Safire turned back to Jemsin, holding his steely gaze with her own. “Tell me why you want her.”
His jaw tightened. Clearly he didn’t like being challenged. “I’ll give you one chance, skral. Where’s the Namsara?”
Safire kept her mouth clamped shut.
“If you’re not going to cooperate, I’ll let my crew take you down to the brig. And then we’ll try again.”
If he thought she would endanger Asha so easily, he was deeply mistaken.
When it became clear she wasn’t going to talk, Jemsin clenched his fists. He glanced over Safire’s shoulder and gestured with his chin. Strong hands grabbed her, hauling her to her feet. They dragged her down damp and rotting steps,through a dim narrow passage, toward what looked like an enormous cage with rusted iron bars on all four sides. Inside there was a small, moldy mattress with a bucket beside it.
Safire wasn’t worried about the cell. She still had her picklocks, after all. She could feel the bulge of them hidden in the flap of her boot. It was the fact that this room had no windows. And she was surrounded by men with big, groping hands.
She had been alone with such men before.
Alone where no one could hear her cries.
She would not endure it again.
She nailed the first one in the teeth with her elbow. Then broke the nose of the second. They both let go, cursing and bleeding and staggering back. No longer restricted, Safire managed to grab the daggers from their hips as two more fell in to replace them. She caught the short sword of the first while she stabbed the second with the folding knife in her boot, sending him howling. But everywhere she turned, there were more.
A fist connected with her cheek and Safire fell back, trying to shake off the shock of it. She didn’t see the boot until it hit her in the gut, knocking the air out of her lungs as it sent her backward. Her spine slammed into one of the cell’s iron bars.
Safire saw stars.
They shoved her, stunned, into the cell.
Safire fell to her knees, trying to stop the world from spinning around her.
She felt rather than saw someone step inside with her. Heard the clang of the door shutting behind them. Suddenly, she wasn’t here, in the brig of this ship. She was back in the halls ofthe palace, cowering before the former commandant—a man named Jarek—and his soldats, waiting for their fists to rain down, for their boots to break her ribs....
“That’s enough.”
The snarl brought her back. Safire looked up, to the green-eyed girl flying down the steps and into the crowd circling the cell.The Death Dancer.
“Get out of there, Remy.”
“You ain’t my captain,” the man called Remy said, cracking his knuckles as he smirked down at Safire.
In the blink of an eye, Eris was through the door and inside the cell, standing between Safire and Remy.
Safire stared, stunned at her swiftness.
Remy staggered back in surprise. “Tides, Eris. What’s your problem? The captain said—”
“Change of plan. Captain’s orders.” Eris’s gaze didn’t leave Remy, who glared down at her. Without taking her eyes off him, she said to Safire: “Get up, princess.”
Safire obliged.
Strange, how this wraith-like girl could command such vicious men.
Stranger still that the captain would change his orders immediately after issuing them.
The Death Dancer led Safire back up to the deck. Safire glanced up to the horizon, searching for landmarks. But there was still nothing but cobalt sea and gray sky.
Before Eris forced her down another set of stairs, Safire caught sight of a small rowboat, tethered to theHyacinth’sstarboard side. If she could somehow get free of her captor, perhaps she could use it to escape.
“Keep moving.” Eris gave her a shove from behind and Safire stumbled, reaching for the damp clapboard walls of this passage to steady herself. Prickling with anger, she wanted nothing more than to turn and strike. But this was the Death Dancer: a girl who’d dodged Safire’s every blow last night as if made of wind and starlight; a girl who’d snuck past the palace guards and into her room, then disappeared before her eyes.
