Heartless

“What about the crew?” Nestor demanded in a panicky voice. “Are they also—”

“Shh!” There was no one around them, but if the entire ship was the monster, who knew what it could hear. “The crew’s probably part of the monster,” Airi said, barely moving her lips. “That would explain how the food keeps regenerating. And,” she realized, “why the storm never goes away. The ship’s creating it!”

“How do you know that?” Nestor whispered. “What if some of the crew are just people who got trapped? What if—what if those 12 mages aren't dead? What if they're a part of the crew?”

“No. Marianne said those mages were dead. Her spell can find someone’s soul; if she can't find it, they’re dead,” Airi whispered harshly.

“But Captain and all the rest have been so nice,” Nestor whispered. “And they haven’t hurt us at all. How’d they kill those mages?”

“We have to get off this ship before we find out,” Airi said grimly.

“How? The whole ship’s a monster!” Nestor watched the hole in the deck slowly close up, splinters fusing together.

“No, no, this is good! If the Lucky Star is the monster, that means there’s no monster in the water. We can escape into the sea.”

“But—” Nestor looked at the stone in his hand.

“Don’t you get it? They’re not real! Captain, Cook, First Mate—they don’t even have real names! Whatever they said, they said it to trick you!” She saw the doubt in Nestor’s eyes and snapped, “I promised not to lie to you, didn’t I?”

Nestor had gone very still. “...You’re right.”

“What are you doing, Sailmaker?” Captain asked, halting in front of Airi and Nestor. They were sitting against the bulwark.

“What’s it look like?” Airi asked.

“...If I’m being honest, nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s it. We’re doing nothing.”

Captain adjusted her green bandanna. For a monster—or part of a monster, she looked eerily real, down to the freckles on her cheeks. “I get it. We all have our days. If you’re feeling tired, I can get Cook to—”

“No, thanks. We’ll just sit here,” Airi said calmly. Inwardly, her heart was beating out of her chest. She just had to hope that Charybdis cared more about keeping up the facade than killing them immediately.

The slightest frown crossed Captain’s face. “Alright, but afterwards—”

“No. We’re not a part of your crew. You can't order us around.”

Captain’s eyes darkened. “I see. I hope I’m mistaken, but this sounds like mutiny.”

The crew gathered around them, so quickly that Airi suspected it was the work of magic. Faces crowded her vision, so that she could no longer see the plank.

“Mutiny?” Cook said, wiping the flour off her hands. She looked at Nestor plaintively. “Oh no, that can’t be. I was just hoping for a helper in the kitchen.”

Nestor fidgeted, and Airi squeezed his hand, reminding him, It’s not real.

“What’ll we do without you two?” First Mate said, tugging on his newly stitched shirt. “My favorite shirt—”

“Find someone else,” Airi said.

A multitude of voices raised in protest.

“Remember when we sang around the lantern?”

“You belong here! You belong with us!”

“You’re one of—”

“Let us through.” Airi thrust out her crystal hand, palm-first, like a weapon, and dragged Nestor towards the plank. The crew followed them, though they seemed especially wary of her hand. She hauled Nestor onto the plank and pulled herself up too. Nestor’s hand was still raw and bleeding from scrubbing the deck.

Behind them, the crew clawed at the plank, unable to reach beyond it. Airi nudged Nestor forward. “Go, quickly.”

Captain’s voice cut through all the others. “We saved you, Sailmaker! And this is how you would repay us, your friends?”

Airi steadied herself on Nestor’s shoulder. She turned back and saw the entire crew, now stone-still on the deck, watching her and Nestor.

“That’s not my name,” she said, glaring at Captain. “And I’m not a part of your crew.”

“Are you sure? It pains me to see a friend throw themselves to Charybdis’s jaws,” First Mate called. "Come back, and we'll laugh about this over dinner!"

Yeah, sure, Airi thought. He really did sound pained, though. If she hadn’t known the truth, she would’ve been convinced. Now she knew how the 12 mages had died—tricked into staying, even though escape was all around them.

“You won’t survive! The monster will get you!” Captain shouted. There was a note of desperation in her voice now. Even that sounded real.

“You never know. We might get lucky.” Airi grabbed Nestor’s hand. “On the count of three. One, two, three!”

They leaped. Airi held her breath—not just because of the water, but because she was terrified. What if she’d gotten it all wrong, and there really was a monster in the water?

The moment they hit the water, there was a distant sound from deep underwater. It sounded like... a volcano erupting?

As the waves start to churn, Airi grabbed on tightly to Nestor. Nestor squeezed his eyes shut, but Airi’s opened wide. This was it. They were dead.

A colossal gray-blue dragon, several times bigger than Gold, burst out of the water behind them. Its watery scales rippled in the storm as it lifted the Lucky Star into the air. The entire ship fit in its jaws like a squeaky toy in a cat’s mouth.

CRUNCH.

The water dragon slammed its jaws shut, crushing the ship into wood pieces that rained down into the water. A burst of golden mana illuminated the sky like sunshine, blinding her. When Airi's eyes recovered, she made out a tiny figure with red hair atop the dragon's head, holding onto one of its horns. The storm clouds cleared all at once, revealing the night sky.

Then the dragon crashed back into the water, dissolving into the waves, which crashed over Airi and Nestor. She felt herself sinking into the deep.

When Airi came to, she was lying in the old sailboat, the same one they had sailed to the open ocean. How had the thing even survived?

Instinctively, she glanced to her side, relieved to find Nestor lying there. Then, of course, there was Wendolyn, seated primly across from Airi. Her robes didn’t even look wet.

“You came back for us?”

“Came back? I never left,” Wendolyn scoffed. “While you two enjoyed a nice vacation on the monster’s back, I was underwater, preparing to cast The Great Ocean.”

“You were underwater the whole time? How did you—”

“Don’t judge me by your pitiful standards.”

“Wait. But if you were underwater the whole time, why didn’t you attack sooner?”

Wendolyn gave Airi a bored look. “Do you honestly think you two would have survived if you had been on the ship when I cast that spell?”

“Wait.” She didn’t attack because... she didn’t want to kill us? “So you were waiting for us to jump off the ship.”

“My patience was running out. I figured I’d give it another day or so.”

“Wendolyn.”

“Hm?” Wendolyn looked up with mild interest in her eyes.

“You’re not heartless after all.”

As Airi spoke, stars cascaded from the sky like fairy dust, glimmering into oblivion over the calm sea. It was the biggest meteor shower Airi had ever seen. Awe at the sight mixed with dread at what it meant. Even Wendolyn tipped her head back to look.