It’s a nice thought, anyway.
His hold still rough, Captain Fane finishes dragging me to the back of the ship. I get hauled up a short five steps from the main deck, to the higher captain’s quarters. The wall is plain, save for a red slash marked down the door, a short eave jutting off the gable above.
My face is shoved against the closed door, my cheek pressed into the white weathered wood, splinters threatening to splice through my skin.
He holds me there with his forearm crushing my back, one fist still holding my satiny strands like a leash on a dog. With his other hand, he fishes into his pocket and pulls out a key, shoving it into the lock of the door.
I start struggling, though my efforts are weary. But I know for a fact that I don’t want to go inside. The moment I cross that threshold, things will happen—bad things.
“Hold still, or you’ll only make this worse for yourself,” he snaps.
Of course, that just makes me try to get away even more, but he shoves his hips against me, using his legs to pin me in place so I have nowhere to go, no way to move. I want to cry at the helplessness of it all, but I swallow that down. There’s no time for that, no time to break down.
He turns the lock with a click, shoving the key back into his pocket. But before he can turn the handle, Quarter calls for his attention. “Cap! We got a hawk!”
Captain Fane turns to look, keeping me stuck shoved against the door. I can’t see him, but I hear Quarter stomping up the stairs.
“Just came, Cap,” Quarter says as he stops beside us.
From the corner of my eye, I can see a large tawny hawk with a black beak sitting on Quarter’s forearm, talons digging into the fur.
The captain grabs a small metal vial off the bird’s leg and unrolls it, careful to keep it held beneath the eave, blocking it from the haggard rain. It’s a short piece of parchment, though its length grows as he unrolls it. All I can see is a messy scrawl of black, but the captain’s brows draw down, water dripping off his beaded beard as he reads.
Captain Fane mutters something I don’t catch and then shoves the parchment and vial into Quarter’s chest. “We need to send a reply?” Quarter questions.
“No. They’ll be here before the hawk could deliver it, anyway.”
Quarter frowns at the captain before replacing the empty vial on the hawk’s leg. As soon as it’s secure, the bird takes flight, shooting up into the sheet of rain and disappearing from view without a sound.
“Who’s going to be here?” Quarter asks.
Instead of answering, Captain Fane holds out a hand. “Give me your sash.” Quarter blinks for a moment before he reaches beneath his furs and begins to loosen the white sash tucked around his torso.
Captain Fane turns his attention to me. Without a word, he starts to wrap my ribbons around my torso, pulling them so taut that it makes me grit my teeth in pain. He wraps them around and around, until their long lengths are completely bound around my middle, and then he ties the ends all in a knot, so tightly that I can’t move them at all.
“Get all the saddles in the kitchens and put them to work. Cook needs to get a dinner ready to be served within the hour. We have guests coming.”
He holds out his hand again, and Quarter quickly passes over the sash. The captain wraps it around me, just as tightly as he wrapped my ribbons, and ties that off too. Another deterrent in place to keep my ribbons immobile.
The captain spins me around and lowers himself so we’re eye-to-eye. His expression is angry, severe. “If any of the saddles try anything or disobey in any way…I want them stripped, whipped, and tossed overboard.”
Quarter nods at him, though his eyes are on me. Even with his red band over his face, I can tell he’s grinning. “Aye, Cap.”
With one last lingering glare my way, Captain Fane shoves me toward Quarter before storming off to the front of the ship, shouting orders about changing course.
“Alright, come on, you. And don’t even think about fucking up with those puppet strings of yours, or I’ll slice them clean off your back.”
The skin along my spine flinches, like the ribbons heard the threat.
With a grip on my arm, Quarter leads me down to the main deck again, straight over to the huddled saddles. “Right, you cunts! Follow me!”
Quarter doesn’t wait to see if they listen as he turns us, heading for a set of stairs in the middle of the ship that leads below deck. I can hear footsteps trail after us as Quarter and I make our way down the creaking stairs.
We pass through a narrow corridor, and then we go deeper into the back of the ship where we enter a long galley kitchen that reeks of potatoes and smoke.