Chapter 35 Choices and Costs
I found him where I always did.
Corner booth. Chair tipped back like he trusted the balance of it more than the floor. Hat low, shadow cutting across his face so clean it felt deliberate.
For a second, I just stood there.
Watched him breathe.
Watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, like nothing in the world could reach him in that sliver of quiet he carved out for himself.
Then I moved.
Slid into the seat across from him hard enough the table gave a small protest.
His chair thumped back down onto all four legs.
His eyes found mine under the brim.
“You look haunted,” he said.
There was the start of a smile there, tugging at the corner of his mouth like he expected me to snap back, say something sharp, make it easy.
I didn’t.
The words came out before I could shape them into something safer.
“A One-eyed man came in at noon,” I said. “Looked like the sea chewed him up and spit him back wrong.”
His brow twitched.
I kept going.
“Talked about a ship split open. Said the crew didn’t make it back down in one piece.” My fingers tightened on the edge of the table without me noticing. “Said it was a demon. Said there’s an island—Isle of Storms. Gold buried there. Storm never leaves. Dead don’t stay down.”
I waited for it.
The laugh. The shrug. The easy dismissal.
Something to make it small again.
It didn’t come.
The hint of a smile drained out of his face like someone had pulled it loose.
He went still.
Really still.
His gaze dropped to the cup in his hand, watching the last of the rum cling to the sides like it might tell him something if he stared long enough.
The quiet stretched.
Too long.
Too tight.
“The Isle of Storms is real.”
The words landed soft.
Heavy.
I blinked. “You’ve heard of it?”
He nodded once.
Didn’t look up.
“Old captains used to use it to scare the green ones,” he said. “Keep them in line. We all thought it was just… a story.”
His thumb dragged along the rim of the cup, slow, distracted.
“But there’s a reason the charts go blank out there.”
Something cold slid through me.
I leaned in without thinking, elbows brushing the edge of the table. “What reason?”
He lifted his hand then.
Palm up.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
The marks.
Faint, but there—thin, twisted lines crossing his skin, not quite scars I recognized. Rope burn, maybe. Or something worse.
My gaze lingered a second too long.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
His fingers curled slightly, like he was deciding whether to hide it.
He didn’t.
“The Cap before me,” he said, voice rougher now, “took a run at it.”
My chest tightened.
“Took the whole crew,” he went on. “Chasing that gold.”
He huffed a breath that didn’t quite make it to a laugh.
“One man came back.”
The room around us faded again.
Just the table. The lamp. Him.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Fisk’s jaw tightened.
“Said he hid three days in the wreckage,” he said. “Listened to his crew scream the whole time.”
My stomach turned.
“That’s why The Ghost doesn’t run salvage,” he finished.
Silence dropped between us.
Thick.
I studied him.
The set of his shoulders. The way his hand hadn’t quite relaxed again. The way he still hadn’t looked at me.
“So,” I said slowly, “you’re afraid.”
That got a reaction.
A sharp breath. A short, humorless laugh as he finally leaned back, dragging his gaze up to mine.
“I’m not stupid, Siri.”
The way he said my name—
Low. Grounded.
Like he was trying to anchor something that didn’t want to stay put.
“Some things aren’t worth dying for.”
I leaned closer.
Didn’t stop this time.
“What if it’s not about the gold?”
His eyes locked on mine.
Really locked.
For a second, the rest of him dropped away—the easy grin, the sharp edges, the way he always held himself just out of reach.
What was left—raw. Unshielded.
“Then you better have a damn good reason,” he said.
Quiet.
Serious.
The words hit somewhere deeper than they should have.
My hand moved before I could stop it.
Up.
To my throat.
Nothing there.
Just skin.
But the ache flared anyway, sharp and sudden, like it remembered something I didn’t have anymore.
His gaze dropped.
Followed the movement.
Something in his expression shifted.
Softer.
Dangerous in a different way.
He leaned forward.
Slow.
Like he was giving me time to pull away.
I didn’t.
His hand crossed the table.
Stopped just short of mine.
Close enough that I could feel the heat of it. Close enough that if either of us moved an inch—
I didn’t breathe.
“We’re leaving soon,” he said.
The words cut through everything.
I blinked, the world snapping back into place around them.
“What?”
“I heard from Bram.” His voice steadied, but his hand didn’t move. “The Ghost’s coming into the cove at first light.”
The Ghost.
The name settled heavy in my chest.
Home.
Or something like it.
“You ready to go back?” he asked.
My mouth opened.
Yes sat right there.
Easy.
Familiar.
Safe in a way the unknown never was.
I almost said it.
Instead, my fingers curled in on themselves.
I pulled my hand back, breaking the space between us before it could close.
Dropped it into my lap like I needed to hide it from him.
“I—”
The word caught.
Fell apart.
I shook my head, barely.
“I don’t know.”
It came out softer than I meant. Thin.
Honest in a way I didn’t like.
He watched me.
Didn’t push.
Didn’t fill the silence.
Just leaned back slowly, like he was giving me room I hadn’t asked for but needed anyway.
His hand dropped to the table.
Picked up his cup.
Empty.
He drank it anyway, like the motion mattered more than what was in it.
“Get some rest,” he said, setting it down with a quiet thud. “We move at dawn.”
Move.
Not if.
When.
He stood before I could answer.
The bench scraped. The chair legs hit the floor steady this time.
I looked up.
He didn’t bow. Didn’t joke.
Just held my gaze for a second longer than he should have.
Then turned.
Walked away.
I watched him go.
Watched the set of his shoulders, the easy roll of his stride that didn’t match the tension I’d seen a moment before.
He didn’t look back.
—
Upstairs, the room felt too small.
Rain tapped against the window, soft at first, then harder, like it had something to prove.
I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, the ribbon still tied in my hair, the knot pressing faintly against my scalp.
The map rose behind my eyes. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Ink bleeding. Lines twisting. That empty little island sitting where it shouldn’t.
My fingers drifted to my throat again.
Empty.
Always empty.
Gold buried in a storm that never ended.
A ring lost to something I couldn’t reach.
The sea waiting.
It never let you keep anything.
Not for long.
I turned onto my side, pulling the thin blanket tighter around me, like that might hold something in place that wanted to slip.
If it came to it—
the choice.
The cost.
My chest tightened.
I stared into the dark, listening to the rain scrape and whisper against the glass.
Wondering what I’d be willing to lose
if it meant getting something back.
And worse—
whether I’d know the difference
when the time came.