If I’m too late—

I can’t afford to—

But I feel the sensation start to curdle somewhere in the back of my throat, the urge to come crashing down, to become the reckoning that I’m owed after so long at Santa Elena’s mercy. If she dares take my last good thing, there’ll be no saving her. She thought that using Swift as a shield would protect the Minnow.

But she underestimated me. I played my cards, I laid in wait, I let myself be beaten and manipulated. If she keeps that promise she made to me, I’ll show her the truth I’ve learned on her boat. I don’t just raise monsters.

I am one.

Bao breaks the surface with a growl that shakes me to the bones, and I squint through the spray, searching for the lights of boats on the horizon.

I find them. Three of them. The Minnow’s retreating shadow barely glows in the distance, but bound right for it are two keels that blaze brightly half a league’s length from us. There’s still time. I flick the Otachi to charge. There’s no holding back now.

Bao lunges after his lights with every last ounce of speed he can give. The pursuit is defenseless, their Reckoners dismembered, their guns their only hope against me and my beast. If we can catch them in time, it’s all over.

I point Bao under the water and we plunge beneath the waves again. This time I brace against it, keeping my feet firmly planted on his head. The night betrays the Otachi beams too much for us to stay above—it would tell them exactly where to point their guns. But in the shadows of the NeoPacific, their shots are uncertain, their aim thrown off by the refraction of the water. All we’ll have to do is kill the engines.

With the water cutting over my face, with Bao’s strength beneath my feet, I feel invincible. I nudge him upward, teasing us toward the surface until my head skims out of the sea, just enough to check our position and adjust before we dive again. No lasers sweep over the waters from the pursuit boats. They’ve long since given up on their beasts after they disappeared into the depths with Bao.

We prowl the night, every bit the ancient horror we were meant to be.

When I next edge my head past the surface, the boats have split off from the Minnow’s tail, turning their bows toward us. Our approach is no secret. Their radar tells them exactly where we are every time we brush the surface, but once we take to the depths, we drop out of their sight on all frequencies. The darkness is ours.