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There’s pointing and shuffling in the ship nearest my mother. Guns are immediately replaced with nets.
It takes some time; the siren queen is a formidable creature. At least a dozen men lose their lives.
But they catch her. I watch as she’s transported to theDragon’s Skull. Watch as the rest of the sirens left alive retreat to below the surface. Now that their queen is gone, there is nothing they can do without her direction.
He will question her. Torture her, until he has all the information he wants.
And I can do nothing while stuck in yet another cell.
The ocean returns to calmness, as though a fight never happened. Night hits the water, and the pirates go to sleep.
***
I try shouting for Tylon. Maybe now that the sirens lost the battle, the men won’t have their ears covered.
But as the night goes on, I’m forced to accept that none of them can hear a damned thing. They don’t respond to my yelling. They don’t venture down to the brig. They’re probably sleeping in our bunks over on the other side of the ship.
I slump to the floor, arms resting atop my bent knees. What can I try next?
Riden moves around in the cell next to mine. He presses against the bars, where he can get a good look at me.
“Come here,” he says.
I edge as close to the bars as I can get. Several quiet conversations have broken out over the crew. Ours probably won’t be overheard.
“I want to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” I whisper.
“Sailing with you and your crew was the first time I ever enjoyed being a pirate.”
I laugh, the sound loud and awkward. “Don’t try to make me feel better. I lost two friends today, and Niridia is injured. I don’t want to laugh.”
“You need to keep your spirits up. We’ll find a way out of this. He hasn’t won yet.”
But the longer we sit here quietly in the dark, the more I start to think that hehaswon. We’re trapped. He has my mother. It’s only a matter of time before he has the treasure, too. We’re locked in this brig with two corpses. My heart is breaking from how much I’ve lost on this journey. More death and torture are all that await us once we get back to the keep.
I don’t see how anything will change with time.
“Captain?” A whisper floats through the brig—and not from one of the cells.
Chapter 21
“ROSLYN!” I WHIRL ATher tiny voice.
Her grin exposes a loose tooth bent slightly out of place. “I’ve got something for you.” She holds up a ring of keys.
“I knew you’d save us,” Wallov says, a father’s pride glinting in his eyes.
How could I have forgotten little Roslyn? Stowed away all this time in her hidey-hole up in the crow’s nest. “How did you get the keys?”
“I had to wait for the girly-looking fellow to fall asleep,” she says apologetically. Riden gives me a look that says,Didn’t I tell you?“It was a good thing his ears were covered the whole time because the keys jangle so.”
“Sneaky little thief,” I exclaim proudly.
She steps in front of her father’s cell. “The next time you’re cross with me, Papa, I want you to remember this moment.” She inserts the key into the lock. “Oh, and Captain?”
“Yes?”
