Page 85 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“I want to be the ship’s cook,” she said suddenly, while Flay peered through the spyglass at the black water.
He lowered the glass. A ship’s lantern hanging from the prow gilded his face and the loose waves of his hair.
“If that’s what you want, Blossom. I’ll see about alternate duties for our present cook. He won’t like it, but I’ll wager what you make will be far more palatable. In truth, I thought of suggesting it, but I wasn’t sure you’d want to be down in the galley, slaving away to feed the crew.”
“It’s what I do, Flay,” she said. “I want free rein in the galley, to arrange and supply it as I see fit. And I’m going to set up a hanging garden on the side of the captain’s cabin. Small potted plants, herbs and such, bracketed to the outer wall. They might not survive, but it’s worth a try.”
Flay pressed his left arm to the small of her back. “Does this mean you’re considering making this more permanent? You’ll keep sailing with me?”
“Of course.” She bumped her hip teasingly against his. “You haven’t shown me all the places you promised yet.”
He chuckled and kissed her hair.
“And you need me,” she added quietly. “More than I realized.”
Flay looked down at the spyglass in his hand.
“You don’t like it,” she said, “because you prefer being the hero. You hate being the one who needs saving.”
He groaned, half-exasperated, half-laughing. “Stop seeing into my soul, Blossom. It’s unsettling, and I’m already unsettled.”
“Because you don’t believe you can do it,” she said, low. “You don’t think you can break away and be free. I understand. I never thought my island would be free of the mermaid hordes. Yet here we are. Andyou’rethe one who made me believe anything is possible.”
He didn’t answer, only pursed his lips and lifted the spyglass again. For a while there was only the chill breath of night, and the slap of waves against the metal-plated hull, and the creak of timbers deep in the ship. Then, wordlessly, Flay led her back to his cabin and lay with her in the bunk, kissing her over and over, as if he was afraid she might disappear.
When dawn came, they ate a quick, cold breakfast and loaded into the dinghies for the trip to shore. Mai, Rake, Jazadri, and two other sailors took one boat, while Flay, Kestra, Corklan, and Baz took another.
From a distance, the island had looked like a flat slab with a few enormous stone eggs half-sunk into it—the bald rocky hills they had seen when they first arrived. But as they drew nearer, and rounded a long spit of sandy beach, they had a new angle on those hills, and Kestra’s mouth fell open.
One of the egg-shaped humps of rock had a wide triangular crack in it. The aperture’s topmost peak reached many stories high—thirty or more, if Kestra had to guess. And within that shadowed crack she could make out buildings, tall ones.
She looked over at the other boat, where Mai was practically vibrating with excitement.
“The city is inside those hills!” Mai screamed, and Rake clapped both hands over his sensitive ears.
They beached the small boats on a flat strip of sand. Their presence stirred up a cloud of white sea-birds who screeched indignantly and soared up to perch on perilously constructed nests along the high, curved face of the rocky hill.
Broken stone steps led up to the city—steps strewn with a bristling thicket of sun-bleached bones.
“Bilge and breakwater,” Flay murmured as they picked their way along. “Do you think these people drowned?”
“A fair bet,” Jazadri said grimly. “When the monsters broke out from beneath the floor of the ocean, it would have caused great waves. Maybe as high as buildings, or taller.”
“I don’t think the city was originally inside these hills,” Mai said. “It looks as if waves of molten rock flowed over the cities and cooled rapidly in place, forming these cocoons with the buildings inside them. The other two hills probably have more buildings and bones and artifacts inside. I’d love to get some of the Kiken miners here to excavate—”
“Slow down, Sparrow,” Flay warned. “We haven’t even seen the interior of this one yet. We don’t know if it’s safe to enter.”
“Looks safe enough,” Jazadri said, eyeing the solid rock.
Kestra imagined what it must have been like for the inhabitants of this city—intelligent people, inventors, living in close connection with the mermaid civilization—and in a single day, all of it was destroyed, simply because the plates of the world’s surface decided to shift. The sheer chaos of it, the vast number of bones strewn about—heartbreaking.
“Stay together,” Flay advised as they entered the shadow of the hill’s interior. “Light the torches—it’ll be dark in there.”
Mai was already scampering over chunks of broken buildings at the mouth of the cave. Beyond that, the buildings seemed surprisingly whole and intact. Made of a unique type of stone perhaps, or incorporating structures and technology that helped them stay upright despite the cataclysm, even as their makers perished.
“Rake,” Kestra called, and he glanced over at her, cocking his head in that quick, inhuman way he had. “Go after Mai, please. Look out for her.”
“Always,” he said, and sprang over the collapsed detritus himself. Despite his long legs, he had to move quickly to catch up with Mai.
