# **TRUE PIECE**
## **Chapter 5: Threaten Dreams**
The first peaceful morning aboard the **Civic Mercy** lasted eleven minutes.
For Eullian Hound, this was a personal record.
Sunlight spread across the eastern sea. Brinehook had disappeared beyond the western horizon, although its original ledgers remained sealed inside a watertight iron chest below deck.
Mira Cale possessed the chest's only key.
Hijo Albino knew which pocket contained it.
Eullian had attempted to discover which pocket contained it.
He had searched seven coat pockets, one boot, a basket of onions, and the mouth of a sleeping gull before Mira threatened to throw him overboard.
That consumed the first three minutes of peace.
The next four disappeared when Eullian learned that owning no part of a ship did not prevent him from being expected to work on it.
The final four ended when he attempted breakfast.
Black smoke rolled from the kitchen doorway.
Mira stood at the wheel.
She closed her eyes.
"Hijo."
Hijo sat near the mainmast, repairing a torn sail with a needle and reinforced thread.
"Yes?"
"Is the ship burning?"
He examined the smoke.
"Only internally."
"That does not improve the situation."
Eullian emerged from the kitchen carrying a blackened pan.
"I made eggs."
Hijo looked inside it.
"You made a surface."
"The eggs are underneath."
"They are not."
"They were."
Mira tied the wheel in place and walked toward him.
"What did you use as cooking oil?"
Eullian pointed toward an open bottle on the deck.
Mira stopped.
"That is lamp fuel."
"The bottle had a picture of fire."
"Because it is used to create fire."
"That makes sense now."
"It needed to make sense before you poured it into breakfast."
"I didn't eat any."
Hijo glanced at him.
"That may be the most intelligent decision you have made."
"I dropped the eggs first."
Mira took the pan from him and threw its contents overboard.
The burned mass struck the water.
A fish surfaced beside it.
The fish looked at the eggs.
Then it swam away.
Eullian leaned over the railing.
"It didn't even try them."
"The fish has survival instincts," Mira said.
"We need another pan."
"We need another cook."
Hijo returned to the sail.
"I can cook."
Eullian turned.
"You can?"
"Yes."
"Why did you let me try?"
"You had already entered the kitchen."
"You could have stopped me."
"I wanted to learn what would happen."
Mira stared at him.
"You experimented on our breakfast?"
"On Eullian."
"That feels worse," Eullian said.
"It was informative."
Mira reopened the supply ledger.
Eullian sat cross-legged on the deck.
The morning remained bright.
The wind remained gentle.
The sea stretched in every direction without smoke, cannon fire, or screaming.
Eullian distrusted this immediately.
He watched Hijo sew.
Then Mira count.
Neither looked happy.
"Do either of you enjoy mornings?"
"No," Mira said.
"I enjoy accuracy," Hijo replied.
"That wasn't the question."
"It was the better answer."
Eullian leaned backward on his hands.
"What do you want?"
"Breakfast without poison," Mira said.
"Longer than breakfast."
"A captain who recognizes lamp fuel."
"I'm not the captain."
"Good."
Eullian ignored that.
"We know Hijo's goal."
Hijo's needle stopped.
Eullian pointed toward the small white book resting beside him.
"You want to find the answer that exists before killing."
"That is an incomplete description."
"Is it wrong?"
"No."
"And I want to keep peace until I die."
"You remind us often," Mira said.
"It's a long dream. Long dreams need reminders."
He looked toward her.
"What is yours?"
Mira's pencil stopped moving across the page.
The ship creaked around them.
Behind the western horizon waited Brinehook.
Her mother remained there, fighting the Mercy Ledger Company one contract at a time.
Her younger brother remained there too, alive because medicine had been placed behind a price their family could not refuse.
Her uncle remained beneath Brinehook's soil.
Aven Cale had died innocent.
For two years, official records had called him a trafficker.
The lie had outlived him.
Mira closed the ledger.
"I want to create a record of the sea that no government, pirate crew, company, or wealthy family can control."
Eullian blinked.
"A map?"
"More than a map."
"A very large map?"
"Names. Taxes. Prisons. Missing ships. Disappeared people. Battles reported differently by each side. Islands removed from official charts."
Hijo watched her.
"You want independent copies."
"Yes."
"Stored in different territories."
"Yes."
"With records showing where each claim originated."
Mira nodded.
"If someone disappears, their name remains somewhere. If a Marine branch sells prisoners, another island learns about it. If a pirate protects one town using food stolen from another, both towns get recorded."
Eullian smiled.
"You want the whole sea to remember."
"I want lying to become difficult."
"That sounds harder."
"It is."
"What will you call it?"
Mira hesitated.
"The Open Ledger."
Eullian repeated it as though announcing the name of a great weapon.
"The Open Ledger."
"Yes."
"I like it."
"You do?"
"It sounds like paper that fights back."
For a moment, Mira nearly smiled.
Then something struck the bottom of the ship.
**KNOCK.**
All three became still.
A second impact followed.
**KNOCK.**
Then a third.
**KNOCK.**
Eullian looked over the railing.
Nothing floated beneath them except blue water.
"Something is knocking."
"Water does not knock," Mira said.
The sea beside the ship rose into a perfect square.
Not a wave.
A block.
Its four walls climbed twenty feet into the air while water continued moving inside it. Several fish swam through the suspended cube, repeatedly turning when they reached invisible edges.
Eullian leaned farther over the railing.
"That seems unhealthy."
"For the fish?" Mira asked.
"For water."
The cube struck the hull.
The **Civic Mercy** rolled violently.
Mira threw herself toward the wheel.
Hijo's white cutting threads flashed from the scars across his fingers and wrapped around the mast.
Eullian caught the railing as the deck tilted beneath him.
Barrels broke loose.
One crossed the deck toward Mira.
Eullian kicked it aside.
The barrel shattered against the cabin wall.
Fresh water poured across the boards.
Mira seized the wheel.
"Damage?"
Hijo pulled one thread tight and listened to the vibration traveling through it.
"Outer hull struck. No major breach."
The suspended cube separated from the ship.
Then divided.
Two cubes became four.
Four became sixteen.
The blocks floated around the **Civic Mercy** in a widening circle.
A dark vessel emerged from between them.
Its hull was long and black.
Its rails, windows, cannons, sails, and mast had all been built with harsh straight edges. Even the figurehead was a human face trapped inside a stone cube.
Across its silver main sail, three words had been painted:
# **NOTHING ESCAPES MEASURE**
A man stood at the bow.
He was tall, narrow, and wrapped in a purple captain's coat made from overlapping square panels. Metal braces surrounded his wrists, knees, shoulders, and jaw.
His black hair had been cut flat across the top of his head.
One eye was blue.
The other was yellow.
The two pupils changed size separately.
Captain Orlen Vask stood behind him.
The former Marine captain wore no coat. A square metal collar surrounded his neck.
Both sides of his face remained human.
For now.
Eullian pointed.
"That's Vask."
"Yes," Mira said.
"He escaped quickly."
"He had help."
Vask leaned over the enemy railing.
"They have the ledgers!"
The strange captain turned his head slowly.
"Did I ask?"
"No, Captain."
"Did I already know?"
Vask swallowed.
"Yes."
"Then why did you give me information I owned?"
"I—"
The captain touched two fingers to Vask's cheek.
Vask screamed.
His skin compressed.
Bone shifted beneath it.
The left side of his face became a hard cube protruding from his skull.
Eullian's expression changed.
The captain looked toward him and smiled.
"There."
He released Vask.
"The joyful one dislikes unnecessary suffering."
"Yes," Eullian said.
"How measurable."
Vask collapsed behind him, clutching his altered face.
The stranger raised both arms.
"I am Captain Cube!"
Eullian waited.
Captain Cube's smile twitched.
"You are meant to recognize the name."
"I don't."
"Everyone recognizes my name."
"Mira?"
"No."
"Hijo?"
"No."
Eullian shrugged.
Captain Cube's yellow pupil narrowed.
"I have destroyed twelve ships."
"That's bad."
"I have dismantled three Marine forts."
"Were they corrupt?"
"What?"
"Because that changes how bad it is."
Captain Cube stared at him.
Then whispered toward his left shoulder.
His shoulder did not answer.
He answered for it.
"He does not understand presentation."
His voice changed slightly.
"No. He refuses it."
Then it changed back.
Captain Cube straightened.
"You attacked Marine Base Eighteen."
"We entered through the gate," Eullian said.
"You humiliated Captain Vask."
"He mostly handled that himself."
"You stole government property."
"The town lent us the ship."
Captain Cube looked at Vask.
"You said they stole it."
Vask backed away.
"They did!"
Mira raised the stamped authorization.
"We possess written permission from Brinehook's provisional council."
Captain Cube stared at the page.
Then laughed.
"Paper."
The floating cubes moved closer.
"Paper is a shape people trust because it usually remains still."
Hijo stepped beside Eullian.
"What do you want?"
Captain Cube's blue eye found the iron chest secured near the main cabin.
"The original records from Base Eighteen."
"No," Mira said.
"Captain Vask promised them to me."
"He did not own them."
"He promised anyway."
"That sounds like his problem."
"It became yours when you sailed east."
Eullian looked toward Vask.
"Did Aldren send you?"
Vask's visible eye widened.
Captain Cube became very still.
For less than one second, both of his pupils matched.
Then separated again.
"Aldren Vane provides opportunities."
"He provided the Devil Liquid," Hijo said.
Captain Cube's smile widened.
"You know the name."
"I know rumors."
"Rumors are damaged facts."
Captain Cube opened his coat.
A reinforced glass chamber had been fitted into his chest.
Black-silver liquid moved behind it.
It flowed upward.
Separated into geometric droplets.
Pressed against the glass as though trying to escape.
"This is not a Devil Fruit," Captain Cube said. "Not anymore."
Mira's attention fixed upon the chamber.
"What did they do to it?"
"Removed the waste."
"Skin?"
"Yes."
"Flesh and seed?"
"Yes."
"The parts that made it possible for a human body to survive consuming it?"
Captain Cube's smile disappeared.
Then returned.
"Survival is an imprecise word."
Hijo's gaze moved from the liquid to the metal braces around Captain Cube's body.
"The Devil Liquid is destabilizing you."
"It perfected me."
"It removed the natural limit of one completed transformation."
Captain Cube tilted his head.
Hijo continued.
"You can force matter between solid and liquid states, then compress it into measured shapes. But your own body no longer remembers which state is correct."
One of Captain Cube's fingers briefly became transparent.
He hid it behind his back.
Hijo saw.
"So you use braces," he said. "The metal frames keep your joints arranged. The chest chamber keeps part of the Liquid separated from your nervous system."
Captain Cube's voice became lower.
"Stop measuring me."
"You named yourself after measurement."
"I finished measuring myself."
"No," Hijo said. "You stopped when the answer frightened you."
Every floating water cube shook.
Captain Cube grabbed the sides of his head.
For one moment, three voices escaped him.
"Break the white one."
"Not yet."
"Put the room back."
Then he laughed.
The sound was too loud.
"Devil Liquid gives more power than fruit."
His right hand dissolved into black-silver fluid.
"More control."
It reformed as a perfect cube.
"More possibility."
The cube became fingers again.
"And greater consequences."
Mira watched him carefully.
"What weakens it?"
Captain Cube smiled.
"You expect me to explain?"
"No," she said. "I wanted to see whether the question frightened you."
It had.
Only slightly.
But Eullian noticed.
Captain Cube raised one hand.
A seawater cube shot toward the **Civic Mercy**.
Hijo's threads crossed before it reached the deck.
The cube split into eight smaller blocks.
None collapsed.
All eight changed direction.
"Cutting does not destroy liquid," Hijo said.
The first cube struck his chest.
The force threw him backward into the mast.
A second smashed his right shoulder.
A third wrapped around his left ankle without touching the rest of him and dragged him across the deck.
Hijo drove three threads into the boards.
They caught.
His movement stopped.
The other cubes passed around him.
They struck the deck.
Wood softened beneath each impact.
Brown liquid rose from the planks and hardened around Hijo's wrists and legs.
Hijo pulled once.
The restraints tightened.
Captain Cube smiled.
"The Absolute Killer."
He had not needed to overhear Hijo's dream.
The white book hanging inside Hijo's coat told him where to strike.
"One hundred and nine names," Captain Cube said. "Three mistakes."
Hijo's face remained controlled.
Vask had learned that number at the base.
Captain Cube continued.
"You pretend your killings were conclusions."
"I do not pretend."
"You want to become careful now?"
Hijo's eyes sharpened.
Captain Cube laughed.
"How many innocent people must a murderer kill before caution becomes admirable?"
Hijo's fingers shifted.
The restraints around his wrists tightened again.
Captain Cube pointed toward Vask.
"Here is an easy answer."
Vask froze.
"Kill him."
Hijo looked toward the former Marine.
Vask had abused civilians.
Protected theft.
Escaped custody.
Joined Aldren's network.
Led Captain Cube directly to them.
Captain Cube spread his arms.
"If Vask lives, he will lie again. Betray again. Hurt again."
"That is likely," Hijo said.
Vask began trembling.
"If you kill him, you return to the only solution you have ever truly trusted."
Hijo's white thread appeared between two bound fingers.
Captain Cube leaned forward.
"Is your dream to find another answer?"
Hijo did not respond.
Captain Cube had guessed from the book, the restraint, and the way Hijo had spared Vask at the base.
The guess was accurate enough to hurt.
"Then find one," Captain Cube said. "Before I become bored."
His yellow eye turned toward Mira.
"Your turn."
Mira stood in front of the cabin containing the evidence.
Captain Cube looked at the ledger beneath her arm.
"You protect records."
"I protect people from what powerful men do to records."
"Same weakness."
He reached behind himself.
Vask handed him a black folder.
Captain Cube opened it.
The first page carried Aven Cale's name.
Mira's breathing changed.
Hijo heard it.
Eullian saw her grip tighten.
Captain Cube read aloud.
"'Aven Cale purchased fourteen prisoners through Base Eighteen.'"
"That record was forged," Mira said.
"I know."
"You know?"
"Vask explained after I changed his first finger."
Vask hid both hands behind his back.
Captain Cube touched the page.
Paper softened beneath his fingertip.
Ink began flowing.
The document reformed.
**AVEN CALE CONFESSED VOLUNTARILY.**
Captain Cube changed it again.
**AVEN CALE SOLD SEVENTY-THREE PRISONERS.**
Again.
**AVEN CALE MURDERED TWO CHILDREN.**
Again.
**AVEN CALE NEVER EXISTED.**
Mira's face became pale.
Captain Cube folded the page into a small square.
"Records do not protect truth."
"No," Mira said.
Her voice remained steady through effort.
"People protect truth."
Captain Cube unfolded the page.
"People die."
"Then other people copy it."
"Copies burn."
"More copies."
"Libraries sink."
"More libraries."
"Governments ban them."
"Then we hide them."
"Pirates steal them."
"We send them somewhere else."
Captain Cube's smile weakened.
Mira lifted her chin.
"I will build an Open Ledger."
The words were not intended for Eullian or Hijo.
They were a declaration against Captain Cube.
"No single owner. No single library. No official version that can erase every other account."
Captain Cube crushed Aven's forged record.
"I can alter anything written."
"You cannot alter every copy at once."
"I can kill every writer."
"You cannot find every person who remembers."
The floating cubes trembled harder.
Captain Cube's power liked fixed boundaries.
Mira's dream had none.
"You will fail," he said.
"Probably more than once."
"They will call your truth a lie."
"They already did."
"They will destroy your name."
"Then the Ledger will record that too."
Captain Cube's blue eye twitched.
He looked away from her.
Eullian smiled faintly.
Mira noticed.
"This is not funny."
"No."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"You sounded strong."
"I am trying not to shake."
"You can do both."
Captain Cube's attention snapped toward him.
"Eullian Hound."
Vask backed farther away.
Captain Cube did not need to guess Eullian's dream.
Eullian had announced it across Brinehook Harbor.
Vask had heard every word.
"You intend to keep peace until death."
"Yes."
"You cannot navigate."
"I have people for that."
"You own no ship."
"We borrowed one."
"You have no army."
"I don't want one."
"No country."
"No."
"No law."
"Laws keep trying to shoot me."
Captain Cube pointed toward the floating cubes.
"I can give you peace."
The sea shifted.
A small fishing vessel rose from behind the enemy ship.
Six Brinehook fishermen had been tied along its mast.
Eullian recognized two.
One had helped distribute the silverfin.
Another had laughed when Eullian declared that the pirates would eat last.
Mira whispered, "How did he get them?"
Vask smiled through his fear.
"The fishing boat left Brinehook before sunrise."
Eullian looked at Captain Cube.
"They have nothing to do with the ledgers."
"Correct."
"Let them go."
"No."
Captain Cube closed one fist.
The fishing boat's wooden deck liquefied around the prisoners' feet.
The fishermen screamed.
Brown liquid climbed their ankles, then hardened into square blocks.
"You claim peace means people remain free enough to choose tomorrow," Captain Cube said.
The wood rose to their knees.
"I heard your speech."
"To their waists."
"Very emotional."
"To their chests."
"Very foolish."
The fishermen struggled against the mast.
"No one inside a cube fights."
Wood climbed their shoulders.
"No one argues."
It reached their throats.
"No one escapes."
The liquid moved toward their mouths.
"No one dreams."
Eullian became still.
Mira looked toward him.
She had seen Eullian angry.
At Vask.
At Brask.
At Aldren.
Those moments had carried heat.
Immediate outrage.
Motion before thought.
This was different.
Eullian's hands opened.
His shoulders lowered.
His breathing slowed.
The sounds around him separated.
Water striking the hull.
Wood creaking beneath Hijo's restraints.
Mira's pencil rolling near her boot.
The frightened breathing of six fishermen.
Captain Cube laughing before the joke had ended.
Eullian did not become stronger.
His wounds did not close.
His body did not recover from blood loss.
Rage was not a transformation.
It was the moment every unnecessary thought left him.
Eullian had spent most of his life understanding other people's feelings before his own.
He understood fear.
Grief.
Shame.
Loneliness.
He could see anger inside others while his own passed through him too quickly to name.
Now Captain Cube had threatened Hijo's attempt to become more than his worst act.
He had turned Mira's uncle into a toy made from ink.
He had placed innocent people inside a cage and called it peace.
For the first time, Eullian understood rage while it was still inside him.
Captain Cube smiled.
"There."
Eullian looked at him.
"There what?"
"Hatred."
"No."
The answer was quiet.
Captain Cube's smile twitched.
"You want me dead."
"I want you stopped."
"Same thing."
"No."
"What is the difference?"
Eullian stepped onto the railing.
"After you stop, I don't want to keep carrying you."
Captain Cube's expression tightened.
"That is hatred pretending to be wisdom."
"I'm not wise."
Hijo, still bound to the deck, spoke through clenched teeth.
"That is difficult to dispute."
Eullian looked toward the fishing vessel.
The wood had reached the prisoners' mouths.
"Captain Cube."
"What?"
"You threatened their dreams."
"Yes."
Eullian bent his knees.
"Game over."
He jumped.
Captain Cube raised a wall of seawater.
Eullian could not run on the ocean.
He could not stand on a wave.
He could not ignore water powerful enough to smash ships.
So he did not try.
He struck the first floating cube with both feet before it fully formed.
The outer surface compressed.
For one instant, the ability's force resisted him.
That instant was enough.
Eullian pushed away.
He changed direction in midair and landed on a second forming cube.
Captain Cube's blue eye widened.
Eullian jumped again.
The cube collapsed behind him.
"Stop holding them still!" Vask shouted.
Captain Cube turned.
"What?"
"The cubes! He's using them!"
"I know!"
"You're giving him platforms!"
"I KNOW!"
Captain Cube struck Vask without looking.
Vask's right shoulder compressed into a block.
His scream interrupted Captain Cube's concentration.
Three seawater cubes lost their edges.
Another collided with the fifth.
Eullian saw the flaw.
Captain Cube's power was enormous.
His attention was not.
Every object required shape, pressure, position, and movement.
The more cubes he controlled, the more parts of his fractured mind had to agree.
They rarely did.
Eullian kicked through one weakening cube.
Cold water wrapped around his lower leg.
Strength drained from the trapped limb.
He did not pull backward.
He allowed the cube's movement to carry him forward.
Captain Cube realized too late.
Eullian landed on the enemy deck.
Black planks liquefied beneath his feet.
He sank to his ankles.
Then his knees.
Captain Cube touched the deck with one hand.
The black liquid climbed Eullian's legs and hardened into heavy blocks.
"Measured," Captain Cube whispered.
Eullian punched downward.
The deck softened around his fist.
The impact spread through liquid instead of breaking wood.
Captain Cube laughed.
"Strength is wasted without shape."
Eullian punched again.
Nothing shattered.
The blocks climbed to his waist.
"Your rage did not make you stronger."
"I know."
"Then what did it give you?"
Eullian looked past him.
Not at the captain.
At the deck.
Three barrels stood behind the mast.
One had broken during the earlier attack.
Dry ballast sand poured from the crack.
Mira followed his gaze.
She understood.
"Sand!" she shouted.
Captain Cube turned toward her.
Eullian tore one arm free of the liquid deck.
Not because rage strengthened him.
Because Captain Cube's attention had shifted.
Eullian seized a loose length of chain, wrapped it around the broken barrel, and pulled.
The barrel crossed the deck.
It shattered against Captain Cube's side.
Dry sand exploded across his coat, face, hands, and exposed chest chamber.
Captain Cube screamed.
The black-silver moisture covering his skin rushed into the grains.
His liquid arm lost cohesion.
It broke into heavy wet clumps.
The floating cubes around both ships shuddered.
Hijo pulled against his restraints.
Cracks appeared in the wood around his wrists.
"Dry material absorbs the free Liquid," he said.
Mira ran toward the emergency pump.
"Will water weaken him or help him?"
"Continuous water disrupts his controlled shapes," Hijo answered. "A small amount may give him more material."
"That is not comforting."
"Use a lot."
Mira connected the fire hose to the ship's fresh-water tank.
The **Civic Mercy** carried little enough drinking water already.
She hesitated for half a second.
Then looked toward the fishermen being sealed inside their own boat.
She threw her weight onto the pump lever.
A heavy stream struck Captain Cube.
His body lost its edges.
The metal frame around his jaw fell loose.
His face slid toward one shoulder before reforming.
Several voices screamed from the same mouth.
"Too wet!"
"Too dry!"
"Hold the walls!"
"Where is the room?"
"I AM COMPLETE!"
The wooden restraints around Hijo softened.
His threads flashed.
He cut himself free.
Captain Cube tried to raise another hand.
Hijo's thread wrapped around the wrist and pulled it away from the deck.
Captain Cube glared at him.
"Kill Vask."
"No."
"Then you learned nothing."
"I learned that you need him."
Captain Cube froze.
Hijo looked toward the former Marine.
"If Vask were disposable, you would have killed him already."
Vask stared at him.
"He carries routes, contacts, and knowledge you have forgotten," Hijo continued. "You punish him because you resent needing him."
Captain Cube's yellow eye turned toward Vask.
"Is that true?"
Vask shook his head frantically.
"No!"
Captain Cube looked confused.
That confusion cost him control of the fishing boat.
The wooden prison around the six fishermen stopped rising.
Hijo's threads crossed the distance between ships.
One cut the ropes binding the mast.
A second sliced the hardened wood around the first fisherman's chest.
Then the next.
Not one thread touched skin.
Captain Cube screamed and reached toward the fishing boat.
Eullian reached Captain Cube first.
He grabbed the metal frame surrounding the captain's chest.
The black-silver Liquid surged behind the glass.
Captain Cube smiled through his deforming face.
"You're angry."
"Yes."
"You denied it."
"I denied hating you."
"What is the difference?"
Eullian pulled his fist back.
"Rage is what I use to stop you."
His knuckles tightened.
"Hate would mean you still control me afterward."
He punched Captain Cube in the chest.
The metal frame folded.
The reinforced glass cracked but did not completely shatter.
Captain Cube's body attempted to liquefy around the impact.
The sand absorbed part of the transformation.
The water disrupted another part.
His divided mind ordered three different shapes.
His torso became square.
Then fluid.
Then human.
Then partially hollow.
The conflicting forms could not distribute the force.
Captain Cube flew backward.
He smashed through his own square mast.
The mast broke near its base and fell toward the fishing vessel.
Hijo moved both hands.
White threads wrapped around the falling timber.
His feet slid across the deck.
The mast stopped inches above the prisoners.
Mira kept pumping.
Captain Cube struck the rear wall of his ship.
The glass chamber in his chest fractured farther.
Black-silver liquid leaked through the cracks.
Where it touched the wet deck, it separated into tiny geometric fragments.
Each fragment twitched independently.
Captain Cube looked down.
Fear finally replaced delight.
"No."
The fragments crawled away from him.
"No. Return."
They did not.
Captain Cube dropped to his knees.
His body changed unevenly.
One arm liquefied.
The other remained solid.
His left leg compressed into a block.
His face separated into overlapping versions.
"I am Captain Cube."
The second face spoke over the first.
"We are Captain Cube."
A third voice whispered beneath both.
"I was somebody else."
Vask crawled toward a lifeboat.
Hijo's thread caught his ankle.
Vask fell.
"Please," he said.
Hijo pulled him away from the boat.
Vask looked at the white book inside Hijo's coat.
"You said I would die."
"No."
"Brask—"
"I announced Brask's name."
"You wanted to kill me."
"Yes."
Hijo dragged him toward the **Civic Mercy**.
"I found another answer."
Vask looked at the restraints waiting beside the mast.
"Prison?"
"Testimony."
"That's worse."
"For you."
Captain Cube drove both hands into the wet deck.
Every remaining water cube collapsed.
The sea crashed around the ships.
The black vessel rolled hard to port.
Eullian lost his footing.
The damaged blocks around his legs pulled him down.
Water crossed the deck.
Captain Cube's leaking Liquid spread through it.
The entire vessel began changing.
Railings softened.
Cannons compressed.
Sections of the hull bulged into cubes.
Mira shouted from the **Civic Mercy**.
"Eullian! Get off that ship!"
"The fishermen!"
"Hijo has them!"
Hijo's threads formed a web between the two vessels.
The six freed fishermen crossed one at a time, suspended above the water.
Vask was sent last.
He screamed throughout the entire journey.
Eullian tore one leg free.
The other remained trapped inside blackened wood.
Captain Cube crawled toward him.
Parts of the villain stayed behind with every movement.
"You threatened my shape," Captain Cube said.
"You threatened everyone."
"I can still destroy your dream."
"You don't understand it."
"No peace survives me."
Eullian bent and ripped the last block from his leg.
Captain Cube reached toward the **Civic Mercy**.
The sea between both vessels rose.
Eullian seized the damaged chest frame with both hands and twisted.
The glass chamber tore loose from Captain Cube's body.
The captain screamed.
The Liquid inside the container struck every side at once.
Without it, Captain Cube's power weakened.
Without it, his body destabilized faster.
Eullian held the chamber over the sea.
Captain Cube stopped moving.
"Give it back."
"No."
"I need it."
"Yes."
"Without it, I disappear."
Eullian looked at him.
For one moment, the rage inside him found an easy answer.
Drop the chamber.
Let the sea swallow it.
Captain Cube had threatened six innocent lives.
Mocked Hijo's guilt.
Used Mira's dead uncle as entertainment.
He would kill again.
Stopping him forever would be simple.
Hijo stood aboard the **Civic Mercy**, watching.
He did not shout advice.
Mira did not tell Eullian what justice required.
Captain Cube smiled weakly.
"You see?"
His face slid farther out of shape.
"Every dream ends at the same decision."
Eullian looked down at the black-silver Liquid.
Then toward the prisoners Captain Cube had nearly sealed alive.
"Maybe."
He threw the chamber.
Not into the sea.
Onto the Civic Mercy's deck.
Hijo caught it with three threads without touching the glass.
Captain Cube stared.
Eullian grabbed him by the remains of his coat.
"I'm not letting you die because it's easier."
Captain Cube laughed.
"You think that is mercy?"
"No."
Eullian pulled him upright.
"You're going to tell Mira where the Devil Liquid came from."
Mira's eyes narrowed.
"You're going to tell Hijo who purchased the prisoners connected to Base Eighteen."
Hijo tightened the threads around the chamber.
"And you're going to tell me how many other people Aldren gave this stuff to."
Captain Cube's laughter stopped.
Eullian jumped across the narrowing gap between ships while carrying him.
They landed hard on the Civic Mercy.
The deck cracked beneath Eullian's feet.
Mira looked at the damage.
Then at him.
"You could have landed more carefully."
"I was holding a villain."
"That does not make the deck less broken."
Captain Cube collapsed.
Hijo wrapped his arms, legs, and torso with layered thread.
The bindings avoided direct contact with the leaking Liquid.
Mira turned the emergency hose onto him again.
Captain Cube's body weakened into an unstable human shape.
His eyes rolled in different directions.
"You cannot imprison water," he whispered.
"You are not water," Hijo said.
"What am I?"
No one answered.
Behind them, Captain Cube's damaged vessel began folding inward.
Its crew had remained below deck throughout the battle.
Now sailors emerged from hidden compartments and abandoned the ship in three small boats.
None attempted to rescue their captain.
Metal collars surrounded their necks.
Mira saw them.
"They weren't loyal."
"No," Hijo said. "They were controlled."
Captain Cube laughed weakly.
"Crew is another shape."
One of the fleeing sailors threw a square control device into the sea.
The collars around the others opened.
Not one looked back.
The black ship's mast vanished beneath the waves.
Water entered the fractures in its hull.
Captain Cube attempted to raise one finger.
Nothing happened.
His power could affect seawater at a distance when he maintained control.
Direct, continuous saturation weakened the Devil Liquid's ability to hold a chosen structure.
The sinking vessel became too wet.
Too large.
Too damaged.
Too complicated.
Its cubic sections lost shape.
The hull collapsed like ordinary broken timber.
Captain Cube watched it sink.
Part of him laughed.
Another part began crying.
A third whispered a name too quietly for anyone to hear.
The **Civic Mercy** drifted among the wreckage.
Its starboard hull had been cracked by the first water strike.
One sail was torn.
The mainmast leaned several degrees farther than Mira preferred, which was any number above zero.
Two water barrels had broken.
Half the breakfast supplies were ruined.
But the ship remained afloat.
The evidence remained dry.
The fishermen remained alive.
Vask remained restrained.
Captain Cube remained conscious enough to be dangerous and weak enough to question.
Mira knelt beside the black folder he had dropped.
Several records carried the symbol of the Mercy Ledger Company.
An open hand holding a golden coin.
She opened one page.
Her expression hardened.
"Hijo."
He moved beside her.
The document listed nine shipments.
Each used different names.
**Concentrated anomaly.**
**Maritime adaptation substance.**
**Distilled curse.**
**Devil Liquid.**
The ninth entry carried a company seal.
**ONE VIABLE VIAL DELIVERED TO CUBE PRIVATEERS.**
Below it was another line.
**SUBJECT INSTABILITY ACCEPTED BY PURCHASER.**
"Aldren knew what it would do," Mira said.
Hijo read the remaining entries.
"There were at least eight other deliveries."
Eullian looked toward Captain Cube.
"How many worked?"
Captain Cube smiled against the deck.
"Define worked."
"How many people lived after drinking it?"
"Define lived."
Eullian's rage moved again.
Not hotter.
Sharper.
He knelt beside Captain Cube.
"What was your name before Cube?"
Captain Cube's smile disappeared.
His blue eye closed.
The yellow remained open.
"I completed my name."
"That wasn't the question."
"I removed the useless part."
"What part?"
Captain Cube stared beyond Eullian.
For several seconds, no answer came.
Then his voice changed.
Smaller.
Older.
Terrified.
"Calven."
Mira wrote it down.
Captain Cube's body jerked.
"My name is Captain Cube!"
"You can have both," Eullian said.
"No."
"You seem to have several people inside you already."
"Silence."
"Which one threatened the fishermen?"
Captain Cube's eyes moved separately.
"All of us."
"Which one works for Aldren?"
"I do not work for him."
"Which one accepted the Liquid?"
Captain Cube laughed.
Then stopped.
"Calven."
Eullian looked at Mira.
She had already recorded the answer.
Captain Cube saw.
"You think the Open Ledger will save you?"
"No," Mira said.
"Then why write?"
"So you don't get to become the only person who explains what happened."
Captain Cube closed both eyes.
Hijo examined the glass chamber.
"The container cannot remain aboard unprotected."
Mira nodded toward the prison hold beneath the kitchen.
"Iron cell. Dry storage. No access to the hull."
Eullian looked at Captain Cube.
"Put him in the prison bars?"
"Yes."
"The ship was designed for this."
Hijo lifted Captain Cube using his threads.
The villain's body sagged between them.
Captain Cube opened one eye.
"You mocked the bars."
Eullian followed as Hijo carried him below deck.
"I still think they're bad beneath a kitchen."
"Why?"
"Prisoners can smell breakfast."
Hijo looked toward the burned remains of Eullian's eggs.
"In this case, that may discourage escape."
They secured Captain Cube inside the reinforced hold.
The chamber of Devil Liquid went into a separate iron box packed with dry cloth, sand, and sealed wax.
Mira retained the key.
Hijo memorized which pocket held it.
Eullian did not search the gull again.
It had already left.
Back on deck, the six fishermen rested beneath blankets.
One had splinters across his face.
Another's ankle was broken.
All were alive.
The oldest fisherman watched Eullian approach.
"You really meant it."
"Which part?"
"Peace until death."
"Yes."
The fisherman looked toward the prison hold.
"You saved him too."
Eullian followed his gaze.
"For now."
"After what he did?"
"He has answers we need."
"That isn't the whole reason."
Eullian sat beside him.
"No."
The fisherman waited.
Eullian looked toward Hijo.
The Absolute Killer was restraining Vask without killing him.
Then toward Mira.
She was already copying the Devil Liquid records onto three separate pages.
Eullian's rage remained inside him.
It had not vanished with the fight.
That frightened him slightly.
He had always been joyful because joy came easily.
Now he understood that rage could remain quiet.
Could wait.
Could justify itself.
Could begin calling cruelty necessary.
"I don't want Captain Cube deciding what I become," Eullian said.
The fisherman nodded.
"That sounds difficult."
"Yes."
"Good."
Eullian looked at him.
The fisherman smiled weakly.
"Short distances don't need dreams."
Eullian laughed.
"You heard that?"
"You speak loudly."
Mira approached carrying three copies of the recovered entry.
"One stays with the original ledgers," she said. "One remains on my body. One goes somewhere Captain Cube and Vask do not know."
Eullian looked around the damaged deck.
"Where?"
Mira handed the third copy to the fisherman.
He folded it beneath his shirt.
Hijo joined them.
"Captain Cube revealed eight additional shipments."
"New enemies?" Eullian asked.
"Unknown victims," Mira corrected.
"Some may be both," Hijo said.
Eullian looked east.
Aldren Vane had transported the Devil Liquid.
Captain Cube had consumed it.
Vask had guided him toward the evidence.
None of them represented the entire conflict.
Behind each villain stood a route.
A payment.
A frightened worker.
A forged record.
A system that made cruelty profitable before the cruel person ever arrived.
"Our long goal has more enemies," Eullian said.
"More problems," Mira replied.
"Enemies are easier to punch."
"That is why you should not define every problem as one."
Hijo examined the ripped stitches along Eullian's ribs.
"You reopened the wound."
Eullian looked down.
Blood had soaked through the bandage.
"It happened during the rage."
"It happened during the jumping."
"Can rage close stitches?"
"No."
"Then it seems incomplete."
Hijo removed the needle from his coat.
Eullian's newly understood rage vanished beneath immediate fear.
"No."
"Yes."
"The deck is unstable."
"Remain still."
"We may be attacked again."
"Then I will stitch faster."
"That sounds worse."
"It will feel worse."
Mira sat beside the wheel.
For the first time since Brinehook, she laughed openly.
One fisherman joined her.
Then another.
Even Vask, restrained near the mast, made a strange sound that might have been nervous laughter until Hijo looked at him.
He stopped.
Eullian smiled despite the approaching needle.
Captain Cube had mocked their dreams.
He had threatened to make Hijo's restraint meaningless.
He had tried to prove Mira's records could never defeat altered truth.
He had turned Eullian's peace into a motionless cage.
He had failed.
Hijo had found an answer before killing.
Mira's Open Ledger had gained its first record beyond Brinehook.
Eullian had learned rage without surrendering his dream to it.
Their dreams were now easier for enemies to threaten.
But they were no longer private thoughts carried by one person.
Six fishermen had heard them.
Mira had written them.
Hijo had acted upon them.
Even Captain Cube had been forced to remember them.
A dream spoken aloud could become a weakness.
It could be mocked.
Twisted.
Threatened.
Used as bait.
It could also become something another person carried when its owner became tired.
The **Civic Mercy** turned slowly east.
Its hull was damaged.
Its sail was torn.
Its crew still refused to call itself a crew.
Below the kitchen, a broken villain whispered several names to himself.
Ahead waited Aldren Vane, seven unknown Devil Liquid shipments, and a sea large enough to hide every kind of truth.
Eullian clenched his teeth as Hijo pushed the needle through his skin.
Then he screamed loudly enough to frighten the remaining gulls.
Peace aboard the Civic Mercy lasted another six seconds.
This was still an improvement.