Safire found a crack in the boards wide enough to look through and peered into the room below. The surface of a worn table lay directly beneath her. On it a slender wooden object spun around and around, nudged by long fingers.
That was her thief.
“I told you to stay on his good side,” said the man through gritted teeth. “Trying to burn him alive is the opposite of his good side.”
Safire tried to make out just how many people were in the room, but the lighting made it difficult. As she listened, she slid out one of the throwing knives from her belt and began to move the blade back and forth between her knuckles—a trick she’d taught herself while sitting through too many of Dax’s tedious council meetings.
“He wanted something I couldn’t give him.”
That wooden object kept spinning.
“That’s not how this works, Eris,” growled the man. “I don’t care what he wants. Next time, you give it to him.”
“I may be in your debt,Captain, but I’m not your whore.”
A chair scraped the wooden floorboards. With the hilt of her knife back in her palm, Safire watched the man’s gray head lean over the table.
The pirate Jemsin?she wondered.
He slammed his hand down on the spinning object, halting its rotation. A silver ring glinted on his smallest finger. “You are whatever I say you are.”
And then he lunged for her. Safire flinched as he flipped the girl on her back, pinning her to the table with one meaty hand wrapped around her throat.
“I can’t afford to carry dead weight around.”
Safire’s stomach twisted as he squeezed. She watched the girl kick and thrash, trying to push him off. Safire’s whole body coiled, ready to go down there and stop this... before sheremembered the girl was theDeath Dancer. A criminal who—she realized now—clearly worked for Jemsin.
Not to mention the room below could be full of deadly pirates. And Safire was here alone.
“I’ll give you one chance,” said Jemsin as the Death Dancer writhed beneath him, trying to dig her nails into his hands. “You got that?”
Finally, he let go. The Death Dancer moved like wind, scrambling out from under him and landing on the other side of the table, keeping it between them. She gulped down air, hands cupping her neck. Her pale blond hair was a mess and her eyes were wild.
“I’ve got a new job for you,” said Jemsin. “You get it done, and your debt is paid.”
The Death Dancer frowned. Her hands fell away from her throat.
“Paid?” she whispered. “What do you mean,paid?”
He tossed her the spindle. Eagerly, she caught it.
“You do this job, and you’ll go free. You can run to the ends of the world, and I won’t follow you. I won’t even care. In fact, I’ll be glad to be rid of you.”
Safire leaned closer to the crack in the boards, listening hard.
“But fail me again—sabotage me in any way—and I’ll hand you over to the ones you’re running from. Got it?”
The Death Dancer watched him in silence for a moment, as if trying to find the loopholes. Finally she said, a little warily, “What’s the job?”
Jemsin sank back into the chair. “Catch the one they call the Namsara,” he said. “And bring her to me.”
Safire went stone-still, her whole body attuned to that title.
The Namsara.
Asha.
What did the deadliest pirate on the Silver Sea want with Safire’s cousin?
