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Back The Abyss Surrounds Us Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Dedication
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. Acknowledgments
  37. About the Author

Of course he doesn’t. She’s doing nothing to provoke him, nothing to make him see the worth in lunging for her. And somehow I doubt Santa Elena is slow enough to let herself get caught by him.

I know what really stays Bao, though. It’s something that’s instinctive to every monster I’ve ever worked with—the recognition of when you’re overpowered. Bao sees the hurricane behind Santa Elena, and he respects it. He sees no storm in me.

Not yet.

“You’re going to do great things someday, you little beast,” the captain tells him, She leans back and grins. “You and me, we’re going to take the seas for our own.” Her gaze flicks to me. “You named him after steamed buns.”

“If you’d like, you can call him Bao Bao instead,” I tell her, shifting the vowels slightly as I speak.

“Is that any different?”

“It means ‘precious baby.’”

Santa Elena nods, her teeth bared in a smile that edges on consternation. She knows I’m playing games—she’s watching all the little tricks I pull. They’re nothing compared to the grand game she’s set up that ties me with this Reckoner and with Swift, but they’re enough to get under her skin, and that’s all I need from them.

“Enjoy motherhood,” Santa Elena tells me as she turns and shuffles back for the hatch, her bathrobe swishing around her.

“I’m not a mother,” I repeat.

“You’re living to keep something else alive, Cassandra. What else could that make you?”

10

10

My next set of visitors comes crashing onto the trainer deck a few days later, lead by Swift’s vicious smile. I’m in the middle of measuring Bao, which is a monumental task on its own. He squirms away from me every time I try to yank him close enough to the tank’s edge to loop the measuring tape over the back of his shell, and I’ve just about lost my patience when all five of Santa Elena’s lackeys tumble through the door.

“What—” I start, but then falter. They’re a pack of wolves, all tooth and bond, and even though they’ve just intruded on my world, any word toward them feels like I’m intruding into theirs.

Chuck holds something huge and flat and plastic over her head, and it takes me a second to recognize it as a cobbled-together wakeboard. “First ride’s mine!” she declares as she throws it down on the deck.

The clatter makes Bao snort, and I jerk my hand away from him as his beak snaps shut. Varma slides up to my side, a curious twinkle in his eye. “What’re you up to?”

“Nothing, now,” I huff as Bao shies underwater. Reckoners get testy when they feel crowded, and five new people on the deck is more than enough to make him retreat.