Within the time it takes for my air-dried eyes to blink, we plummet over the edge of a waterfall that looks miles and miles long from our dizzying height. All I can see is sky and grey and death, and death, and death. My lungs burn with fire and my stomach wrenches as my lifeline pulls taught.

I'm flying, my clothing whipping ferociously in the wind. Everyone is in the air, tumbling, tumbling with the ship, hauled by ropes that look so small and frail against the vast expanse of sea spray and nothingness.

I regret pursuing this trip. I regret trusting the captain, the madman. I regret—"AUGH!"

My cheekbone throbs and I raise my pounding head from the deck. All the ropes are slack again. All the men are grounded. I stare, all around, uncomprehending.

The sails are all tilted slightly upwards, filled like parachutes. All is quiet and still and peaceful, just for a moment, as we glide through the grey, steady on.

"Walter," Captain Avery croaks from behind me.

Turning, my breath catches. He looks pained, his knees bent weakly inwards.

"You must... will the sails to catch the wind. Will the ship to glide." His fingers tremble on the wheel. "I'll pass out, Walter. Please, focus."

I don't understand. I don't know what to do, I don't know what he is doing, I don't even know if I am alive. I take a deep, shaky inhale, and cast my eyes to the sails. I think very hard, projecting my desperation upon them, pleading for them to stay full of the air. I beg Laod, Astiza, and Daim, and every god I can think up for some kind of miracle.

The sails flaps and the ship drops a meter, then catches again. The captain has fallen over the helm.

Feeling my heart squeeze and fear carve up my spine like a knife, I snap all my focus into the sails and will, will away. I feel foolish, but some painful and sudden twinge in my heart tells me something real is happening.

"That's it," the captain whispers, "that's it."

I screw up my face and don't answer. A muscle of some kind compresses in my chest, like a great weight, and I can't fathom it, but it isn't the time to. I just keep willing, in the fear that if I stop, for even a second, Orpheus and all aboard may be pummeled to flotsam far below.

"I'm going to rest now," Captain Avery murmurs.

I peek to see him slide from the helm and wearily pull his crutch from its holster. He limps two steps and collapses against the stern rail, slumping on the deck. Dorian holds the wheel in place, not tall enough to even see over it.

"We're okay, Hank," squeaks the fox. "We've made it home."

It's okay for me to look around, I realize. Like with breathing, I can do other things while my will remains firm. Very hesitantly, and very carefully, I tread to the side of the ship and peer over. I glance back at the sails, and we are fine, and I will and will for things to remain that way. Stay full, now, you sails. I grit my teeth, my eyes flicking from the billowed sheets above to the thick mist and clouds below. And you stay focused, Walter. Leslie climbs up the stairs to the stern deck and takes the helm from the fox.

Dorian scurries to sit with the captain, tenderly holding his hand.

The sea mist is thinning as the ship gradually descends through. Far in the distance, I can see flecks of green peeking through the cloud cover. I start to see turquoise glittering many feet below us. Then, three islands, each small and covered with green bush and mixtures of black and golden sand. Seabirds ride on air currents, the wet air slicking their backs with damp. In the lagoon, small, wooden boats bob. A larger brig floats further from the shore. All the vessels are empty.

It feels isolated, tropical, peaceful, despite the rushing waterfall that wraps around it. Like the eye of a hurricane, it is calm, though danger looms below and surrounds us from all directions.

Someone begins to sing, attempting to liven our ghostly crew. Elian. Gradually, more voices join, breathy and filled with heavy relief. The captain quietly mumbles the words under his breath, eyes half-open.

O, the stars, they guide us.

O, the sea, she swells.

By the crests we rose up,

And down the troughs we fell.

The sun comes in the morning,

But never do we rise.

A pirate's life condemns us,

But never shall we die.

I join in when the verse repeats, learning the words as we go, and it calms me. The pressure in my chest becomes easier to ignore.

A life at sea is merry,

While life on land is dry,

We sail for what we stand for,

With a twinkle in our eye.

Far, far away, I pick up on a muted boom, and my lips purse.

"What was that?" the captain growls, sitting up.

My eyes narrow, searching over the air, the water, the islands, for the source. Something round and black is growing larger.

"CANONFIRE!" Leslie bellows, wheeling the ship to the side.

My heart flutters and I scramble away from the railing. The ship drops a meter, tilted sails flapping wildly before I ground myself and catch us. The captain curses at me, but I keep my eyes fixed above, knuckles white against the rails once again.

The cannon ball whistles over the deck. It takes the main mast down with it as it arcs back towards the lagoon. Men rain from the rigging and run from its path. The pressure in my chest clenches tighter.

I gasp and plead the remaining sails to remain full. We're dropping faster. Deckhands assemble to heave the mast the rest of the way over the side and it plummets out of sight.

"Get on the guns!" Captain Avery yells. He rises and swings on his crutch until he stands at the railing beside me, before the helm. "Return fire!"

Harvey Cobbe begins to screech further orders, rolling out the starboard cannons. Men heave the shots into the great black barrels and hold smoking forked sticks to fuses. I cover my ears as they begin to fire. I stagger as an enemy shot blasts through the hull and shakes the ship and my nerves to the point that we are free falling again, cannon shots hissing overhead.

"WALTER!" the captain screams. He saves us before I do, steadying the ship in the sky. Paler than anything, red branches climbing the whites of his eyes. All the men stumble to get up again after the drop.

Knees knocking, I train my attention to the sails and feel the crushing burden on my chest once more. Captain Avery leaves me to it and barks commands at sailors, gesturing wildly to the barracks on the largest islet.

Harvey Cobbe raises Lucy to his shoulder, planting his sandaled feet on the dusty, damaged deck. The gun whirs with life and power and mechanical energy and with a great hum and a loud blast, a torpedo of white light blasts from the barrel and screams through the air.

On contact with the barracks below, the entire area is engulfed in black, then in flames, and all the ripples in the lagoon are flattened to sheets, and for a second, all the sound seems to rush to that single point of impact. With an ear-shattering pop, every noise and every movement rushes back with twice the volume, the size, the speed.

Tidal waves tear away from the beach where the barracks burn and collide with the even taller swells from the waterfall's wake. Trees tremor so violently that leaves and palm fronds drop from branches and trunks as if beaten. The sand lifted from the explosion rains down. The barracks, reduced to dust, scatters over the land and water.

"Take us to that bay, there, Leslie, Walter," the captain orders, with a finger directed to the slowly calming waters before the ruins. "Land on the beach or the shallows. This ship is no longer seaworthy."

I nod. Leslie grunts.

The captain swings down to the main deck, meeting with Officer Langley. The officer hands him a spyglass and points to somewhere on the island, where clay buildings stand, becoming more and more clear as the distance closes.

My medical companions tend to sailors on deck. Mrs. Marks wraps a bandage around her own arm. The Aquians creep into the sunlight from below.

Sweat peels down my brow.

"Nearly there," Leslie mutters.

The glistening water, still rippling in the aftermath of Cobbe's ghastly gunfire, is only a few meters from our keel. Through clear water, the sand and shells of the shallows can be made out. Leslie wheels the ship towards the beach.

Bodies lie in the mess. Like my mother, they do not move. Like my mother, they are blackened. Like my mother, they have no eyes. I shudder, and the ship falls with my heart and my courage. Shouts reverberate from the crew.

The Orpheus collides with the sand, disturbing the water and quaking the hulls. Everything falls sideways, and I find myself tripping, tripping down and down until I am soaked and covered in sand. I want to sleep. I need to sleep. My limbs feel like deadweight.

"On your feet," I hear the captain growl, speaking to every one of us trembling on the ground. "We have company."

Pushing myself onto my hands and knees, I lift my eyes to the edge of the beach, where the blackened tropical trees sway. The leaves deeper in rustle. I see a hand. To the left of it, I see feet, and beyond them, I see rows of faces appearing through the green and ash, and the flashing of the weapons in their grasps.