As if summoned, a shape appeared on the horizon. It was a dark speck against the brilliant blue sky, but to be visible at this distance, it had to be large. Through the telescope, the ship took on a vague outline, its tower rising into the sky like several vicious animals clawing toward the top of a mountain.

“Do you know this ship?” Caledonia asked, relinquishing the scope to Hesperus.

The man bent to study the approaching vessel through the narrow lens. His fingers curled lightly around the cylinder, barely brushing the smooth metal, and his lips pursed. He remained this way for several seconds, breathing evenly through his nose as the ship drew nearer.

Finally, he straightened, turning a pinched gaze on Caledonia. “Well, Captain, you’ve done it.”

“What, exactly?”

“You’ve drawn the man himself. That’s the Titan. I never thought I’d have the misfortune to see it again.” He swept a hand across the ocean in a grand gesture. Appearing behind the ominous ship of Aric Athair were dozens of other smaller ships, all racing toward Cloudbreak. “Welcome to your war. Please, keep it out of my harbor.”

Chapter Forty-nine

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The wharf was fully alive.

Pisces stood atop her deepship, surveying the scramble across the wharf as fifty-three of their crew found their ships and vanished inside. At the other end of the wharf, Ares did the same, waiting for Pine to join him. The remainder of Caledonia’s crew were already aboard the Luminous Wake, awaiting her arrival.

“Report, Pi!” Caledonia called.

“All crew present and accounted for,” the girl responded. “Underway in two minutes!”

“Send them to the deep, Pi!” she called.

“With pleasure, Captain!”

Pisces’s hair was freshly shorn, and she studied the dashing scene around her with an air of complete calm and control. Caledonia allowed herself a brief second to admire her friend and sister before she had to move on.

She and Pine strode down the wharf toward the tender that would transport her to the Luminous Wake. She looked into every face she passed. There was Tin, corralling her sisters into a single deepship; there was Harwell, vibrating with his perfect blend of anticipation and anxiety; and there was Folly, going off to fight without Pippa at her side.

She’d prepared herself for this moment. Her crew was so large and the scale of this battle so dispersed that there had been no time for anything other than giving orders for the battle to come. She’d said no goodbyes and hardened her heart against the part of her that wanted to stop right now and pull everyone close, to return to a life of hitting hard and running fast in an effort to keep everyone alive. To go back to the moment in time when she didn’t know all the terrible pieces of Oran’s past.

“Here, Captain.” Pine spoke in her ear to be heard over the din.