“As I understand it, you have to be the one,” said Sturmhond, holding the knife out to me once more. I eyed the privateer, wondering how much he might know about amplifiers, and this amplifier in particular.

“Go on,” he said. “We need to get moving. The Darkling’s ship is disabled, but it won’t stay that way.”

The blade in Sturmhond’s hand gleamed dully in the sun. Grisha steel. Somehow I wasn’t surprised.

Still, I hesitated.

“I just lost thirteen good men,” Sturmhond said quietly. “Don’t tell me it was all for nothing.”

I looked at the sea whip. It lay twitching on the deck, air fluttering through its gills, its red eyes cloudy, but still full of rage. I remembered the stag’s dark, steady gaze, the quiet panic of its final moments.

The stag had lived so long in my imagination that, when it had finally stepped from the trees and into the snowy glade, it had been almost familiar to me, known. The sea whip was a stranger, more myth than reality, despite the sad and solid truth of its broken body.

“Either way, it won’t survive,” the privateer said.

I grasped the knife’s hilt. It felt heavy in my hand. Is this mercy? It certainly wasn’t the same mercy I had shown Morozova’s stag.

Rusalye. The cursed prince, guardian of the Bone Road. In the stories, he lured lonely maidens onto his back and carried them, laughing, over the waves, until they were too far from shore to cry for help. Then he dove down, dragging them beneath the surface to his underwater palace. The girls wasted away, for there was nothing to eat there but coral and pearls. Rusalye wept and sang his mournful song over their bodies, then returned to the surface to claim another queen.

Just stories, I told myself. It’s not a prince, just an animal in pain.

The sea whip’s sides heaved. It snapped its jaws uselessly in the air. Two harpoons extended from its back, watery blood trickling from the wounds. I held up the knife, unsure of what to do, where to put the blade. My arms shook. The sea whip gave a wheezing, pitiful sigh, a weak echo of that magical choir.

Mal strode forward. “End it, Alina,” he said hoarsely. “For Saints’ sake.”

He pulled the knife from my grip and dropped it to the deck. He took hold of my hands and closed them over the shaft of one of the harpoons. With one clean thrust, we drove it home.

The sea whip shuddered and then went still, its blood pooling on the deck.

Mal looked down at his hands, then wiped them on his torn shirt and turned away.

Tolya and Tamar came forward. My stomach churned. I knew what had to come next. That isn’t true, said a voice in my head. You can walk away. Leave it be. Again, I had the sense that things were moving too fast. But I couldn’t just throw an amplifier like this back into the sea. The dragon had already given up its life. And taking the amplifier didn’t necessarily mean that I would use it.