Back aboard the Mint, Nico urged Cosimo to depart the marina. Cosimo wasted no time; mooring lines were cut, masts were raised, and once again the Mint slipped out to sea. Nico stood at the ship’s stern and watched the sparkling city of Verona recede in the distance. He wondered idly if he would ever see it again, the gem of the Jewel Sea. It was his adopted home, his found family.

Later they regrouped in the Captain’s Quarters. Nico spread out the painting he had purloined, unrolling it and using glass cups to pin down the corners. It felt surreal to be viewing Telemachus’ beloved work in this setting, on the dining table of a rich prick’s glorified pleasure yacht. But stealing it was doubtless preferable to destroying it, and this way Nico could show Cosimo the clue for himself.

“Right there.” He pointed out the omitted detail. The clue. A sequence of numbers on the bottom left corner of the painting, just beneath an elm tree.

“Coordinates?” Cosimo seemed elated.

Nico nodded. “Coordinates to the next clue, or—”

“Or to Ilhen’s Seventh.”

“Perhaps,” admitted Nico. Frankly, he was not so sure.

“No no no,” said Maximilian, nursing his sprained arm. “This is just the first act. Nico finds a clue, makes some erroneous assumption, and later does a grand reveal. He’ll turn the numbers upside down and they’ll spell a message in Ancient Druin or some horseshit.”

“Oh, shut up Max,” said Cosimo, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.

“Ilhen’s Seventh is just a ruse,” Max continued. “And you’re a foolish old man for believing it.”

“Enough!” said Cosimo. “Bjørn, escort Max out of the room. If he resists, if he utters so much as a single syllable of protest, remove his tongue.”

Max’s face twisted in rage, but he stayed silent. He fled the room before Bjørn could force him out, slamming the door shut behind him with such force that the door frame strained.

“Insolent bastard,” muttered Cosimo. “I’ll go get my maps…”

When he returned, he flattened a map on the dining table, stretching out the curled corners.

“There,” Cosimo said, stabbing a finger at the coordinates. “Eastern Myriad Isles. An isle named Mercia on the edge of the archipelago.”

Leo and Nico exchanged dark looks. “Umm…” said Leo.

“What? What’s the matter? It’s not far… only a short trip.”

“A short trip dodging rocky shoals, vicious hydras, seductive sirens, and more, depending on which path you take. There is a reason they call these waters Skeleton’s Pass. Even the Diji avoid it.” The Diji were the native people of the Myriad Isles. Leo continued, “Normally I leap at any opportunity for reckless peril… alas, I’m not terribly fond of the sea.”

“We’ll take the northern pass,” Cosimo said, tracing his finger along the map.

“We’ll be dragon food,” said Nico dryly. “Dragons infest the northern territories.”

“Then we’ll go south, charting a wide berth around the southern tip, and then curl back west.”

“We’ll be swallowed whole by the Leviathan,” said Leo incredulously. “Haven’t you heard the tales about the Eastern Sea?”

“Old wives’ tales,” said Cosimo scornfully. “Sailors are a superstitious lot by principle. This Leviathan, I assure you, is a myth. And if we travel by the northern or eastern pass, we face certain annihilation. But from the South—”

“—only highly probably annihilation.”

Cosimo smiled. “I like those odds. Don’t you?”

***

It would take a full day to reach Mercia… if they reached it at all. Nico lay awake that night, unable to resume his Illusion studies, watching a shaft of purple moonlight pouring through the porthole. He was full of doubts about their predicament. Were the numbers truly coordinates? Was there, as Max intimated, a second, deeper meaning to them? Why had he been kidnapped in the Musea? What was the Black Cabal’s role in all this? And who sailed the black-hulled, black-sailed ship that had been chasing them?

He wrestled with these questions and more, before eventually settling into a restless slumber.

***

He dreamt that he was inside Ilhen’s Seventh. A colossal, faceless shadow loomed above, bearing down on him. It was massive, fifty feet high or taller, larger than most buildings. Its crooked black hand reached for Nico, and Nico backed up, turning to flee, and suddenly he was falling… falling…

…Falling off the bed. His knee crashed hard on the floor. The ship was listing to port. Voices of the crew shouted above.

“Hard to larboard! Harder!”

“All hands on deck!”

“Ready the harpoon! Ready the harpoon!”

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Leo vaulted out of bed, landing deftly beside Nico. “What the hell is going on out there?”

“What is it?” asked Gianna, rubbing her eyes. “It’s not — it’s not the Leviathan, is it?”

“Can’t be,” said Nico, rising gingerly as pain lanced up his right knee. “We’re too far from the Eastern Sea.”

Nico stepped up to the porthole. Outside, a tsunami wave rose hundreds of feet high, looming like a black wall. It was moving swiftly, bearing down on them, thrashing its…

Tentacles?

“Azrael above,” muttered Nico breathlessly. “It’s him. The Leviathan.”

He could scarcely believe his own eyes. It was a colossal specimen, so enormous it blotted out the moons and the stars. Its form was incomprehensible, undefinable, godlike and otherworldly. Its tentacles were thicker than tree trunks. As it closed the distance, they could see its multitude eyes — hundreds of them, thousands, spaced randomly on its gnarly form. It was an asymmetrical monstrosity.

“We have to get off the ship!” said Nico. “Get above deck, now!”

Leo was buckling his swords.

“Leave them or you’ll perish!” Nico shouted. “We have no time.” Despite his words, Nico himself was searching for one of his own prized possessions: his Disguise spell book. Where was it!? It wasn’t on the desk, it wasn’t on the floor. He threw back the quilted sheets on his bed and found nothing. And the painting, he thought with terror, the Telemachus is still in the Captain’s Quarters.

“Forget about it!” Gianna said, pulling Nico’s arm with all her might. “Both of you, stop being idiots. We have to go now!” She yanked harder on him, and reluctantly he yielded.

“Come on Leo!” Nico shouted. But Leo was arranging the baldric which contained Whisper. He was working efficiently, fingers nimbly working its straps and buckles, but he seemed otherwise indifferent.

“Right behind you,” he said calmly. “Go on.”

Above, the crew was shouting more frantically. Cosimo was screaming at the crew, instructing them to lower rafts. Gianna pushed the door open, and Nico followed after her. As they were climbing the stairs to the quarterdeck there was a deafening crash as a tentacle slammed down on the Mint.

They were plunging deep underwater. A spiked tentacle thrashed about. Blood mixed with flotsam and jetsam. With one hammering smash, the luxury galleon had been reduced to worthless splinters. Nico reached out, trying to grasp Gianna. He felt someone — or something — he didn’t know what.

Nico kicked his legs, swimming back up to the surface before his lungs burst. The crash had knocked the air out of him. He broke the surface, taking huge gulping breaths. Then waves sent him under again, and when he came back up the Leviathan loomed above, an otherwordly terror, an alien godbeast. It hovered over them, blotting out the sky in all directions. Up close, he could see the creature’s many hungry maws, its razor sharp teeth, its crimson eyes, and the many crusty pores of its skin oozing a strange green pus.

The mere sight of it extinguished all hope within Nico.

Another wave rolled over him, submerging him again. He came up, coughing and sputtering again. Something kicked him in the back of his head. He turned and found a corpse lying face-down in the water. It was Cosimo’s freckled maid.

“Leo! Gianna!” he called out. But there was no answer. How could they possibly hear him?

The ship’s stern was sinking, being swallowed by the hungry sea. Where is the Leviathan? It had vanished. The stars and the moons were visible once again in the silent night sky.

“Leo! Gianna!” he called again.

“Over here.” A faint voice called out to him. Gianna’s voice.

He turned and saw her in a raft, joined by Cosimo and others. Leo was already swimming towards it, wearing his three swords. Nico followed. When he reached the raft, Leo hauled him bodily out of the water. The effort caused the ship to rock back and forth, sloshing over the sides. The raft very nearly capsized.

Max shrieked. “Careful! You’re getting water on me. This is Edmiri dyed silk—”

“Shut up, Max,” Leo said. “Where’s Bjørn?” There were others still out there, bodies floating on the undulating sea, people screaming for aid, others clinging to debris.

“Over there,” Gianna said, pointing to the other side, “I think I see him. Look!”

Bjørn was about thirty feet away. He swam with perfect form, his strokes even and measured, cutting a smooth wake in the turbulent sea. Waves crashed over him, and a mast spar crashed on his back. Neither did anything to impede his progress.

Leo stood up in the raft again. “Help me, Nico. Help me lift Bjørn while keeping our balance.”

“What the fuck are you doing!?” Gianna screamed.

Startled, Leo looked at Gianna, whose eyes were fixed on Cosimo. Their patron had unveiled a crossbow he had been holding in his lap. He drew back its crank.

“Making an executive decision,” he said, standing up in the raft slowly. Bjørn was rapidly closing the distance. “The vessel only seats six. I would happily trade Bjørn for Max,” — he pointed the crossbow at Max’s head, poking the bolt into his temple and pricking the skin — “but Bjørn weighs twenty stone.”

Bjørn reached the raft and his head broke the surface. He used one meaty hand to wipe the seawater from his eyes, and the other to grip the gilded edge of the vessel. He looked up at Cosimo, blinking hard, not quite believing his eyes.

“Alas,” Cosimo continued, “sacrifices must be made.” He pulled the trigger and loosed the shaft, and it went through Bjørn’s throat. Blood ejected from his aorta. Gurgling, Bjørn’s grip slackened and he drifted away. A wave crashed over him and the sea claimed him.

“Mercy is a gift,” Cosimo said, a smile tugging at his lips as he surveyed the carnage around them. Screams and pleas for help could still be heard over the crashing sea. “Drowning is a terrible way to go.”

He enjoys the act of killing, Nico thought wildly. Cosimo a madman.

***

In morose silence they plowed their oars, quietly pondering their misfortune, the many lives so suddenly abbreviated. The ember of contempt Nico had felt upon first meeting Cosimo had now grown to a raging fire. If not for the guild’s debt, if not for their utter dependence upon Cosimo, Nico would happily slit the Qirini’s throat and be done with it all. Some men were so irredeemable, some men were such a malignant menace on society and the people around them that death was the only cure. But for now, Cosimo was a necessary evil.

They plowed steadily north as morning dawned.

It was tiring, backbreaking work — and they had meager provisions to sustain them. There was no food, and collectively they had only a waterskin (Max’s) and a wineskin (Cosimo’s — which he would not share). But the personal deprivation that haunted Nico most was the loss of his Disguise spell book. How can I possibly recover, without re-entering the Spire? And if I do, will I face the next level of challenges, which I am ill-prepared for? There was a possibility that the progress with his Illusion attunement was forever stunted.

As they rounded a rocky outcrop, their destination came into full view. An ivory castle was perched atop a cliff, standing august and resolute above the spray of the sea.

And in the bay below, another surprise awaited them. A ship — another galleon. The Spirit, her name spelled in silver lettering.

“Oh, fuck” Cosimo said. “Someone beat us here.”