Adam Barclay’s wife was dead. In the slums of Haulani, where the filth of the streets crept into every niche and crevice, this was not so surprising, but the reality was still hard to swallow. Childbirth had snatched her away in a lash of blood and screaming, leaving a squalling thing in its wake. Its shrieks pierced Adam’s ears, prompting him to approach the cot in the dingy bedroom. Crying. It was always crying. It didn’t even have anything to fucking cry about. It hadn’t lost the only woman worth loving; just murdered her while tearing its way out.

Adam’s lip curled as he stared into the cot at the pink thing, with its tiny red cheeks and tiny fingers and toes and big eyes. It simply had to go. Easily done, he thought. The house was ramshackle, but still teetered at two storeys high. A drop from the bedroom window…

He lifted the murderer from the cot. “Why couldn’t you have died instead,” he whispered. Forget the window – the floor was hard enough. Adam even got so far as lifting the thing up when he realised that, quite by coincidence, it had stopped crying. He stared at it. It cooed at him.

Jack, he heard his wife say from somewhere far away, somewhere sacred. If it’s a boy, we’ll call him Jack.

“…Jack,” Adam Barclay repeated. Slowly, he cradled his baby against his chest. He wept.

…For Rae’s sake, Jack. He’s always fuckin’

“For Rae’s sake, Jack. You’re always fuckin’ daydreaming. Get a move on.”

The older kid gave the subject of his ire a violent shove and stomped away through the sun-dappled alleyway, turning sharply and disappearing to meet with the other urchins. Only once he was gone did the boy glance away from where he was craning his head to see over the wall, wide blue eyes fixed on the bobbing sea. His face was lightly tanned, though a dark bruise blossomed over one of his cheeks, fresh from that morning. Another one of his papa’s gifts. Never mind; twelve years of abuse had finally earned him the right to be outside, and he would never stop taking advantage of that.

But staring at the sea could wait, he supposed, and Jack turned to scramble out of the alley and join the group of pickpockets and muggers that he called friends. And, as had happened every time for the last few days, he ‘heard’ them before he actually heard them. Inside his head. Speaking, clear as day.

Just a few more minutes…

Damn I need to take a piss

Gods guys I’m right here, at least fuckin’ notice me

Soon as these dumbfucks try to break into that tavern it’ll all be over. Fuck ‘em all, I’m done with this shit.

Jack froze, eyebrow arching in surprise. That last one sounded important. Even for a kid, knowing that kind of stuff could come in handy.

A sudden, fierce smile spread across the boy’s face. Sure, there was something not right about what he could do. Magic was magic, but he’d never heard of this.

Still. Jack could make it work.

The ship was called The Ark and was currently docked in Kaiholo Port. It had been unmanned for so long that people thought it likely to sink into the sea before it saw another crew, but to ask anyone walking the streets here… well. To ask any ordinary person walking, it was about to be taken on by a young entrepreneur – a would-be merchant, testing his luck on the water. But ask the right people, and The Ark was about to make its own stamp on the smuggling front. Jack Barclay was taking it, or so they said. Other smugglers laughed that he was still just a kid – wouldn’t last five fuckin’ minutes – and more than that, he had a screw loose. But others, quietly, clandestine, whispered that maybe this kid knew more than the others. His fortune was uncanny, his street smarts flawless.

Torchline had a new smuggling king on its doorstep.

For now, however, the ship was a wreck; derelict and unkempt, it floated stale in the water. People meandered carefully along the deck, testing for weak spots or simply mapping the place out. Jack knew this. Because Jack knew everything.

In retrospect, keeping his magic a well-guarded secret had been a terrible idea. Trying, alone, to control the gnawing thoughts of every passer-by was… well, ambitious to say the least. But ambition was Jack’s game, and sacrifices were only natural. The rush – intoxicating, delicious – at knowing things he shouldn’t, at having the upper hand, was too much to risk going public. But his mind was open door, and lately Jack was seeing things, hearing things, perhaps even doing things (unless it had been a hallucination) he’d never even dreamed of. And now, as he curled in the captain’s cabin, a chair against the door to stop unwanted entry, he could barely open his eyes without the chaos pouring through.

“S-stop,” he mumbled, tangling his fingers in his hair and gripping his head, as if trying to squeeze out the creatures scratching at the inside of his skull. It did nothing. A shaking hand pulled a knife from his boot, and the tip of the blade felt ice cold against Jack’s temple. It was almost soothing. Fine. Everything would be absolutely fine. A quick plunge and he could end everything forever.

He squeezed the handle of the knife--

“Jack?”

Someone hammered at the door across the room. Jack jolted in surprise, dropping the blade in the process. It thumped harmlessly on the carpet.

“Jack, we need you out here. There are some guys hasslin’ us, and we gotta get this place secure. Jones is complainin’ again and I dunno what we’re gonna do about the hull. Can you—”

“Shut up!” Jack’s voice was a shrill imitation of its usual drawl. He lurched to his feet, slamming a fist into the door. “Would you just shut. The fuck. Up. For two seconds, all of you! For fuck’s sake…” He punched the door again, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.

And it really was silence.

Jack’s eyes widened. Nothing. No visions, no horrible sensations in gut and skin and skull. Sure, his head was throbbing, and his hand joined the party a second later. But otherwise nothing. A little concentration, a little probing, and…

Fucking hell, the guy really has lost it. Fuck this, I’m out, gonna

Jack kicked away the chair and flung open the door. He was smiling; viciously, strangely. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said in a soft voice. “Moment of weakness. Doesn’t happen often. Now, where were we?”

The Ark was anchored outside Jack’s favourite cove. His men were unloading the crates – booze, this time, of a stronger vintage than one would consider legal, but who cared about that? There were plenty of taverns along the Torchline all too keen to make his acquaintance and do business and, if not there, the whole of Caido was his oyster. An hour or so more and they could sail ahead to Haulani. It was about time they had a break, the lot of them. They’d lost one man to drowning on their last trip, after all. Well, Jack had said it was drowning. Nobody would be able to see otherwise after he had been thrown overboard.

Jack slouched low in his seat, his boots propped on his desk as he watched the water lapping outside the cabin window. He took a deep draw on the pipe at his lips, holding the smoke and releasing it in a slow breath. He could sense the clamour in the cove as a distant wall of noise inside his head, but had no interest in its specifics. He had a telepathic web draped over the place anyway; any danger and Jack would know about it. No, for now he wanted nothing more than to enjoy his smoke and listen to his empire grow. Listening was a pleasure.

Hell. Everything was a pleasure.