Chapter 78: Goodbyes

"Don’t thank me yet. Your family isn’t home safe. This is just the first step."

"But it’s a step." She released his arm and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving streaks of salt on her skin. "A week ago I was in a cell waiting to be sold to some Imperial lord who wanted a pretty Siren to decorate his estate. Now there’s a chance, an actual chance, that I’ll see my mother again."

Nacho didn’t know what to say to that. The words felt inadequate, hollow in the face of the emotion radiating from her like heat from a forge.

So he didn’t say anything. He just nodded once and turned back to the pile of supplies they’d been sorting, his hands finding work to do while his mind processed everything the runner had told him.

It worked.

The evidence he’d gathered. The documents he’d recreated from memory. The hours spent writing in that cramped room at the Velvet House while Sera watched every stroke of his pen. All of it had led to this moment, to a corrupt Elder in chains and a Grand General with expanded powers and a species that might actually survive the next few months.

He should feel something. Triumph, maybe. Satisfaction at a job well done. Relief that all his effort hadn’t been wasted.

What he felt instead was a kind of quiet acceptance, like watching a door close on one Chapter and another one open ahead of him.

Korith was gone. Sera was secure. The trafficking ring had been exposed and dismantled.

Now came the hard part.

Finding Vael. Tracking down the Sirens who’d already been sold into the Empire. Figuring out what Lady Vex’s next move would be now that her operation in Valdris had been compromised.

The work was never done. It just changed shape.

He kept sorting supplies, his hands moving on autopilot while his mind raced ahead to everything that still needed doing.

Mira worked beside him in silence for a while, her tears drying as she focused on the task at hand. When she finally spoke again, her voice was steadier.

"What happens now? To you, I mean. After we leave."

"I go back to Lumen. There’s more work to be done."

"Will I see you again?"

Nacho paused, a bundle of dried fish in his hands. The question was simple, but he could hear the weight behind it. She’d attached herself to him the way drowning people attached themselves to anything that floated.

He was the one who’d saved her, the one who’d promised to find her family. In her mind, he was something between a savior and a fixed point in a universe that had been nothing but chaos for weeks.

"Probably," he said finally. "Lumen isn’t that big. And if your family makes it back, you’ll want to thank the person who actually finds them. That won’t be me."

"But you’re the one who made it possible."

"I’m the one who gathered information. Other people do the actual work." He set down the fish and turned to face her directly. "Don’t build me up into something I’m not, Mira. I’m not a hero. I’m just someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right skills."

She studied his face for a long moment, her pale emerald eyes searching for something he wasn’t sure existed.

"You’re wrong," she said quietly. "But I don’t think you’re ready to hear that yet."

Before he could respond, the door opened again, and one of the Rat King’s people stuck his head in.

"Ship’s ready. Time to move."

The evacuation went smoothly, or as smoothly as moving forty traumatized women through a city that might still have Consortium eyes watching could go. The Rat King’s people were professionals. They’d done this before, maybe not with Sirens specifically, but with cargo that needed to stay hidden from official scrutiny. Within two hours, every rescued prisoner was aboard a nondescript trading vessel that would carry them to a rendezvous point outside the city’s coastal waters.

From there, they’d be transferred to a Siren ship that would take them the rest of the way home.

Nacho watched the ship pull away from the dock, its running lights dimming as it slipped into the gathering darkness. Mira was somewhere on that deck, probably standing at the railing with the others, watching Valdris shrink behind them.

He didn’t wave. She probably couldn’t see him anyway.

When the ship was nothing but a distant smudge against the darkening horizon, he turned and walked back into the city, his thoughts already shifting to the next item on his list.

The kid was easy to find, once he started looking.

Pip had moved up in the world since Nacho had last seen him. No more sleeping in alleys or begging for scraps outside the market stalls. The phoenix feather he’d traded for his sister’s life had come with unexpected side effects, at least according to the street gossip Nacho picked up on his way across the Low District.

Apparently, the apothecary who’d administered the treatment had been so impressed by the feather’s quality that she’d offered Pip an apprenticeship. Nothing fancy, just sweeping floors and carrying supplies at first, but it came with a room above the shop and meals twice a day.

Better than what most street kids could hope for.

Nacho found him outside the apothecary’s back entrance, wrestling with a crate that was clearly too heavy for his scrawny frame. The kid was maybe twelve, with the wiry build and too-old eyes that came from growing up hard on streets that didn’t forgive weakness.

"Need help with that?"

Pip’s head snapped up, his whole body tensing like a startled cat. Then recognition hit, and his expression cycled through surprise to wariness to something that looked uncomfortably close to hero worship.

"It’s you."

"Yeah." Nacho grabbed one end of the crate and lifted, taking most of the weight off Pip’s arms. "Where’s this going?"