“Don’t touch me!” I shout. I don’t care that everyone can see me, I don’t care that I’m trying to save the life of a boy who tried to get me killed yesterday. I scream and kick and pull at her arms, but her grip is like iron and her will like steel.

Santa Elena laughs. It starts as a chuckle and builds until she’s howling, and the crew’s laughing with her, their voices a barrage of tiny knives that slash at the strings holding me up. I fight against them, but they keep coming, keep cutting. I’ve been surrounded by these cutthroats for months, but I’ve never felt less safe than I do now. My breath’s almost choked out of me by Swift’s grip, and I realize that I’m crying. Ugly, fearful tears plunge down my neck to join the saltwater of the spray that kicks off the Minnow’s stern.

Out in the ocean, through the haze of water that clouds my vision, I can see the dark form of Bao approaching, only this time I can’t see him as a Reckoner, as my charge. He’s a monster, an ancient horror emerging from the depths and coming for blood.

There are only two other people on the deck not laughing now—Swift, who’s got her nose buried in the crook of my neck as she tries to restrain me, and Code, who’s finally stopped shaking. He’s got his head hung, as if he’s finally ready for what the captain’s about to do.

“Don’t,” I choke, clawing at Swift’s hands. “Please. This is gonna ruin everything. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

And for some reason this makes Santa Elena laugh even harder. “Cassandra, this is unbelievable,” she chuckles once she’s calmed herself. “You raised this beast to do exactly this. You’ve always raised these beasts to do this.”

“I raise ship-sinkers. Not maneaters,” I sob.

“Eaten, drowned, crushed. Dead is dead. And you raise monsters that deal death because you’re too clean to do it yourself. That’s shoregirl thinking, kid. Won’t do you no good out here.”

“Please,” I call out again.

“Muzzle her,” Santa Elena orders, and then Swift’s hand is over my mouth and I’m screaming against it, thrashing, trying to bite, but I can’t wrench my jaw open wide enough. I can only taste her skin and see the captain as she turns to face Bao, who’s drawn up alongside the trainer deck. His huge eyes roam over the crowd, and his beak rolls lazily open as he leans forward to nudge the beacon, just like I trained him to do.