Chapter 1
August 3, 1820
Papá says water speaks to those willing to listen.
On the night Mar arrived silently in the world, the ocean danced and clapped in time with the roaring thunder and unrelenting rain. Mar’s parents named them after the sea because the water had celebrated so fiercely, it nearly sank La Catalina when Mar took their first breath.
Of course, Mar has no memory of their birth, but they imagine it was probably a night like tonight: dark as ink and so wet that they can barely keep their eyes open against the downpour. Fitting, as today’s their sixteenth birthday.
Mar leans against the rail of the crow’s nest, squinting into the storm. The warm rain pelts their face and paints their lips, seeping into their mouth and soaking their clothes until their black linen shirt clings to their brown skin. Thunder like an army running through the tempest rolls through them. The rain is heavy and feels like drumming on their skin; though it’s hard to separate the rain’s embrace from the uneasy magia humming in their bones.
Mar presses their hands down their rain-slick arms, trying to ignore the fact that the edges of their black markings are glowing orange. The “birthmark” weaves over their arms and chest and down their legs like thick, black mazes. At least now Mar is old enough to pretend their markings are tattoos.
Mar shakes their head and takes a deep breath. They can argue with their magia later. Leo, the quartermaster, sent them up here to peer through the blurry, endless sheet of rain to the raging waters. La Catalina is supposed to be nearing Isla Mujeres, off the coast of la península de Yucatán. It’s where Mar grew up, and Papá’s crew frequently returns to deliver most of the treasures and resources they’ve taken from the Spaniards. It isn’t really stealing—more like returning, since the Spaniards stole it from those living around the Caribbean Sea in the first place. Out of the Spaniards’ hands and back to the people.
After five successful raids, the crew’s haul is one of their biggest yet, but this storm is throwing them off course. If Mar’s magia were useful, it might point them in the right direction, like a compass. But no, all Mar’s magia ever does is cause them grief. It’s a lesson they’ve had to learn the hard way, and one they don’t intend to forget.
Mar swiftly climbs down the rigging, gripping the rope with their toes, careful not to slip on the water-slick holdings. They’ve climbed up to and down from the crow’s nest on La Catalina so often, they could do it in their sleep. And a good thing, too, because it’s dark tonight, Mar might as well be blindfolded.
Their bare feet have scarcely touched the soaked wooden slats of the deck when a crack of lightning slices through the night, followed by a rumble Mar can feel in their chest. Papá isn’t navigating—not that Mar is surprised; navigating through a storm like this is like looking for fresh water in the ocean. Still, if anyone can navigate out of this storm, it’s Papá. But as Mar squints through the storm, Papá doesn’t seem to be on deck with most of the crew. So, then. He’s inside.
Coño, you’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing. Mar marches up the steps to the quarterdeck, bracing themself against the railing as a wall of wind slams into them. Mar leans into the wind, cursing under their breath as they grip the rail so tightly their fingers hurt. Still, they slip back inches at a time over the slick steps anyway. Flames burst from their fingertips and Mar yelps, clamping down on their magia abruptly, pain lancing through their chest. Their shaking arms burn with effort; it’s all they can do to hang on without letting their magia slip again and incinerate the rail.
Mar glares at their orange markings. It’s always the fire ready to explode out of them the moment their guard slips. Where fire always demands space and attention, their ice magia is quieter, steadier.
“¿Por qué no puedes comportarte como el hielo?” Mar grits out. Ice magia never causes problems, but the fire is wild, demanding. Deadly.
A wave of heat washes over them in protest, so hot Mar sweats in the rain. But then the wind lets up just long enough for Mar to rush up the remaining stairs, to the back of the quarterdeck, and through the gilded double doors into el Capitán’s quarters, slamming the doors behind them before the wind can catch them.
It takes all of a second for Mar to adjust to the dim golden candlelight of the cabin and register the thick smell of rum in the air. Two empty bottles lie on their sides on the floor beside the table strewn with maps, illustrations, and trinkets scavenged from various raids. Papá’s favorite gun—which once belonged to the cabrón Manuel Ramón García López, the Spanish capitán who has made it his mission to hunt down the last of the Caribbean’s pirates—teeters at the edge of the table.
Mar touches their own holstered flintlock pistol tucked under their soaked shirt at the small of their back. They run their thumb over the slick wax waterproof coating and onto their rope belt as they peer into the dim cabin. Not because it’s likely anyone dangerous is here, but with the endless humming in their bones, the reminder that the pistol is still there is…reassuring.
“Mar!” The call comes from the far end of the room, doused in shadow, where Papá’s bed is. Papá stumbles out of the darkness, his rail-thin frame leaning on Leo’s large torso. Papá grins widely as he waves around a third bottle of rum, this one half-empty. Some of the amber liquid sloshes out of the thin bottle neck onto his stained white shirt, slapping the deck like the rain outside. Papá must be really drunk. He’d never let even a drop of precious rum go to waste unless he was neck-deep in, well, three bottles.
La Catalina’s quartermaster grimaces as he gently helps Papá to the table, looking at Mar with something like disappointment. “¿Viste algo?” he asks softly. Leo sounds utterly exhausted, and it takes Mar half a second to recognize he’s talking to them.
“Oh.” Mar rips their gaze away from their completely drunk Papá. “No, it’s impossible to see anything through this storm,” they answer in Spanish.
Leo steadies Papá and releases him, watching as Papá balances on his own. Satisfied he won’t fall over, Leo sighs deeply, gently cups Papá’s cheek for a moment, then bites his lip and walks over to Mar. He rests his hand on Mar’s shoulder and squeezes lightly. “I need to get back out there with the crew. Can you…?”
“I can handle him,” Mar says. “Let me know if you need help out there.”
Leo nods. “Still the long night.”
They meet his steady gaze. “Still the long night.”
Leo takes two quick strides to the hatch, then hesitates, his hand on the door. He looks back to Papá. The pain in his face is raw—it hits Mar in the chest. “Te amo, Juan.”
The smile that warms Papá’s face makes him look ten years younger. “Y yo también te amo, mi corazón.”
Leo smiles softly, then steps out into the roaring storm.
Mar sighs and turns back to Papá, not sure where to begin.
“¿Qué tal, mi tesoro?” Papá slams the bottle on the table so hard, it’s a miracle it doesn’t crack. He stumbles forward, and his rings scratch the table as his hand trails on it for balance.
Mar isn’t feeling especially treasured.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a storm this bad—at least not while sailing,” Mar says.
Papá gets close enough for the mixed stink of alcohol and sweat to flood Mar’s nose, but they resist the urge to step back. The man may smell, but he’s still Mar’s papá. Besides, it isn’t the first time they’ve found him borracho like this in his quarters. Still, when Papá clasps Mar’s face in his hands, the reek is so strong, Mar tries not to breathe. They focus instead on Papá’s rough hands on their cheeks. On the raised line around Papá’s thumb where García López tried—and almost succeeded in—cutting off his finger. On the crinkles around Papá’s smiling eyes in his brown skin; on the
gray hair just barely speckling his mustache, even though Papá is still too young for gray.
“Just look at you,” Papá whispers. He takes Mar’s hands and runs his fingers over their still-glowing markings. “Incredible.” Papá’s gaze unfocuses, and a small smile carves his lips while he traces the lines on Mar’s shoulder. Like he’s looking at some paradise far away. Magia.
Easy to worship magia if you’re not forced to hide it all the time, Mar thinks. They glance at their arms and groan aloud; their dark sleeves are rolled up, and their markings are glowing fully bright orange, which seems unfair because they haven’t even used magia.
“¡Basta!” Mar hisses, shaking their arm as though they were trying to put out a match. It doesn’t do a thing, of course; Mar’s magia has been stubborn all day, bursting from them unprompted in sparks, demanding attention. Before it started raining they even accidentally set a rope on fire, a slipup they haven’t made in months. All night their magic has buzzed uneasily under their skin, a never-ending hum, their bones vibrating like tuning forks. It swirls around Mar’s stomach and collects—hot—around their heart. A warning, whispering—something. Refusing to be ignored.
Mostly it just makes Mar nervous. And a little angry. Life would be so much easier if they could just pretend their magia didn’t exist.
Mar scowls and rubs their still-glowing arms, trying not to think about how they must look like some kind of demonio, glowing from collarbones to wrists to toes. At least on La Catalina they don’t have to hide until their magia calms down. The schooner isn’t just their home; it’s their haven. The only place they don’t have to worry about being executed for brujería.
They stuff their hands into their soaked trouser pockets. “Magia only brings trouble and death,” they mutter.
But Papá shakes his head and takes Mar’s face in his rough hands. “Your magia is a gift, tesoro. You need to stop fighting it and accept it—it’s a part of you. A beautiful part of—”
“The storm is getting bad, Papá.” Mar swallows their frustration and gently covers Papá’s hands with their own. He always gets like this when he’s drunk—sentimental and far too easily distracted. But the crew needs him to focus. Mar needs him to focus. Better: They need him sober. “The crew could have used your guidance out there. This was not the time.”
Papá lowers his hands and sighs. “Sixteen already. Where have the years gone?”
Mar smiles weakly and lifts a shoulder.
“Here.” Papá snatches the half-empty rum bottle off the table and presses it roughly into Mar’s chest. “You should drink. It’s your
cumpleaños, after all, and you’re a—” The sentence catches in Papá’s mouth as his gaze darts over Mar.
Mar forces a thin smile. When Papá is sober, he doesn’t have a problem referring to Mar neutrally like the rest of the crew does, calling them hije and niñe, fluidly making substitutions where o/a endings denote gender. After all, it’s not like Mar is the first of their kind; before the Spaniards came along, many Mexican communities, including Mar’s ancestors, recognized there were more options than just boy and girl. When Papá’s drunk, though…
Well. Mar pretends Papá was about to say man, because that’d be much more bearable than the other possibility. Man may not be quite right, but it’s not entirely wrong, and certainly nowhere near as wrong as woman. Boy feels better—good, even—though it’s not completely right, either.
“Adult,” Mar finishes for him. “Though I’m not sure I agree with you.”
Papá laughs and brings the lip of the bottle to Mar’s mouth. Mar takes a burning gulp, partially to appease him and partially because with a storm like tonight…well, at least the alcohol will smother their nerves some and make the endless buzzing of troubled magia easier to ignore.
But the buzzing under their skin is a warning of impending danger. Sometimes Mar wishes they could turn the warning off, like when they’re in the middle of a violent storm and the danger is obvious. But most of the time the warning prickle is not to be ignored; admittedly, it’s saved Mar from walking into dangerous situations unawares more than a handful of times.
Mar sighs as the warmth of the rum mixes with the tingle of their magia’s warning. Yes, this storm is unusually intense, but they don’t need their magia to know that. Coño, Mar takes a second gulp just because.
“That’s it.” Papá proudly pats Mar’s shoulder. Then: “This storm will kill us, you know.”
Mar nearly chokes on the last of the rum trickling down their throat. “What?”
Papá nods somberly and puts the bottle back on the table—lightly, this time.
“Why would you say that?” Mar’s face goes hot. It’s one thing to utter a curse like that on one’s enemies—but on their own crew? In the middle of a dangerous storm, no less? Does he want to die? “Take it back.”
“I can’t take back the truth.” Papá pulls a chair away from the table and sinks into it, deflating like the life is leaking out of him. “I’ve known this storm would come for sixteen years. But now the time is here and—” His voice cracks and Mar’s heart punches their chest. Is Papá crying?
Mar’s magia hums intensely, gathering in their muscles and hissing lightning into their ears. The magical warning has only worsened since the storm started, and Papá’s breakdown certainly isn’t helping.
Mar shakes out their prickling hands and pulls a nearby chair over. They sit across from Papá, knees to knees, as Mar reaches over and pulls Papá’s warm hands into theirs. “Talk to me. Why are you so worried? This storm is bad, but I don’t— It’s not the first storm we’ve weathered.”
“My blood screams tonight,” Papá whispers, so softly that Mar almost doesn’t hear him above the roar of wind and rain. Mar shivers. Papá doesn’t have magic to warn him about danger, not like Mar, but he is intuitive. Still, they won’t tell Papá their blood has been screaming too. “This night fills me with fear, but not for myself. I’ve known my time was ending.”
His time ending? Mar scowls. Sure, pirates often don’t have the longest lives, but this storm is hardly the most dangerous threat they’ve faced. It’s not like they’re fighting the entire Spanish Armada at once out there.
This overblown lamenting isn’t like him at all, not even when he’s drunk. And honestly, Mar’s quickly tiring of it. If the crew heard him talking like this, they’d be furious.
“You should be spared.” Papá nods, and even though he’s looking at nothing over Mar’s shoulder, they get the sense he’s seeing something else, someone else. “He saved you—that was the deal. You should be all right. I have to believe you’ll be all right.”
“Who are you talking about?” Mar asks. “You’re not making any sense. Maybe you should get some—”
“El Diablo.” Now Papá looks right at them.
“El Diablo,” Mar says flatly. “Claro. Bueno, pues, Papá, te quiero, but you need some rest. You’ve had too much to drink.”
Mar starts to stand, but Papá grabs their wrist too tightly. Mar hisses and sits back down. “That hurts.”
But Papá doesn’t ease his grip. He leans forward, so close his nose nearly touches Mar’s. “You have to listen to me,” he whispers into the darkness. “I made a deal sixteen years ago. I was young and foolish and desperate. Your mamá—”
“That’s enough.” Mar has heard this fantastical tale just about every time Papá gets drunk. The night of Mar’s birth, young Juan Luis León Rojas supposedly made a deal with the devil and asked for two things: fifty years of prosperity and to save his legacy—Mar, who was born not breathing. El Diablo offered him Mar and sixteen prosperous years that would make him legendary. With infant Mar turning blue in Papá’s arms, he was too desperate to barter for more. Or to ask what would happen when the sixteen
years was up. It’s the perfect story to tell over rum and cards on dark nights when the wind sings canciones, but tonight Mar doesn’t have the patience for it.
They yank their arm out of Papá’s burning grip. “You need to sleep it off. Leo can handle the storm tonight, and I’ll help, but you need to be ready to go in the morning, all right? I’ll tell everyone you’re not well.”
“I tried,” Papá says. “I tried to get us to Isla Mujeres before tonight, but the winds were against us.” He presses his palms to his face. “So much gold, sugar, and weapons at the bottom of the ocean…”
“Will you stop that?” Mar snaps. “Keep cursing us and it’ll actually happen.”
“That haul is for the people—”
“And we’ll get it to them—”
“I won’t let el Diablo take you. I won’t. I won’t. You’re my child, mi tesoro. He can’t go back on a deal—that’s the rule. I saved you then; I’ll—”
“Papá,” Mar pleads. “Basta, por favor. Everything will be fine. You’re just drunk. You drank too much, understand? Everything will look better in the morning, I promise.” But even as Mar says it, the words feel strangely hollow.
Maybe it’s the bite of static in the air. Or the smell of rain and salt water thick enough to drown in. Maybe it’s the warning edge of Mar’s magia, or the terrible echo of Papá’s words, but tonight…everything feels wrong.
“Just promise me you’ll survive.” Papá grips Mar’s hand with both of his. “That’s all I want. I don’t care about the gold or the ship—just promise me you’ll make it. Please, Mar, my death will be meaningless if you die too.”
Mar is breaths away from being sick. How can Papá talk about his own death like that—so certainly? How can he doom the ship, speaking of La Catalina like she’s already at the bottom of the ocean? It isn’t just bad luck—he’s practically asking for the ship to sink.
But maybe if Mar agrees, Papá will relax. Maybe he’ll finally go to bed, and Mar can forget this awful conversation ever happened.
“Fine,” Mar says. “I’ll survive. Now will you please get some rest? For me?”
Papá opens his mouth and a lightning strike splits the air—so close, the crash sends Mar’s heart racing and they taste the burned night. Acrid and bitter, like biting into packed gunpowder. Mar takes a slow breath to try to still their panicked heart. Their magia
prickles hotly down the back of their neck and washes over their back. Mar freezes. Their magia only ever reacts like that when…
Mar spins around, pistol out and pointed at—
A man. Gleaming, too-new polished boots; dark, unstained trousers; a fine, deep green ruffled silk shirt beneath a fitted black tailcoat with gold buttons. His trim black beard is the kind of perfect that takes meticulous hours to shape, and his dark hair curls around his pitch-black eyes like thorns. If a king were a pirate, this is what he would look like.
But it isn’t his lavish style that makes the hair on the back of Mar’s neck stand on end. It’s something much stranger.
He isn’t wet.
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