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Footsteps rippled on the deck above my head. The wind gusted again, straining against my already frayed attention. Before I could refocus, I heard shouting both above and below decks.
“Harpy?” I ventured to ask the quiet cabin. I wasn’t sure making inquiries of the ghisting was appropriate, but I suspected she would hear.
Come.
The ghisting’s glowing presence seeped over the wood beneath me like a flood across a parched field. She passed across the deck, up the far bulkhead and into the deck above.
What remained of my control over the wind disintegrated. Curious, I set my work aside and got to my feet.
A pirate shouldered past me through the doorway as I emerged midships. Other pirates hastened through hatches and out of sight, while still others ascended the lines under the piping of Bailey’s whistle.
“Mary.” Athe’s voice cut in from the quarterdeck above me. “Up here, please. Where’s Mr. Grant?”
“He took the morning off.” I ascended the stairs as quickly as I could.
Athe frowned at that. The wind tossed my hair and skirts and as I joined her, Captain Demery and Bailey on the quarterdeck. I glanced about for Harpy, sensing her nearby, but she didn’t take form.
Winter clouds blanketed the sky in all directions, warning of snow, and above us the sails luffed. Pirates scurried to trim them, darting along yards and hauling lines along the ship’s rails.
Bailey, who’d been monitoring the sails, shot me an accusatory look. “What’s wrong with this wind?”
“You’re distracting me,” I shot back. “Running about and shouting.”
The bosuntsked in irritation. “Damn useless woman. Mayhap Randalf had the right ofit—”
“Hush, the both of you.” Demery shot Bailey a stare so flat the man visibly flinched. The captain was next to the ship’s wheel, where one of the huge helmsmen stood with his eyes on the horizon and one ear on our conversation. “We’ve no time for your bickering today.”
“We’re pirates, James,” Bailey grumbled, but he wouldn’t meet the captain’s eyes. He directed a veiled half-glare at me instead. “This is what we do. She’s battered and loose, just waitin’ for us. Hell, we can take her without the Stormsinger!”
The cold wind raised goosebumps on my arms. “Take who?”
No one seemed to hear me.
“I’m not losing an entire day to sack a light merchant,” Demery stated. “I understand the crew’s restlessness, but it’s shortsighted. She doesn’t have a Stormsinger, judging by hertack—therefore,she’s not wealthy enough to merit our time.”
A ship, then? I glanced around at the horizon, but couldn’t see anything but distant ice floes, indigo and white against a grey sky.
Demery held out a spyglass to me, indicating a location with his other hand. “We’ve sighted a Mereish merchant, and we’re discussing whether to take her.”
“Ah, I see,” I said, hiding my unease behind an expression of passive interest. I took the spyglass, warm from his hands and cool from the wind.
Bailey saw through my façade. His upper lip wrinkled beneath his beard, and breath curled from his nostrils in a scornful gust. “What, lass? Forget what ship you’re on?”
I ignored him, training the glass on the spot Demery had indicated. The other craft wasn’t large, with two masts, a sleek build and a dark purple pennant fluttering.
In a rush, I remembered seeing Lirr’s lanterns through the windows of Randalf’s cabin. Lanterns on the horizon. Stalking. Hunting.
The merchant might be Mereish, enemies of my people and our queen, but I knew what it was like to be hunted by pirates. That fear was still close, and it made the hair on my neck stand on end.
It made no difference that I was aboard the pirate ship,now—thatjust gave the fear a stronger, more dangerous flavor. I stood with the predators and had signed my name next to theirs. As soon as we boarded that ship, would these men and women I spent my days with turn to butchery? Would I watch them torture the Mereish as Lirr and his crew had tortured Randalf’s crew?
I lowered the spyglass a fraction and glanced at Demery, then Athe. No. Perhaps I was being willfully naive, but I couldn’t imagine them gutting prisoners like Lirr had.
Looking through the spyglass again, I saw the set of the Mereish’s sails begin to change. Specks that were sailors ascended her lines, a boom swung, and the vessel’s profile changed.
“Captain?” I ventured, uncertain.
“Put it to a vote,” Athe suggested.
