The pantheri gripped the stair railing leading to the quarterdeck to keep from being tossed to her knees, her heart pounding and her eyes squeezed shut. If she went down with the ship, she didn’t want to know it.
Then, as violently as it had arrived, the storm blew itself out. A final gust of wind slammed them down a wave, as the sea smoothed out beneath them, and Tris expelled a long, shuddering exhale through her sails. The turgid sky unknotted itself from black to grey to sun-worn silver, the sheets of raingiving way to errant drops. Cali was soaked through to her fur, which she suspected would take the better part of a day to dry, and she smelled powerfully of brine.
She pushed damp hair from her forehead and was just drawing breath to renew her arguments for Thrain’s release when she looked up and saw them.
Two ebony rocks jutted from the water ahead, as sharp as broken teeth against the pale sky, and between them lay a narrow channel of enticingly placid water. For a beat, Cali wondered why they couldn’t go around it, until she spotted the equally sharp rocks just below the surface surrounding the two ebony ones. It would be impossible to steer a ship around without being impaled on the graveyard of spikes.
“This is it.” Bonnie’s voice was pulled tight and flat. “The entrance to the Claw Island cove.” She squared her shoulders and swept her gaze over her crew. “You know what to do.”
Around her, the crew snapped into action. Pinkie produced wads of cotton from her pockets, stuffing it into her ears as her cheeks puffed with concentration. A sea fey with intricately braided hair produced two bundles of dried seaweed that were tucked in her sleeves, jamming them into each ear with the flat of her thumb. One of the burlier halflings had a pair of thick rope plugs she wore on a cord around her neck, apparently kept ready for exactly this moment.
Then Seraphina appeared at her elbow. Despite having two legs, the nagine glided more than walked, which had never stopped being unsettling. Without ceremony, she pressed two scratchy bundles of wool firmly into Cali’s ears, holding them in place with a strip of cloth she wound around the pantheri’s head and knotted at the back before she gave Cali a satisfied nod.
The world became muffled. Cali could still feel the sway of the ship and the burr of Tris’s groans beneath her feet. Instead of calling orders, both Bonnie and Gert used intricate hand signals to each other and the pirates on deck, although the sailors clearly knew precisely what to do, as the ship drifted uneasily toward the gap between the rocks.
She watched the rocks sidle closer and let herself believe, for a handful of breaths, that they might simply pass through without incident. Maybe the sirens were sleeping, or absent, or had found more interesting prey elsewhere. The channel was narrow but navigable, and all traces of the storm had burned away. Was it possible that they might pass without being stopped?
Then she saw a pair of eyes, pale and luminous, like two moonstones set into the rock itself, watching the ship without blinking. Then another pair flashed above them, and two more beside those, and suddenly the rock was not a rock at all, but a surface made entirely of ravenous eyes. She knew all too well what it was like to hunt a target, but it was unsettling to be on the other end of it.
Cali’s claws were out and her fur rippled along her spine as one siren rose. The creature came up slowly, over the jagged peak of the nearest rock, and the sunlight caught her golden hair, which was as fine as spun sugar and flowed around her shoulders as if it were still floating in water.
Cali could hear nothing. Whatever the creature was saying or singing, she couldn’t hear it. She could only watch the siren’s lips part and feel the vibration of it through the soles of her feet, through the deck, through Tris herself, who let out a buzz of protest that vibrated up her legs and bristled her fur.
She turned to check on Thrain, who’d gone completely still. His eyes were glazed and unfocused, his beard slack, and his mouth opened and closed as he wriggled against the rope. Cali read his lips enough to know the word he was saying over and over.Angel.
Cali looked back at the creature on the rock. She was hardly an angel, but her smile was sultry and self-satisfied as she locked her gaze onto the dwarf and licked her lips, as if she were about to devour something particularly delicious.
The pantheri had no trouble admitting when she’d been mistaken about something. Bonnie had been right about the sirens and about Thrain’s inability to resist them—and she’d been very wrong.
Twenty-Five
Cali had decipheredenough conversation over the din at The Tusk & Tail to be a passable lip-reader, and Bonnie's words weren’t hard to make out, even if her lips were distracting.
We request safe passage.
The siren on the rock tilted her head at this. Her golden hair slid over one shoulder. She said something back, and though Cali couldn't hear it, she saw the siren's gaze slowly slide from Bonnie to land on Thrain.
Thrain, for his part, was doing his best to be as conspicuous as possible. If ever a dwarf had excelled at putting himself in harm’s way, it was this one.
"Just loosen the knot a bit," he was saying to the pirate nearest him, a stocky halfling who hadn't looked at him once since the sirens had risen from the water. Cali made out the wordschafingandtightas he continued to pester her.
The halfling pirate either couldn't hear him through her rope plugs, or she'd decided to pretend she couldn't. Possibly a bit of both.
Thrain scowled and twisted his head to address the pirate on his other side. “I can handle myself with these sea ladies. I’ve survived trolls. I survived crossing the Ice Lands. I’ve survived Sass in a temper, which is frankly the worst of the three, and I'll tell you that for nothing."
The pirate on his other side also did not look at him.
Cali could see the sirens’ lips moving, a murmur that she felt more than heard, a vibration that skated down her spine and to the tip of her tail.
"They're asking me to go with them,” he said, turning to Cali with wide eyes. He said it as though this were a perfectly reasonable request from creatures known for luring sailors to a watery grave. "They want me to join them as their honored guest.” He tugged at the rope. “It would be rude to say no.”
Cali looked at him steadily, not bothering to pretend she didn’t know what he’d asked. “I promised Sass I’d keep you safe.”
"It would be rude not to go after they’ve asked so friendly-like.” Thrain's expression softened briefly, before being overtaken again by the vague glow of enchantment. "Sass would understand.”
Cali thought about Sass receiving news that Thrain had followed a siren into the sea because Cali had untied him. "She would not.”
"She's more soft-hearted than people give her credit for."
