. A gasp that is not from Nicolas. Emily stands behind him, her hands going to her chest, blood seeping through her fingers.

For a moment, no one moves. Then Emily is slumping to the floor, clutching a bloody spot on her bodice, and Nicolas is dropping beside her.

“You shot your daughter,” I snarl at Jenkins. “Your own daughter.”

He stares at Emily. He blinks. Then he blinks harder, pulling back, and then lowering his gun and opening the chamber. It takes a heartbeat for me to realize what he’s doing. To comprehend what he’s doing. His daughter is on the floor, shot, and he is reloading his pistol.

With my sword, I strike Jenkins’s arm again, and I would sever it if that would make him drop the gun, but the blow hits wrong, the broad side striking the first wound. He cries out, and the gun drops, and I race between him and the weapon, forcing him back at sword point.

He goes for his sword, and a better fighter might know how to stop him before he draws it, but I am half in a panic, hearing Emily gasping, seeing Nicolas wounded, thinking only of getting Jenkins farther away from them so that Nicolas might tend to her.

Before I can speak, Jenkins’s sword arcs toward me. I parry, but I do it wrong, and the reverberation rings down my arm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nicolas reach for his own sword, his gaze on Jenkins’s, his muscles poised to leap up. I also see that he’s reaching for his sword . . . as blood soaks the sleeve of his forearm. He can fight, but he should not fight, especially not when he is needed so much more where he is.

“No,” I say. “Please. Help Emily.”