She shook her head, and a pit opened in her stomach. He was going to kill her. He was going to drag her to Dagon himself, and slit her throat under the water.
Maybe she could still get out of here. Closing her eyes, she began to whisper the transformation spell, but in the next second a hand clamped over her mouth, shoving her against a wall. Her head knocked against the wood, and pain blasted through her skull.
His eyes flashed with a bright light, like St. Elmo’s fire. “I want to know what you knew before you came here. Don’t lie to me.” His hand slid from her mouth.
Panic ignited her nerves. There was nothing left but the truth. “I didn’t know he’d ever been to Gloucester until I got to Dogtown. The werewolves told me he’d tortured people to death. That he was looking for pirate gold.”
“He was looking for the relic. He thought it was gold. It isn’t.”
Fiona’s heart skipped a beat. “You have the relic?”
“It’s what we guard.”
She loosed a shaky breath. “So what is it?”
“It’s useless to you. It’s not gold, if that’s what you’re after. It’s the finger bone Nod wears around his neck, and it will do nothing for you, unless you’re already a demon.”
Shit. She’d never get that off him, even if she became a Picaroon. “I’m not after gold. I’m not like my father.”
“So you just innocently ended up here?”
“I didn’t know of any connection until you told me your father had been killed; that it was his body on the beach. That’s when I knew. But I couldn’t tell you. The werewolves want to kill me. The Purgators want to kill me. I had nowhere else to go.” It somehow felt good to tell Lir, like a confession. “I saw him on the beach, after he was dead. The sea washed the sand off him.”
Lir relaxed his grip on her, and his face softened. “The sea is death to you.” He stepped back, running a hand through his hair. “You’re here because you had no other options. I thought you were just a spoiled girl looking for adventure.”
She lifted her shoulders. “I was until March. But a lot’s changed since then.”
He glanced away. “I didn’t want you here.”
“You made that clear.”
“It’s not because I don’t like you. It’s because Dagon kills indiscriminately. He takes more and more souls every year. And then there’s the recruits murdering each other. It’s insane that we’re still doing this, hurling one life after another into the sea to feed him. I watched my two younger brothers plunge into the depths, and they never made it out again. They were fourteen and fifteen. I let them die.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“I could’ve stood up to Nod. At least, I could’ve tried.”
“Is that what came to pass?” she asked. “Your vision showed you something that came true.”
“That was it. And here’s the thing. Out of those who survive, most aren’t the same. They lose their humanity.”
“Even Nod?”
“Especially Nod. He won’t let the dream of the Guardians die, even though it no longer makes any sense. Even though we have to kidnap people to join us. Dagon has taken over his mind like a sickness. I’ve been telling myself all our recruits were degenerates and criminals, so it didn’t matter. But I was lying to myself. Some of them are, but we’ve been taking innocent people from Dogtown. Jacques has watched his friends die, not saying a word, but I know he’s breaking inside. When you volunteered—it made it that much harder to live with the lie. We’re just murderers. We pull people from their homes, and we send them to their deaths. What else can you call it but murder? I can’t live with it anymore.”
“So why don’t you leave?”
“He demands lifelong service,” he said. “The others would hunt me down and kill me.”
Coldness washed over her. “So even if I live, I’m stuck here for life and might lose my humanity.”
“There’s a good chance.”
She hugged herself. “I think I might be evil.” She didn’t mean to say it; the words just came out.
“Why? Did you kill the other recruits?”
“No.”
His brow crinkled. “Then why?”
“It’s in my blood.”
He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. We’re all animals here, but until you go on a rage-fueled killing spree, you’re not evil. You just need to survive. Dagon will show you things you don’t want to see, and you’ve got to get through it without losing your mind.”
Too bad for me, it’s already half gone.
* * *
There was an oddly festive atmosphere on the ship as they sailed to Fiddler’s Green by the setting sun. Valac played his fiddle, and Nod and Marlowe sat on the deck, working their way through a staggering amount of rum. Ives leaned against the mainmast, sipping his drink. There was nothing behind his pale eyes—just a deep, vast emptiness.