Page 69 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“Don’t you dare.”

Thorne lounged against the mainmast, somehow managing to look both relaxed and ready to murder anyone who breathed wrong. Beyond making sure Griffin and Sebastian behaved themselves, he had little to do now that we were in the sky.

Griffin had commandeered a corner of the deck where he’d spread out his research notebooks, muttering calculations.

And Sebastian sat cross-legged near the port railing, a cup of tea steaming in his hands as he watched the clouds drift by. He looked better than yesterday—less green, more his usual pleasant self—though I noticed small flowers had sprouted from the deck.

“We should play a game,” I announced.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“A game,” Kazimir repeated flatly.

“Yes. You know, fun? Entertainment? That thing normal people do when they’re not plotting world domination?”

He smirked. “I’m familiar with the concept, but we’re fresh out of eyeballs.”

Griffin’s head popped up from his notes. “Oh! Yesterday when I was categorizing the cargo manifest—which you said I could do as long as I didn’t touch anything—I found the most peculiar collection of pickled organs!” He beamed. “Hearts, livers, a badly preserved pancreas—they’re just sitting in the hold. No labels, no preservation spells beyond the basic anti-rot enchantments.”

Sebastian carefully set down his teacup. “Why would anyone pickle organs?”

“Emergency rations,” Thorne suggested.

“Spell components,” Griffin offered.

“Intimidation,” Kazimir added.

I grinned. “Game supplies.”

They all stared at me.

“We could play cornhole. But with organs.”

“That’s…” Sebastian paused, clearly trying to find a polite way to say “insane.” “… creative.”

“It’s brilliant.” I was already heading for the stairs to the hold. “Griffin, show me these jars.”

Twenty minutes later, we’d hauled up six large glass containers filled with murky brine and an assortment of preserved body parts. The crew gave us a wide berth, though I caught several of them placing bets on what exactly we were planning.

Sebastian peered into a jar containing what was definitely a human brain. “This is disgusting.”

“This is amazing,” Griffin said, scrambling out of the hold after me, his gangly limbs unfolding like a spider emerging from a drain.

Kazimir’s expression darkened. “Griffin. Back to your research.”

Griffin’s enthusiasm deflated like a punctured soap bubble. “But my lord, I was just—”

“The artifact won’t fix itself.”

I glanced at Griffin’s face—the bloodshot eyes behind his smudged glasses, the way his shoulders hunched with exhaustion.

I touched Kazimir’s arm lightly, leaning in to murmur, “He was up all night working. Look at him.”

Kazimir’s jaw tightened, but he studied Griffin more carefully. “Then he should be sleeping.”

“I’m too keyed up to sleep!” Griffin protested, having heard that part perfectly well. His voice cracked slightly. “My mind is racing with resonance patterns and harmonic frequencies and the way the energy signature keeps shifting when—”

“Fine.” Kazimir cut him off with a raised hand. “You can play. So you don’t make any disastrous mistakes while your brain is mushy.”