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I smack his shoulder and glimpse his amused face before turning away. I realize now that I’d been touching, well,a lotof him. Something I haven’t done since the last time we kissed.
A time that seems forever ago.
But there’s no time for those kinds of thoughts. Thirsty crew. I have a thirsty crew.
The galley is one deck above us. We take the stairs carefully, watching the lower decks to make sure no one looks up. I can see two heads of hair from up here. A couple of men sit on the stairs, laughing loudly at some joke a person I can’t see said.
We veer around tables and benches to reach the storage rooms in the back. Drying meats hang from the ceiling in the kitchen. The stove is full of nothing but soot and ash. The dishes from their dinner are already clean and put away.
A locked door provides us little trouble. I didn’t bring my lockpicks with me, but I use a knife to pull apart the hinges.
A light scraping noise is all the sound I make. We freeze, but no one comes running. Not with all of the chatter below to mask what we’re doing.
Inside, we find an assortment of foods: breads, pickled vegetables, flour, sugar, and other cooking ingredients.
And in the back: water barrels.
Riden cracks one open, sticks his whole head in, and drinks.
“Careful, you’ll make yourself sick,” I say.
“I don’t care,” he says and dips his head in again.
When he’s done, we carry the barrels (one at a time, the two of us using our combined strength) down the stairs, back to the gun deck. From there, we tie them together with rope found on the ship. Then we toss them out the gun ports.
Riden starts to climb through the hole, but I halt him.
“Just a moment.”
I open the storage rooms off the gun deck, these ones unlocked, smiling when I find what I’m looking for.
I sling an ax through the belt around my corset.
Riden eyes it, but doesn’t ask any questions before holding me again as we fall back into the water. When we surface, we’re both smiling at our success.
“Can you wait here for a moment?” I ask him.
“Where are you going?”
“To slow down the fleet.”
“With an ax?”
I grin wider before dunking my head below the surface. I swim far below the ships, sizing up the hulls, until I find the largest of them at the head of the fleet.
And just like I did with the harpoon during the sea battle, I swim like a shot for theDragon’s Skull, the ax held out in front of me with two hands, angled so the honed blade will hit first. It connects with the rudder, sending a sharp reverberation up my arms. The whole ship must jerk at the contact. I wonder what my father will make of it.
I brace my feet on the base of the ship, tugging at the breakuntil the rudder comes clean off. With my work done, I return for Riden and the barrels.
The swim back is the best swim of my life.
I’m me, fully in control. I’m towing the water that will save my crew’s lives right behind me. Four glorious barrels’ worth. And the best part is, if we need more, Riden and I can make the trip again to another ship.
It’s nearly dawn when we catch back up to theAva-lee.
“Toss down a hook and line!” I shout.
The call is obeyed, and I place the hook around a section of rope looping the barrels together.
