The *Fawkes* cut through the dark water like a whisper of violence, her runes dimmed to barely-visible gleams. Harry stood at the bow in full Reaper regalia for the first time since arriving in this world, and the armor felt both foreign and painfully familiar.
The black plates absorbed light rather than reflecting it. The red accents seemed to pulse with their own internal rhythm. And the skull mask—bone-white and terrible—transformed his face into something that had featured in nightmares since he'd first donned it in the Department of Mysteries' training rooms.
*You don't have to be a weapon,* he reminded himself. *You're a person using weapons. The difference matters.*
Behind him, the crew moved with focused silence. Koro at the wheel, guiding them toward the hidden cove with the surety of someone who could read water like others read books. Marro and Varos checking the breaching charges one final time. Septa Sarya loading her blowgun with paralytic darts. Jarla strapping on enough blades to fight a small war. Lysaro and the brothers preparing the rescue packs—food, water, bandages, everything forty prisoners might need.
"One mile," Koro called softly. "The cove is dead ahead."
Harry raised his Omniocular, scanning the fortress that crowned the rocky promontory. Through the enhanced lenses, he could see torches marking guard positions, the silhouettes of soldiers on patrol, and—there, on the north side exactly where Maris's map indicated—the cells.
Stone structures built against the cliff face, with barred windows facing the beach. The beach where the Crabfeeder performed his executions. Where tomorrow at dawn, forty people were scheduled to die screaming.
Not if Harry had anything to say about it.
"I count twelve guards visible," he reported. "Two at each cell entrance, four patrolling the beach, four more on the fortress walls above. Probably more inside we can't see."
"Sloppy," Koro observed. "They rely on reputation and fear. They don't expect actual resistance."
"They're about to get educated," Lysaro muttered, checking his borrowed Omniocular one more time. "Very violently educated."
The *Fawkes* slipped into the cove with barely a splash. The runes along her hull flared once—acknowledging the danger, preparing for violence—then dimmed again to nothing. Koro guided her to the shore with the precision of someone born to sail, and the crew moved to secure her position.
"Marro, Timoro, Varro—you stay with the ship," Harry ordered quietly. "If anything goes wrong, if we're not back in two hours, you leave. Take the *Fawkes* and run."
"We're not leaving you," Marro said flatly, his restored hand gripping a heavy hammer with comfortable familiarity.
"You will if I order it," Harry said. "The ship is too valuable to risk. The crew is too valuable to risk. This mission—" He gestured toward the fortress. "This mission is about saving forty people. Not about throwing away nine more trying to be heroes."
"Wave dancer speaks wisdom," Koro said, though his expression suggested he disagreed with the specific wisdom being spoken. "But I think we will not need to run. We are very good at violence, and they are very unprepared."
"From your mouth to the gods' ears," Septa Sarya murmured, touching the seven-pointed star she wore beneath her practical armor.
They moved up the beach in two groups. Harry, Koro, and Sarya took point—Harry because he was the most combat-capable, Koro because he moved like a shadow despite his size, Sarya because her paralytics could drop guards before they raised alarm. Lysaro, Jarla, and Varos followed at a distance, carrying the breaching charges and rescue supplies.
The fortress loomed above them, all dark stone and flickering torchlight. Harry could hear voices—guards talking, laughing, completely unaware that death was walking up their beach in black armor and a skull mask.
The first guard died without knowing what hit him. One moment he was lighting a pipe, complaining about the night watch to his companion. The next, Harry's blade had opened his throat with surgical precision and Koro's knife had taken his companion through the heart.
They dragged the bodies into the shadows and kept moving.
*Two down,* Harry counted mentally. *Seventy-eight to go. Assuming Maris's numbers were accurate.*
The cells were exactly where the map indicated. Stone structures with heavy wooden doors and barred windows. Harry could hear sounds from inside—quiet sobbing, whispered prayers, the rustle of people who'd given up on sleep.
Four guards stood watch. Two at each entrance, armed with spears and the casual confidence of men who'd never faced actual opposition.
Septa Sarya's blowgun whispered twice. Two guards dropped like puppets with cut strings, paralyzed before they could even register the attack. Harry and Koro moved as one—blade and knife, throat and heart, efficient and silent.
Four guards down. No alarm raised. So far, so good.
"Varos," Harry called softly. "Breaching charge. Set it on the north door—that's where Maris said they keep the main group."
The engineer moved forward with his contraption, placing it carefully against the door's lock mechanism. His hands were steady despite the manic gleam in his eyes. "Thirty seconds after I light this, we get a very directional explosion. Everyone should probably not be directly in front of the door."
"Noted," Lysaro said, already moving to a safe angle.
Varos lit the fuse. They all retreated. And then—
**BOOM.**
The explosion was remarkably contained—all the force channeled directly through the door's locking mechanism. Wood splintered. Metal shrieked. And the door flew inward, revealing a dark space packed with huddled figures.
"PRISONERS!" Harry shouted, his voice carrying with the authority of someone trained to command in chaos. "WE'RE HERE TO RESCUE YOU! FOLLOW MY CREW TO THE BEACH! MOVE!"
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The prisoners just stared at him—at his armor, his mask, the impossible fact of rescue appearing from nowhere.
Then someone moved. A woman, middle-aged, with the weathered hands of someone who'd worked hard labor her whole life. She grabbed the person next to her and pulled them toward the door.
"GO!" she shouted. "WHATEVER THIS IS, IT'S BETTER THAN THE CRABS!"
That broke the spell. The prisoners surged forward—forty people in various states of injury and exhaustion, but all of them moving, choosing survival over resignation.
Jarla and Lysaro were there to meet them, organizing them with the practiced efficiency of people who'd handled chaos before. "Stay together! Follow the path down to the beach! There's a ship waiting! MOVE!"
Above them, bells began to ring.
The alarm had been raised.
"CONTACT!" Koro roared, his voice cutting through the chaos. Soldiers were pouring from the fortress—dozens of them, carrying spears and swords and the murderous intent of people defending their territory.
Harry stepped forward, both cutlasses drawn, and felt something shift inside him. Not quite the cold detachment of Agent Reaper. Not quite the desperate courage of Harry Potter facing Voldemort. Something in between—purpose and protection wielded with deadly efficiency.
The first soldier died screaming, Harry's blade taking him through the gut and out his spine. The second lost his head before he could raise his weapon. The third managed to parry once before Koro's knife opened his throat.
They fought like demons. Like the answer to prayers prisoners had stopped making. Like the incarnation of every tortured soul's revenge against the Crabfeeder's cruelty.
And behind them, forty people ran for the beach and freedom.
---
The *Fawkes* was organized chaos.
Marro stood at the rail with his hammer, ready to brain anyone who tried to board. Timoro and Varro had readied the rigging, preparing for immediate departure. And prisoners were streaming across the sand—some running, some limping, some being carried by others.
"GET THEM ABOARD!" Marro roared. "MOVE, PEOPLE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"
The woman who'd been first out of the cell—her name was Dalla, she'd worked the docks in Volantis before being falsely accused of theft—was organizing the prisoners with surprising authority. "Children first! Anyone injured! Everyone else help them up!"
They scrambled aboard the *Fawkes* with the desperation of people who could see salvation but didn't quite dare believe it was real. And the ship—the impossible ship with her silver runes and her beating heart of magic—welcomed them.
Welcomed them like she'd been built for this exact purpose.
"SIXTY SECONDS!" Marro called up toward the fortress, though he had no idea if Harry could hear. "WE NEED TO LEAVE IN SIXTY SECONDS!"
---
Harry heard the call—barely, over the clash of steel and the screaming and his own harsh breathing. They'd cleared the immediate area around the cells, but more soldiers were coming. *Many* more soldiers.
"FALL BACK!" he shouted. "EVERYONE TO THE BEACH!"
Jarla went first, shepherding the last of the prisoners down the path. Varos followed, his hands already reaching for another breaching charge—just in case they needed to blow something else up. Septa Sarya moved with serene efficiency, dropping guards with her paralytics while somehow also tending to injured prisoners.
Harry and Koro held the rear, fighting like the last line between captivity and freedom.
A soldier came at Harry with a spear—good technique, smart positioning. Harry sidestepped, let the blade pass, and took the man's hand off at the wrist. The soldier screamed and dropped. Another came from the right—Harry's off-hand cutlass caught his blade and his main-hand opened the man from shoulder to hip.
*So much blood,* part of his mind observed distantly. *So much death. Does it ever get easier?*
But he didn't have time for philosophy. Koro was surrounded by three soldiers, moving with that fluid grace that made violence look like dancing. Harry pressed forward to support him, and together they cut through the opposition like a storm through tall grass.
"WAVE DANCER!" Koro shouted. "THE SHIP! WE MUST GO!"
Harry risked a glance back. The last prisoner was being hauled aboard the *Fawkes*. The crew was preparing to cast off. They'd done it—against impossible odds, they'd actually done it.
Now they just had to survive long enough to leave.
"RUN!" Harry ordered, and they ran.
Down the path, soldiers in pursuit, arrows whistling past their heads. Harry threw up a shield charm—wandless, desperate, barely controlled—and the arrows sparked off invisible barriers. Not perfect protection, but enough to keep them alive.
They hit the beach at a full sprint. Koro vaulted aboard the *Fawkes* with impossible agility for his size. Harry followed, and Marro was already cutting the mooring lines.
"HOLD ON!" Koro roared from the wheel, and the *Fawkes* lurched into motion.
The runes blazed to life—brilliant silver light that turned night into day. The ship didn't just move, she *leaped* forward, propelled by magic and will and the desperate need to escape.
Behind them, soldiers gathered on the beach, shouting and gesticulating uselessly at the impossible vessel that had just stolen forty prisoners from under their noses.
And Harry stood at the stern, breathing hard, blood on his armor, and did something he'd learned from the darkest wizard of his age.
He raised his cutlass, spoke words in a language that predated most civilizations, and cast his modified version of *Morsmordre*.
The spell shot into the sky—not the sickly green of Voldemort's Dark Mark, but *crimson*. Blood-red light that coalesced into a massive figure: a robed death figure holding twin blades, skeletal and terrible.
The Crimson Reaper.
It hung in the air above the fortress for a long moment, blazing bright enough to be seen for miles. A promise and a threat in equal measure.
*I was here. I took your prisoners. And I'm coming back.*
Then it faded, leaving only smoke and the sound of the *Fawkes*' runes humming with satisfaction.
---
The Crabfeeder emerged from his fortress to find his beach full of dead guards and his cells empty.
Craghas Drahar had built his reputation on systematic cruelty. On the certainty that resistance was futile, that his methods—however brutal—were *effective*. That fear was the best weapon and screaming prisoners were the best advertisement.
He stood now in the wreckage of that certainty and felt something he hadn't experienced in years: doubt.
"Forty prisoners," his second-in-command reported, his voice shaking. "Gone. The cells were breached from outside—some kind of explosive device we've never seen. And the guards..."
"How many dead?" Drahar's voice was flat, controlled, but his hand gripped his walking stick hard enough to make the wood creak.
"Sixteen confirmed. Eight more paralyzed—we don't know how, some kind of poison. And my lord..." The man hesitated. "They left a mark in the sky. Red light shaped like death itself. Holding swords."
The Crimson Reaper.
Drahar had heard the rumors, of course. The impossible ship. The foreign mage with strange weapons. The ghost vessel that attacked slavers and freed prisoners. But rumors were just rumors—stories sailors told to explain their failures, excuses merchants made when they lost cargo.
This was different. This was *real*.
Someone had walked into his fortress—his *fortress*, the seat of his power—and stolen forty prisoners without paying the price he demanded. Had killed his men, breached his defenses, and left a calling card that could be seen from every ship in the harbor.
"Find them," Drahar said quietly. "Every ship I have. Every soldier. Every informant from here to Lys. Find this Reaper and bring me his head."
"My lord, the reports say he commands magic—"
"I don't care if he commands *dragons*," Drahar snarled. "He has challenged me. Made me look weak. Made my reputation—everything I've built—look like a lie." He turned to face his second-in-command, and his expression was the flat promise of death. "No one makes the Crabfeeder look weak. No one steals from me. No one leaves my beach with prisoners I condemned."
He pointed his walking stick toward the harbor. "Double all patrols. Triple the guard on my war galleys. And send word to Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh—I want more ships. I want an armada. Whatever this Reaper is, whatever he commands, I will drown him in numbers and iron and blood."
The second-in-command bowed and fled to carry out his orders.
Drahar stood alone on his beach, staring at the empty water where an impossible ship had disappeared into darkness.
*The Crimson Reaper,* he thought. *Fine. Let him come. Let him try to challenge the Crabfeeder again.*
*I'll feed him to my crabs piece by screaming piece, and the world will learn that mercy is weakness and cruelty is strength.*
But even as the thought formed, a small voice whispered doubt.
Because for the first time since he'd begun staking prisoners out to drown, Craghas Drahar had encountered someone who fought back.
Someone who won.
And reputation, once cracked, was terribly hard to repair.
---
Aboard the *Fawkes*, the crew was organizing controlled chaos.
Forty prisoners—now forty *freed* people—were scattered across the deck in various states of shock, exhaustion, and cautious hope. Septa Sarya moved among them with practiced efficiency, treating injuries and offering comfort. Jarla was doing quick assessments—who needed immediate care, who could walk, who would need carrying when they reached port.
And Harry stood at the bow, still in his Reaper armor, staring at nothing.
Koro found him there.
"We did it, wave dancer," the Summer Islander said quietly. "Forty people freed. Zero casualties on our side. Clean escape. By any measure, this was a perfect operation."
"Sixteen dead," Harry said flatly. "Eight paralyzed. Probably more injured we didn't see."
"Sixteen soldiers who served the Crabfeeder," Koro corrected. "Who would have executed those prisoners at dawn. Who participated in a system built on torture and terror. Their deaths were justice, not murder."
"The Unspeakables taught me that distinction doesn't matter," Harry said. "Dead is dead. The reasons just help you sleep at night."
"Then the Unspeakables were fools." Koro placed one massive hand on Harry's shoulder. "I have killed many men. Some deserved it. Some did not. I carry both kinds of death, and I know the difference. Tonight, you killed men who deserved killing. You saved forty people who deserved saving. And you left a mark that will make slavers think twice before operating in these waters." He squeezed gently. "That is not murder, wave dancer. That is war. And in war, sometimes the difference between hero and villain is simply which side you fight for."
Harry was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached up and removed his skull mask.
The face beneath was younger than the armor suggested. Scarred, yes. Tired, absolutely. But *human*. Not the weapon the mask implied.
"I keep trying to figure out where the line is," Harry said quietly. "Between using power for good and just... using power. Between being a person who fights monsters and being a monster who fights."
"The fact that you ask the question means you haven't crossed it," Koro said simply. "Monsters don't wonder if they're monsters. They just eat and move on."
"Philosophical advice from a man who killed his captain with his bare hands?"
"My captain *was* a monster," Koro said. "And he never once questioned whether his actions were right. He simply took what he wanted and hurt anyone who objected." His gold eyes were distant, remembering. "I killed him because someone had to. Because the boy he was raping couldn't kill him. Because waiting for justice meant watching more victims accumulate. Was I a murderer? By law, yes. But by any moral measure that actually matters?" He shrugged. "I was simply the person willing to do what needed doing."
Harry looked back at the deck, where prisoners were beginning to smile—cautious, uncertain smiles, but real. Where Septa Sarya was bandaging wounds and speaking soft words of comfort. Where Jarla was distributing food and water like she'd been born to organize chaos.
Where broken people were choosing to help other broken people, and in that choice, becoming something more than their damage.
"We're going back," Harry said suddenly. "To the fortress. Right now, before the Crabfeeder can regroup."
Koro's eyebrows rose. "We just barely escaped. Going back seems..."
"Necessary," Harry finished. "We rescued the prisoners. But the Crabfeeder still has his weapons, his supplies, his treasure. Everything he needs to rebuild and continue his operation. If we hit him again *now*—while he's still reeling, before he reinforces his position—we can cripple him for real."
"That's a significant risk, wave dancer."
"Everything we do is a significant risk," Harry pointed out. "But we have the element of surprise one more time. They think we left. They think we're running for safe harbor with our rescued prisoners. They don't expect us to turn around and raid their fortress."
"You want to steal from the Crabfeeder."
"I want to take everything he needs to operate. Weapons, supplies, gold—anything that makes him powerful. And then I want to leave another Crimson Reaper mark so he knows exactly who did it."
Koro was quiet, considering. Then his fierce grin returned. "Lysaro will be thrilled. He loves theft with a side of revenge." He paused. "But the prisoners—they're exhausted, injured. They can't fight."
"They don't have to fight. Marro, Timoro, and Varro stay with the ship and protect them. The rest of us—the combat-capable crew—we go in fast, we raid what we can carry, and we get out before significant resistance arrives. Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. Quick raid, maximum disruption."
"The crew will think you're insane."
"The crew signed up with a mage from another world who built an impossible ship to fight a torture-happy admiral," Harry pointed out. "I think that ship sailed on reasonable expectations a while ago."
Koro laughed—genuine, delighted laughter that rolled across the deck like thunder. "I will tell them. And they will agree, because we are all somewhat insane and this plan is exactly the kind of thing we do now."
He headed off to gather the crew, and Harry stood alone at the bow, feeling the *Fawkes* respond to his presence. The ship's runes pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, and he realized with sudden clarity that Koro was right—the ship *wanted* this. Wanted to fight, wanted to protect, wanted to be more than just wood and magic.
She wanted to choose, just like Harry did.
*Alright,* he thought, placing his hand on the rail. *Let's go steal from a monster. One more time.*
The *Fawkes* turned in the water, impossibly agile, and began racing back toward the fortress they'd just escaped.
Because sometimes, mercy meant rescue.
And sometimes, it meant making sure the people who needed rescuing never needed it again.
---
# The Raid
They came back to find the fortress in chaos.
Soldiers were everywhere—searching the beach, reinforcing guard posts, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The Crabfeeder stood on his balcony, visible through Harry's Omniocular as a figure of cold fury issuing orders.
Perfect.
"New plan," Harry said, gathering his strike team. Koro, Lysaro, Jarla, Varos, and Septa Sarya—the most combat-capable members of his crew. "Koro and I take point. We're going for the armory and the treasury—Maris's map showed them both on the ground level, western side. Lysaro and Jarla, you're with us—you know how to appraise goods and carry them efficiently. Varos, you're our exit strategy."
"Explosions?" Varos asked hopefully.
"All the explosions," Harry confirmed. "We hit the armory, grab what we can carry, set charges on the support structures, and blow the whole thing as we leave. Maximum chaos, minimum pursuit."
"I love this plan," Lysaro said, his manic grin returning. "It has all my favorite elements: theft, violence, and property destruction."
They beached the *Fawkes* in the same cove—the garrison was too distracted to notice one ship among the chaos. This time they moved with the confidence of people who'd already succeeded once tonight. Why not twice?
The fortress loomed above them, and Harry led them up a different path—not toward the cells this time, but toward the western wall where Maris had indicated the supply structures.
Two guards stood watch at a side entrance. They died without raising alarm—Septa Sarya's paralytic darts and Koro's knives working in silent coordination. Harry caught one body before it could fall and make noise. They dragged both guards into shadows and kept moving.
The armory was exactly where Maris had said: a large stone building with reinforced doors and barred windows. Through the gaps, Harry could see racks of weapons—swords, spears, crossbows, and most interestingly, several scorpions in various states of assembly.
"Varos," Harry said quietly. "Can you get us in without breaching charges? Something quiet?"
"Define quiet," Varos said, studying the door. "Because I have a powder mixture that burns through metal locks, but it makes a hissing sound and smells like sulfur."
"Better than an explosion," Jarla said. "Do it."
Varos worked with surprising delicacy, applying his mixture to the lock mechanism. It hissed—exactly as promised—and began eating through the metal. Within two minutes, the lock fell away in molten pieces.
The door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
Inside was a treasure trove of military equipment. Enough weapons to outfit a small army. Crossbow bolts by the thousand. And in the corner, partially assembled—three scorpions, the massive crossbows designed to punch through ship hulls and dragon scales.
"We can't carry all this," Lysaro said, already calculating. "But we can take the best pieces."
"Take the scorpion parts," Harry decided. "Especially the metal components—springs, triggers, mounting brackets. Varos can probably reverse-engineer them, build better versions for the *Fawkes*. And grab a dozen of the best swords—we might recruit more crew eventually."
They worked quickly, efficiently, loading their packs with salvaged equipment. Harry found a case of crossbow bolts tipped with something that gleamed oddly in the lamplight—poison, probably, or perhaps wildfire. He took the whole case.
"Three minutes," Koro warned, standing watch at the door. "Patrol passing in three minutes."
"Treasury next," Harry said. "It's adjacent to this building, separated by a courtyard. We move fast, we grab what we can, and we get out before they organize proper resistance."
They crossed the courtyard like shadows—quick, quiet, purposeful. The treasury was smaller than the armory but better secured. Three guards instead of two, and the door was reinforced with iron bands.
Harry drew both cutlasses. "Loud entrance this time. Koro, with me. Everyone else, wait for us to clear the guards, then start grabbing."
He didn't wait for agreement. Just charged.
The first guard died with Harry's blade through his throat. The second managed to raise his spear before Koro's knife took him through the eye. The third actually got his sword up, parried Harry's first strike, and then died anyway when Koro opened him from behind.
"CLEAR!" Harry called, and Varos was already at the door with another breaching charge.
**BOOM.**
This explosion was louder—they'd used more powder to get through the reinforced door. The lock shattered, the door flew inward, and—
Gold.
*So much gold.*
Stacks of coins from every Free City. Ingots of silver piled like firewood. Chests overflowing with jewelry—rings, necklaces, crowns that probably had belonged to merchants before the Crabfeeder seized them as "pirate treasure."
"Oh, we're taking all of this," Lysaro breathed, eyes wide. "All of it. Every single piece."
"We can't carry all of it," Jarla said, but she was already scooping coins into her pack. "But we can carry *some* of it, and what we can carry is probably worth more than most people see in a lifetime."
They grabbed with systematic greed—coins first for their universal value, then jewelry that looked especially expensive, then a few choice ingots that were small enough to carry. Harry's expanding pocket could hold more than physically possible, so he loaded up heavy, feeling the weight settle across his shoulders.
And then, in the corner behind a pile of seized merchant goods, he saw it.
An egg.
Not a chicken egg. Not even an ostrich egg. This was the size of a large melon, with scales instead of shell—crimson red with black-tipped ridges that looked almost barbed. It radiated heat even from a distance, and when Harry touched it, the surface was uncomfortably warm.
*A dragon egg.*
Harry had seen pictures in Hogwarts' library. Had read about them in books about magical creatures. But he'd never expected to actually *hold* one.
"Is that—" Lysaro had spotted it too. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Dragon egg," Harry confirmed, carefully lifting it. Heavy. Solid. Very, very valuable. "The Crabfeeder must have seized it from someone."
"That's worth more than everything else in this room combined," Jarla said, her merchant's instinct recognizing something beyond price. "That's worth a *kingdom*."
"Then we're definitely taking it," Harry said, wrapping the egg carefully in cloth and settling it into his expanded pocket. The heat bled through even the layers of fabric, but it wasn't painful. Just... present. A constant reminder of potential.
"ALARM!" Koro called from the doorway. "Bells! They've found the armory breach!"
"Time to go," Harry said. "Varos, set your charges. I want this treasury collapsed behind us."
"With pleasure!" Varos was already placing his explosives—not on the door this time, but on the support pillars that held up the treasury's stone roof. "Two minutes after we leave, this entire structure comes down!"
They fled back across the courtyard, weighted with stolen treasure, as shouts rose behind them. Soldiers were mobilizing—dozens of them, streaming from barracks and guard posts.
"THERE!" someone screamed. "INTRUDERS! STOP THEM!"
Harry turned, raised his cutlass, and spoke a word that made the air scream.
*"Fulgar!"*
Lightning answered—not the massive bolts he could summon with full focus, but quick, precise strikes that hit three soldiers in rapid succession. They dropped, convulsing, and their companions hesitated.
That hesitation was fatal. Koro was among them like a dancer, his knives finding throats and hearts with mechanical precision. Septa Sarya's blowgun whispered, and more soldiers collapsed, paralyzed.
They fought their way back to the western wall, back to the path down to the cove, leaving a trail of bodies and chaos behind them.
And then—
**BOOM.**
Varos's charges detonated. The treasury's roof collapsed with a grinding roar of stone on stone, and dust billowed across the courtyard like fog. Soldiers scattered, shouting, trying to figure out what had just happened.
"RUN!" Harry ordered unnecessarily—they were already running, sprinting down the path toward the beach where the *Fawkes* waited.
Behind them, the fortress erupted into full alarm. Bells rang from every tower. Soldiers poured from every gate. And somewhere in the chaos, the Crabfeeder was screaming orders about incompetence and failure and the Crimson Reaper's head on a pike.
They hit the beach at a dead run and vaulted aboard the *Fawkes*, which was already moving—Marro had seen them coming and prepared for immediate departure.
"GO!" Harry shouted to Koro. "FULL SPEED! RIP REALITY IF YOU HAVE TO!"
The Summer Islander's grin was manic as he spun the wheel. The runes blazed to life—brilliant silver fire that lit the entire cove. And the *Fawkes* didn't just move.
She *sang*.
The ship leapt forward with impossible acceleration, propelled by magic and will and the desperate need to escape. Water sprayed in her wake, glowing with reflected runelight. Soldiers on the beach fired crossbows, but the bolts fell short, unable to catch a vessel moving faster than wind.
And Harry, standing at the stern, bleeding from a cut he didn't remember receiving, raised his cutlass one more time.
The Crimson Reaper blazed into the sky—larger this time, more detailed, burning with crimson light bright enough to challenge the moon. It held twin swords crossed over its chest, and its skull face stared down at the fortress with empty sockets that somehow conveyed promise and threat.
*I was here. I took your prisoners. I stole your weapons. I claimed your treasure. And I'm coming back to finish what I started.*
The mark hung there for a long moment—long enough for every soldier, every sailor, every terrified servant in the Crabfeeder's employ to see it and understand.
Then it faded, leaving only smoke and the sound of the *Fawkes*' runes humming with savage satisfaction.
---
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