Read Chapter 15: Rising Tide

Tom’s breath came in ragged gasps as the steward hauled him up the last rung of the maintenance ladder, water slapping at the man’s shoulders before he kicked free of the flooded stairwell. Louis was already on the deck above, soaked and trembling, held fast by Élodie’s shaking hands. The boy’s face was pale, his lips blue, but his eyes—those wide, searching eyes—were fixed on Tom with a terror that had nothing to do with the cold.

“His arm,” the steward said, voice clipped and professional even as seawater dripped from his cap. “It’s broken. I heard the bone give when he fell.”

Tom cradled his left arm against his chest, the sleeve torn, the limb already swelling beneath the fabric. He tried to smile for Louis, but the pain carved the expression into something closer to a grimace. “It’s nothing. Just a knock.”

Élodie released Louis long enough to step forward, her skirt clinging wet to her legs. Her fingers hovered near Tom’s arm, not quite touching, as if she feared causing more damage. “That is not a knock, monsieur. That is a break.”

“Then I’ll use the other one.”

The steward—a wiry man with a salt-and-pepper beard and eyes that had seen too much—nodded toward the companionway. “The boat deck is two flights up. The officer in charge is lowering starboard boats. You’ll want to hurry. The ship’s got a list now, and it’s getting worse by the minute.”

Tom pushed himself upright, swaying once before catching his balance against the bulkhead. The arm throbbed with every heartbeat, a dull drumbeat of warning, but he forced it down. There was no time for weakness. Not with Louis shaking beside him, not with Rose and William still above, and not with Marie—God only knew where—still somewhere below in the rising dark.

“We’re not leaving without Marie,” Élodie said, as if reading the resolve in his face and matching it with her own.

The steward looked between them, then at the water sloshing in the corridor behind him. “Ma’am, that lower deck is going to be under in minutes. If your friend’s not up by now, she’s not coming up.”

“She is alive.” Élodie’s voice was steel wrapped in silk. “And we will find her.”

The steward opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and simply pointed. “Two flights up. Port side. There’s a cabinet with medical supplies near the purser’s office, if you want to do something about that arm.” He turned and disappeared back down the ladder, swallowed by the dark and the water that followed him like a hungry tide.

Tom exhaled, long and slow. “He’s right, you know. About the arm.”

“I know.” Élodie’s eyes were wet, but she blinked the tears away before they could fall. “But we do it anyway.”

They climbed.

The companionway was chaos. Passengers surged past them in both directions, some clutching luggage, others clutching each other, a river of fear and confusion that flowed against the grain of order. A man in a silk dressing gown pushed past Tom without apology, his eyes wild, a jewel case pressed to his chest. A woman in a maid’s uniform sobbed into her apron while a child tugged at her sleeve, asking where Mama had gone. No one looked at the water creeping up the stairs behind them. No one wanted to see it.

Tom used his good arm to guide Élodie and Louis ahead of him, shielding them from the worst of the crush. Louis kept his small hand wrapped around a length of red ribbon that had come loose from his pocket—the ribbon Marie had given him, the one he insisted would lead him home. Tom didn’t understand it, not fully, but he understood the boy’s grip on it. Hope was a fragile thing in the dark. You held on with both hands.

They burst onto the boat deck and into a nightmare of lights and shadows. The deck was tilting visibly now, the bow dipping toward the black water that stretched to every horizon. Crew members shouted over the shriek of steam escaping from the funnels, hauling at ropes and davits as lifeboats swung out over the void. The first boat on the starboard side was nearly full, its seats packed with women and children wrapped in coats and blankets, their faces upturned like flowers searching for sun that would never come.

An officer stood at the rail, clipboard in hand, his voice hoarse from shouting. “Any more women and children! Step forward! Women and children first, I say!”

Rose was already at the rail, William’s arm around her shoulders, the old man’s face grey and pinched beneath the deck lights. He had made it up, but only just—the effort had cost him, and he leaned heavily on his granddaughter, each breath a visible struggle.

“There!” Rose called out, spotting them. “Élodie! Tom! We’re here!”

The officer turned, his eyes moving from Rose to Louis, taking in the boy’s soaked clothes and trembling frame. “The boy’s with you?”

Élodie stepped forward, her voice cutting through the din with a calm that surprised even her. “He is my charge. And there is another child—the girl in the grey coat. They must go together.”

The officer squinted at Louis, then at Rose, then back at the boat, which was already bulging at the seams. “The boat’s full. I can’t take more.”

“Then you will make room.” Élodie moved closer, lowering her voice so only the officer could hear. “That boy is the grandson of William Hargrave, of the Hargrave shipping line. That girl is his cousin. If you leave them behind, you will not only have their blood on your hands—you will have the wrath of one of the wealthiest families in England on your head, and you will live to answer for it. But you will answer for it. Do you understand?”

The officer stared at her. For a long moment, no one breathed.

Then he nodded, once, and turned to the boat. “The two children! The boy in the red—” He paused, corrected himself. “The boy and the girl in grey. Take them.”

A sailor reached out and lifted Rose into the boat. Louis looked back at Élodie, his eyes wide and suddenly, terribly young.

“My ribbon,” he said. “I want to keep it.”

“You keep it, mon petit.” She pressed her palm to his cheek. “You keep it, and you hold it tight. It will take you home. I promise.”

“But you’re coming too.”

“Soon.” The word was a lie, and they both knew it. “I have to find Marie first. But you go. You go with Rose, and you be brave. Can you be brave for me?”

Louis’s chin trembled, but he nodded. The sailor lifted him into the boat, and Rose closed her small hand around his, the two of them settling into the crowd of strangers like stones dropped into a river. The boat began to descend, creaking and groaning, and Élodie watched until Louis’s face was swallowed by the dark.

Tom touched her arm—her shoulder, actually, the one place he could reach without jarring his injury. “Marie. She’s not here.”

Élodie turned. The deck was thinning. The second lifeboat was already being swung out, and crew were calling for more passengers. William Hargrave leaned heavily against a stanchion, his breathing shallow, his eyes fixed on the spot where the first boat had vanished.

“She refused,” Élodie said, the words coming out flat. “Marie refused to board without her husband’s body. She went back down.”

Tom’s jaw tightened. “Down where?”

“The mailroom.” Élodie’s voice cracked. “The water will have reached it by now. She’s down there alone in the dark, and the water is rising, and I cannot—I will not—” She stopped, pressed her hand to her mouth, and steadied herself. “I will not lose her. Not after all of this.”

Tom looked at his broken arm, at the panic spreading across the deck, at the ship tilting deeper into the freezing Atlantic night. Then he looked at Élodie, and something in his chest gave way—not fear, but certainty.

“Then we go,” he said. “Together.”

She blinked at him. “Your arm.”

“It’s my good arm that matters.” He smiled, thin and tired. “And my good heart.”

The vessel shuddered, a long, low groan that came up from somewhere deep in the hull. Water began to creep across the boat deck, black and patient, reaching for their feet.

Élodie looked down at it, then back at Tom. “We will not find her in time.”

“Then we’ll find her anyway.”

He held out his good hand. She took it.

Behind them, William Hargrave called out, voice thin and fragile above the wind. “The boy. Louis. He’s safe?”

Élodie turned. “He is.”

“Then go.” The old man’s eyes were wet, but his voice was steady. “Find your sister. I’ll hold this deck until the last boat.”

Élodie took one step toward the companionway, then paused. At the far end of the deck, beneath the glare of an electric light, she caught a glimpse of two men in dark coats, standing very still, watching her with faces she could not read. One of them raised a hand—not in greeting, but in signal.

And then they were gone, swallowed into the shadows below.

Her brother’s associates. They had found her.

“Tom.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “They’re here. The men from Paris. They’re on the ship.”

Tom’s hand tightened around hers. “Then we go down faster.”

And they plunged into the dark, leaving the last of the deck lights behind, while the ship tilted ever deeper into the rising tide.