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I wove my way towards him. A table away, a long leg stretched out into my path. I managed not tojump—again,thanks to the wine in myveins—andlooked over at the appendage’s owner. It was Athe.
“Ah, so that’s what you were at,” she mused, eyeing me. “Did you leave him his britches?”
I blinked. “What?”
She pointed to my overlarge coat and cloak. “The fellow you robbed. I’m assuming he was in a state ofsome…vulnerability,given you running off with his coat and like.”
Color rushed to my cheeks.
“Let her through.” Demery beckoned to me. He leaned forward, resting one forearm on his knee as he reached across the table and tapped the contents of his pipe into a bowl. Then, leaving the pipe hooked over the brim, he pushed out the chair across from him. “Ms. Firth, you changed your mind? I’ve had my crew scouring the port for you for the last hour.”
Athe’s leg retracted from my path. I gave the taller woman a bracing smile, as if that could make up for the redness of my cheeks, and stepped past her.
“Captain Demery.” I sat, a little stiffly. “I’ve a proposal for you.”
“Let’s have it.”
“I want my own cabin, with a lock on the inside and none on the outside,” I said, holding his gaze. In my lap, my fingers laced together to hide a lingering tremor. A small voice at the back of my mind screamed that I was mad, that this plan was suicide, but I ignored it. “You’ll teach me to shoot and use a knife. I’ll have privacy and security. Absolute protection from your crew and anyone else that might do me harm. Still, I require my freedom, freedom to leave the ship and do as I please. And I will have a cut of allyour…profits.”
Up until the last sentence, the pirate had been nodding in consideration, but at the last his eyebrows shot up. “Pardon me? Are you turning rogue, Ms. Firth?”
“No. As soon as Lirr hasbeen…”I almost chose softer words, but vagueness wouldn’t serve me. “As soon as he is dead and my mothersecured—thoughI still hardly believe you on thatfront—I’llbe on my way, with my mother and enough money to start a new life. I’ll also need a daily pension while I’m with you, to provide for my needs.”
Demery’s smile was gone, but his eyes glimmered. Amusement? No. This was cooler than that. It was the glisten of an impassive winter sun, clouded and distant and without heat.
My determination hardened, my conscience and qualms obscured, and I leaned forward across the table.
“String up Lirr and help me rescue my mother, and I’ll sing you through every storm of the WinterSea—evenbeyond the Stormwall itself.” Never mind that I was a terribleStormsinger—I’dfigure that out later. “You’ll have your treasure, your retirement, and Silvanus Lirr.”
Demery’s hand leveled across the table. No questions. No negotiation. “You have yourself a deal, Ms. Firth.”
His fingers were warm and rough as they closed around mine.
“Captain.” Athe raised her voice. I glanced over my shoulder to see her watching the door, which had opened to admit a gust of cold wind and a dozen newcomers. Armed newcomers, led by Samuel Rosser in his shirt and waistcoat.
He scanned the inn, posture etched with anger and cold, and his chest heaving. He had a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Fear cracked through my determination and guilt punched clean through. Not twenty minutes ago this man had looked at me kindly and honestly, in a world where few ever did.
I’d thrown that away. I’d done it for good reason, but I still felt a stab of regret.
Athe stood, draining her cup and placing herself directly between Rosser’s gaze and my frozen form.
“So you did leave him his britches,” she commented, making a show of shrugging on her coat. It widened her already broad silhouette, completely concealing Demery and me from the doorway. “Captain? Shall we?”
Demery’s gaze flicked from my stolen coat, to Rosser, and back to me. His bottom lip pinched in a frown and his hand, still around mine, tightened in warning.
“He tried to recruit me,” I explained hastily.
“So you robbed him?” Demery asked.
“I did.”
“Clearly you chose the right crew.” The captain released me and stood, throwing his own coat over one shoulder and nodding towards a side door. “Mary, stay close. Mr. Howell? If you could cause a disturbance?”
A dark-skinned man at a nearby table saluted and sniffed, flexing his hand and giving the fellow across from him a wan smile. “Right. Jack? Fancy a dance?”
The Jack in question looked around the inn, one hand lingering on the embroidered tablecloth. “Here? But it’s sofine—”
