They arrived at Deadmouth in the early hours, a black mark against summer breeze and lilac skies. Ocean waves attacked the cave. Thunder boiled beneath the water. When Scylla closed her eyes and breathed deep, the whole world smelled seafoam green. She leaned against the railing of The Nomad, chains rattling iron, and tried to relax her rage. This wasn’t home, but it was close. A single, piercing scream away. Beside her, Drake scowled with the half of his face that still worked. His fist squeezed knuckle-white around an iron pistol.
“Watch yourself, witch.”
Scylla cast him a bitter glare. She could almost taste his rage-sweat. Could almost feel the blood pumping through the vein on his forehead. Instead, her tongue burned with iron. The lock kept it quiet.
“You’ll die before you betray us again.”
Unable to talk, the sea sprite rattled her chains. The clink was musical. Waves crashed into The Nomad, listing with just a little more danger than was expected, and whirlpools formed around the hull. Scylla pointed a finger at one. It disappeared in a blink. She made a wish. Whirlpools made better wishes than shooting stars—they actually came true. One by one, Scylla vanished the dangers for her captor, untilthe pirate shiprested safe outside the cursed cave. Drake grunted a sound that may have been approval. He did not lower his gun.
“Good, but not good enough,” he said. “Not by a long shot.”
Scylla held up six fingers. The captain struck her with the butt of his weapon.
Drake was a harsh man with a soft background, the kind of boy that grows up never wanting yet always needing more. Eventually the thefts piled up so high it was either the seas or the noose. He choose piracy. In appearance, he stood tall, stone-faced and barrel-chested, dressed in black and covered in scar tissue. His knuckles were either white in restraint or stained red with blood. A fear aura draped his body like a wizard’s robe. His claim to strength was both in the magical and the mythical, though Scylla knew better. Four months ago, both halves of his face worked.
Four months ago, The Nomad carried a full crew. But 20 men had a strange way of becoming 14, and Scylla knew Deadmouth would claim the rest. Whirlpools granted wishes. Cursed caves contained cursed treasure. The sea sprite looked up. A small cloud hung softly in the sky. She was almost home.
Boots stomped as the rest of the crew filtered onto the hull. Like all pirates, they were a ragged bunch: hairy, broken, all kindness replaced with brute strength. A few moved like walking hangovers while most skulked like crows ready to rend. Those that didn’t carry guns kept swords or long knives, not capable of killing Scylla but sharp enough to cause pain. When the voyage began, they had taken turns, but now they gave the sea sprite a wide berth. It turned out, women and pirate ships made for ill luck. Rigging ropes became nooses, and dry decks slipped as if wet. Cooked food spoiled with poison. Scylla showed them her six fingers. When they cringed with fear, she grinned. It hurt to smile, burned with iron, but she couldn’t help herself. Not here, not when she was so close to freedom.
“Frhyftsyrz,” a skinny creature covered in coral jewelry sighed. He waved a wand. Scylla fell to her knees, wrists burning, her skin cracking apart. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. Her entire body felt like a ceramic bowl that had just been knocked from a counter.
The ship’s wizard jabbed a boney finger into the back of her neck. If the rest of the crew were crows, Roland was a cat. He liked to play with his food.
“You are not as close to freedom as you think you are,” he said. “Not here, not ever.”
Scylla tried to rise, but Drake put the barrel of his gun to the back of her head. It smoked against her skin. A whirlpool appeared beneath the ship, and after a nod from the wizard, Scylla made it vanish.
“I wish,” Roland said, his voice a whispered hiss. Scylla’s blood ran cold. “I wish for all your little wishes to come untrue, fae. Every. Single. One.”
Scylla screamed—at the world, at the injustice, at being so close to revenge yet so far away. They had captured her far from home, a small sprite with a big curse trying to flee the deaths that followed like a shadow. Even now she saw them, the possibilities. It was so easy to slip aboard a ship, to hit one’s head or plunge overboard for no reason. Bad weather. Bad health. One more could yet die. She looked out at the water, with its white crests and salt smell, and saw no more whirlpools. Then she looked up. The cloud was still there. They were safe to enter Deadmouth, but they were not safe to leave.
Dressed in grime-stained white, the sea sprite rose and brushed herself off. Her chains clinked. She was a small thing, no taller than Drake’s shoulder, skinny, with sickly-blonde hair and dark green eyes. Fish scales covered her body in patches of rash. She smelled like wet dog. But she had enough rage left to make them all scream, and soon, they would. Roland controlled the sea, but he did not control the clouds.
“Let’s go,” Drake ordered. “Get the boats loaded. Ropes, torches, bags. We have until sunset before the tides return in full. I want to be rich before then.”
What was left of the crew cheered. There was nothing in the cave to be afraid of, not when Drake held them so. Beside the captain, the wizard gazed with black eyes, his vision not on the present but the future.
Scylla needed to kill them both, but she only had enough magic left for one.
*
Roland threw her into the last boat with a rough hand and a muttered curse: “Arytigu.” Scylla felt her body go numb, turn to glass on the outside while her insides cracked with desert. He pushed; she fell. It was hard to instill fear when pain made her whimper like an injured animal. Roland was a dark wizard, more skeleton than man, with skin so thin she could see every blue, spidery vein in his body. Most of the crew said he was a dead thing brought back to life by his own magic, a Lich who kept his blood pumping with curses. Scylla thought it might be true. For their entire voyage, she never saw a death possibility around him. Not even during the big squall that had almost sunk the ship. Cursed, the man was uncursable.
Her teeth chattered against the lock in her mouth. With her tongue locked away, all she could do was rest against the floor and wait.
“You could at least look grateful,” Roland said. He nudged her with his boot. “To serve a king is an honor.”
“I am not a king yet,” Drake said from the bow. He used an oar to push their boat around a dangerous chunk of rock. The mouth of Deadmouth was filled with them, jagged teeth ready to chomp at any ship that got too close. The wind whistled with strange direction.
But with Scylla on board, the water obeyed. With the wizard on board, she obeyed.
“Not yet, but soon,” Roland said. “I see two paths, and one of them is you on a throne.”
Drake smiled, but only with half his face. “And the other?”
Roland shrugged. “Death is always the second path. It does not concern me.”
Even with a water sprite captive, it still took hours to navigate the jaws of Deadmouth. Tired, angry, the pirates beached upon a cracked bed of white sand. It scraped at the boats with a rattling sound, bone on bone, and the wind shifted to a colder temperature.
“Dysmf,” Roland said.
Scylla got up. Her body ached. A crest of water washed to the shore, and she stepped towards it. Drake stopped her with a point of his gun.
“No,” he hissed. “No. You do not get to enjoy this.”
“Look!” one of the crew called. “The … the color’s changed. It’s….”
The view of Deadmouth from The Nomad was a tapestry of sunrise, ocean green, and speckled rocks. The view from Deadmouth saw a land of black, white, and grey. Not a single speck of color could be seen from the cave entrance. The Nomad rested at anchor atop a grey ocean, its sails the proper black but its hull as monochrome as the water. The rocks, once mossy green and strange shades of brown, now stood dull white.
Roland stepped into the sea, his hands stretched out. He still held onto color.
“A trick!” His coral jewelry clacked together. He shrugged at the water, and because Scylla was his slave, the water obeyed. Then he pointed at the sky, at the little cloud that hadn’t been there an hour ago. “Cheap magic, and nothing more.”
“But the gold,” another of the crew tried to ask.
“Gold is gold,” Drake grunted. He turned to Scylla. “But not all treasure is gold, is it witch?”
Scylla stepped back. She watched the cloud drift closer. Fear overtook rage, not for herself but for the weather. Her chains clanked. The wizard was amiss, knew something he wasn’t supposed to.
“Good,” Drake said. He patted at his chest, where under his shirt, he held the key to her. “That’s more like it.
“Let’s go!”
Drake used his gun like a king’s scepter: He gestured and watched his kingdom obey. The crew marched, each carrying sacks and empty chests ripe for filling.
Roland sauntered behind, more spells on his lips. Scylla knew what he was doing. He was crafting another key.
*
Deadmouth widened the further they went, growing deeper, wider, and more desolate. Their torches burned with cold light. Soon, the sounds of the ocean faded away, replaced with a stagnant emptiness that skittered along the stalactites. Footsteps trudged along the ground. Though the cave was empty, the pirates kept their voices low, each taking his turn to glance up, at the jagged fang-shaped rocks reaching for them. They wanted to know why it felt like something evil was watching. No water dripped, but strange, cloud-like fog swirled along the ceiling. Scylla watched her captors breathe deep, drawing in stale air and letting out little puffs of moisture. She wished for the water. She needed water.
“How long,” one started to ask.
“Minutes,” Roland said. “No cave is this deep or wide. We are being tricked. I see through it, and now, so do you.”
The pirates nodded, but none relaxed. It didn’t feel like minutes, and the weight of the cave tricked the heart into thinking the place was a tomb. Iron burned against Scylla’s teeth. Iron burned at her wrists. When she stumbled, the butt of an iron pistol burned against her face.
“Move!” Drake ordered.
A scar-tissue of a man named Herch picked her up, only to shove her forward. Scylla tripped over a rock and landed hard. Everyone laughed when Roland told her to, “Dysmf,” and his magic forced her to her feet like a puppet.
“Out front,” Roland said. He waved her ahead. “You lead. Find all the rocks worth tripping over, so we don’t have to.”
Scylla moved to obey but a heavy hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked.
“No,” Drake said. The light from a torch caught his cheek, making it look sallow. Dead. “She stays next to me.”
Roland shrugged. “If you wish, your highness. But she is out of tricks. Six are dead, and six is all she can kill. She is harmless.”
“No one is harmless. Not here, not in this cave.”
Herch took the lead, a torch in one hand and a pistol in the other. Confidence kept his shoulders back, his head high, but the uneven ground made him walk with a slow, shuffling gait. Scylla saw possibilities swirl around him. He could trip on a rock and crack his skull open; he could blunder into a stalagmite, barely illuminated. She could make his pistol go off, blowing his hand apart and bleeding him dry before anyone could save him. All of these things would please her, but none would help her. No, she needed a wish. And if she could not get a wish, she needed to kill Drake. He had her key.
Because Roland was wrong and the captain was right, she was not out of tricks. She had one more left to play.
Her sister had the other.
*
The squall struck The Nomad with all the power of an angry God. The sky blinked from clear to storm-cloud black in an instant, and rain pelted the hull so hard it sounded like rocks beating against wood. Men ran for rigging ropes or cover depending on where they stood while Drake screamed orders no one could hear. Roland promised the captain a crown and a kingship, but the weather cared for neither. He was too mortal for that. Scylla watched them fight to survive, following the possibilities with her mind. Any one person could fall from the ship, get struck by lightning, snag against a rope. It was early in the voyage, and she had only killed two so far. She was hungry for more.
They deserved to suffer. Every. Last. One.
Scylla found her victim, but before she could take the sacrifice, make the man disappear in a puff of violence, the storm snapped a piece of rope. It whiplashed into the pirate hard enough to tear him in two. No one heard his bones break, his flesh rend, but they all saw the storm carry his torso over the railing. The rain washed the rest away.
Scylla ran for a better look, hoping to see a whirlpool where the body had fallen. She had wishes to make. Instead, she found dark waves and angry white foam. The ocean swallowed the body.
“I wish!” she screamed. “I wish they were all dead!”
She looked around, saw the possibilities through a haze of rainwater. The storm drenched her from head to toe, saturated her with so much water that despite Roland and his magic, she felt powerful. So many could die today, yet only four more by her hand. She began choosing targets.
But like all squalls, this one vanished as quickly as it appeared. A thousand possibilities shrunk to just a handful, and every set of eyes locked with hers. Scylla held up her hands in surrender, but to The Nomad, they were red with guilt. And blood.
Calm, kinglike despite bleeding from a fresh wound that made half his face look like exposed meat, Drake walked over to Scylla and shot her twice in the leg. The iron burrowed deep into bone. It would take four days of pain before she found the courage to pull the bullets free. By then, Roland had stolen her magic with curses, and all the pirates had threatened to throw her overboard.
She was bad luck. She was a witch. She had conjured the storm. She would kill again.
With the temperament of a pirate, Drake hauled Scylla to the deck and forced her down. Roland hissed with magic. From a deep pocket, he produced an iron lock.
“You are mine,” the wizard shouted, his arms moving, his jewelry clicking together with the pageantry of it all. “And now, all of the ocean is mine.”
Scylla screamed until she couldn’t.
*
From the outside, Deadmouth appeared a small, sharp thing unworthy of its many rumors and legends. Now deep within, the pirates began to reconsider. They weren’t exploring a cave but a chasm, one with cathedral-like ceilings and a thousand whispered riches. Jewels glimmered in the deeper stalagmites. When Roland touched them, they burst with color: sapphires, rubies, garnets, and strange, square-shaped hunks of metal made of rainbows. The gems came freely from their homes, and the pirates rushed them into their sacks and chests. Deadmouth contained enough treasure to buy Drake his kingdom and then some.
When the shiny rocks were claimed, Drake ordered them further in. Water dripped up ahead, and even the most cold-hearted pirate thought it sounded like gold.
“What is wonderful about the fey,” Roland said, giving Scylla a jab with his wand. “Is that they must follow rules. Tell me, why do you collect treasure?”
Scylla scowled.
“For pleasure? For fun?” The wizard shook his head. “Or is it because you are nothing more than dogs collecting bones?”
Spite made the sea sprite defiant, but magic kept her docile. Were it not for the lock in her mouth, she would have threatened the man first, and then spoke the truth second. Scylla wanted treasure to buy her way to womanhood, to shed her scales and her rage. Fae hated, and fae played, but they had holes for hearts. Only the desperate horded treasure, and Scylla knew desperation better than most. It was why she had left her home, why she had journeyed so far away with a promise, a hope, and one last contract.
Deadmouth ended in a sheer rock wall decorated with old paintings, tapestries, and anything else of value that could be hung. Fog swirled around the ground like snakes, coiling and twisting between mounds of gold. Even in the colorless world, it shined, radiated more wealth than a God could spend. Drake grabbed Scylla’s arm with painful fingers, only to let go.
“It’s more than I ever dreamed,” he whispered.
Roland shook his head. “A fancy, your highness, but I’ve stepped into your dreams. They are bigger than this.” He watched the fog with a hunter’s eyes, his hands flexing not with claws but spells. “We will make them bigger.”
“Is the key ready?”
“Yes.”
With a nod from their captain, the remaining pirates descended upon the golden horde, whooping, hollering, all fear forgotten. They moved as if invincible. Scylla watched them plunder. She hated them all the more.
“You,” Drake said, speaking more with his gun than his voice. “Make her appear.”
Scylla felt her skin crack with fear. She tried to shrug. Roland spat magic.
“Do it.”
Scylla shook her head. She tried to look confused and not terrified. Her gaze betrayed her. Drake followed it to the fog, and to the cloud hidden in the fog.
“We know, witch,” the pirate captain said. “And we know who she is, too.”
“Right on time,” Roland said. He reached into a deep pocket and pulled forth an iron key. “Just like we dreamed.”
The cloud grew in size, twisted bigger, brighter, until even the treasure-hungry pirates took notice. Gold fell from hands to plink against the ground, and heavy sacks slumped half full.
“Captain!” Herch called. “Captain, what’s that?”
“Treasure,” Drake said. “Worth more than every ounce of gold in this place.”
Charybdis grew in size, swirled and spun on strange axis, a tornado without rules. Scylla tried to scream at her, to run away, to leave before it was too late, but the lock kept her tongue swollen with pain. She stepped away. Her chains burned hot against her skin. Roland laughed. He held up his key with one hand, and then two fingers with the other. No possibilities swirled around him.
“Water and wind,” he said. “A kingdom that is the entire sea. All seven oceans.”
“Every ship that crosses my path will be torn between you two,” Drake said. “Except that’s not true. They’ll be torn between me.”
“You’ll make a good king,” Roland agreed. Then his face broke into a snarl. “Pnru! Grra Qsom smf pnru!”
Scylla dropped to the floor in convulsions, just as Charybdis made to strike. The spell struck the cloud and stopped it cold. A crack like glass breaking echoed throughout Deadmouth, and in the midst of that angry storm, a spirit fell to the ground. She landed in a heap, a thin, broken creature with malnourished limbs and white hair. Roland dug into the many pockets of his person and found a set of iron chains.
“We’ve learned,” he said.
“Do it,” Drake ordered.
Everyone gathered in close to watch. Charybdis stood on shaky legs, only for Roland to throw her to the ground. Scylla needed to kill him, but no possibilities formed. Herch shoved her into the ground. He could still die. The pirate next to him could still die. She watched them tear at her sister’s home, take the treasure that might one day buy freedom; she heard them threaten and promise and laugh.
Charybdis screamed in pain. “No!” she cried, her voice a starved sound. Roland grabbed her by the tongue. Drake shot her in the stomach.
Scylla hunted for deaths, the sacrifices that were her burden, but none would help her. Only Charybdis could sink full ships. She hungered, and hunger killed more than hate. It’s why Scylla could only take six. No, she needed a wish. Her hands dug into dirt, gold coins, and sharp rocks.
A possibility struck her then, just as Roland was clamping his iron prison around the air sprite. Scylla could harm herself—she could spend a death on her own blood. It would flow. It would twist into the ground, where it would disappear. The whirlpools at Deadmouth granted wishes. With shackled hands, she reached for a sharp rock.
“Good luck,” Herch whispered. He kicked her. No one paid them any mind. The ground was hard, and the scattered treasure made a makeshift basin. “You can’t stop a king.”
In a clumsy flash, Scylla jabbed the rock into her wrist. The possibility vanished. She was out of tricks. Pain dug deep, and blood flowed free, spilling into the ground. She begged it to obey her. Far away, crouched over her sister, Roland spun and waved with the coral pageantry of his magic. Scylla watched the movements. Her blood followed suit.
“Hey!” Herch called. Roland almost stopped what he was doing to see. Drake looked back in alarm.
“Watch her!” he barked.
Herch bent down, his knife flashing in the strange, colorless light, but it was too late. Scylla’s blood spun a single circle and vanished. To Deadmouth, it was a whirlpool. She made a wish.
“Charybdis,” she roared around the lock in her mouth. The words slurred, and the iron burned two of her teeth to pus. “I wish you could kill them!”
The fragile, starving girl vanished in a puff of tornado. An angry cloud formed in her wake, a twisting cyclone big enough to fill the entire cave. Pirates screamed. Shots rang out. Roland yelled magic words that didn’t work, and then a hand reached out from the center of the tornado and yanked. The wizard flew into its maw, into a swirl of angry clouds and sharp rocks that were teeth. Blood fell like rain.
Herch ran towards his king, his gun firing at the monster cloud, his sword flailing. Charybdis grabbed him next. They all watched him fly into the air, never to be seen again.
Panic overcame the remaining pirates, which made them all the easier to kill. If Scylla was an angry flood, then Charybdis was a revolted God. One by one, she picked the pirates up and devoured them, until all but Drake remained.
He tackled Scylla to the ground and put his iron pistol to her head.
“Do something!” he roared. “I command it.”
Scylla raged. She had her magic back, but she couldn’t kill him. The six deaths were spent. She could, however, hurt him. Make him scream. Make him wish he were dead until he was. She flailed with her sharp rock and caught the pirate captain in the arm. Blood spilled. Red. Iron. Water. She grabbed at the water within and yanked. Drake howled as a chalice of blood spun from his arm like thread from a ball of yarn. His gun fell to the ground.
With a delicate, cloud hand, Charybdis reached into Drake’s shirt and found his key. She handed it to Scylla.
“No!” Drake roared, but he was already being lifted off the ground, and into the tornado maw. The would-be king became food.
*
“Welcome back,” Charybdis said. She walked barefoot among the wreckage, her pale feet collecting cuts and leaving beige footprints. “I missed you.”
“Yes,” Scylla said. Talking felt strange, painful. Everything was swollen. The word whistled through her missing teeth. “I am home.”
Charybdis held out her hands, and Scylla fell into the hug. She was too angry to weep, so she did not. She could hear her sister’s stomach growl.
“You’re not human.”
“No,” Scylla said. “No, it didn’t work. It wasn’t enough.”
The air sprite let go, stepped back so she could look around her plundered, stained home. It held enough treasure to buy the world. “Do you think there will ever be enough?”
Scylla shook her head.
“I am hungry,” the air sprite said. “So hungry.”
She fell to the ground in a heap, letting gravity find her resting spot. Gold trinkets cut her skin, but Charybdis didn’t care. She did not feel pain. Scylla joined her. She ran her fingers through a stain of blood and let her magic find the water in it, twisting it into little shapes. First she made Drake, then she made Roland. Then she drank the blood and hated.
“I’m still angry,” Scylla said.
“I know.”
“I wish I could drown the world.”
“I know.”
Charybdis reached for Scylla’s hand. Her grip was weak, starved, a child’s hand with a thousand corpses staining the fingernails. Scylla leaned into her sister and squeezed. She wished she could feel more than fear and rage, because deep down, she knew this was love.
“I’m still angry,” she whispered. She was too angry to weep.
“I know.” Charybdis said. “I know.”
Nonsense 