I let my hands slip down around his head until I’m cradling his jaw, my grip snug on the bones that jut out there. I kick my feet once, twice, urging him to follow me upward. So long as I hold his jaw, he can’t bite me. So long as we’re connected, I’m safe.

And Bao follows my push until we break the surface. He blasts air out of his blowholes and squalls, tossing his head. I let him lift me just a bit, my respirator crackling as I laugh through it. I glance up at the trainer deck, where Santa Elena towers over us. There’s a flash of disappointment in her eyes that a savage grin quickly replaces.

That’s right, bitch, I think, my fingers crimped so tightly on Bao’s jaw that they’ve gone bone-white. If you want me dead, do it yourself.

Just beyond her, I catch the quick motion of Swift lifting her head, but the smile she wears is nothing like the captain’s. It’s the smile that cracks through right when you’re on the edge of tears, the smile that comes in the wake of sheer, numbing fear. I lived, and so Swift gets to live too. I see another flicker of movement, this time the flash of a middle finger that jabs up toward the captain’s turned back.

“Swift, put out an all-call for the rest of the crew. I think this’ll be good for them to see,” Santa Elena snaps, and Swift stows the gesture just as quickly as she whipped it out.

Ten minutes later, the Minnow’s brethren are packed onto the trainer deck, all leering out at me in the water. In the front of the crowd, I spot Varma dangling a bill over Chuck. She has to jump to swipe the money from him, but there’s a self-satisfied grin that accompanies it and lets me know that I just helped her win a bet. And it seems like Varma bet against me. That’s interesting.

Bao’s large eyes flick back and forth, taking in the crowd staring down at him. He hasn’t been around this many people since the day he was born, and I worry that it’ll throw some switch in him, something that will make him dangerous. Already he’s starting to lean away from my grip, and I can feel the tension in him building, like a wound-up spring ready to burst forward.

Santa Elena’s got one arm wrapped around her son, the other resting easily on the gun in her holster. She looks like a founder of a city, meant to be immortalized in bronze. “Well done, Cassandra,” she says, her tone musical.

Her praise stings, but I can’t let it take my focus.