Grant drew his cutlass and I steeled myself against a flurry of panic. All would be well—Demery and Athe were not fools, their crew seasoned and already prepared for action. This was just a scuffle and soon—
An explosion split the air. I spun and saw the Mereish ship quaking, tackles rattling and lines humming. Smoke began to billow up from her hatches.
Whatever had transpired below decks, it came with screams and shouts and a flood of armed men and women—armed men and women who did not belong to Demery’s crew. With a roar they threw themselves at the pirates, driving them back from their captive crewmates and hacking them free.
Grant’s shoulder bumped into mine as he moved close. “Stay calm, Mary.”
I started to protest that I was calm, but cut myself off. My confidence was cracking, and for good reason. The Mereish ship was no merchant, and we were truly under attack.
“We need to get below,” I told Grant. I might have a basic understanding of how to defend myself now, but it was foolish to remain where we were.
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
We barely made it to the stairs before battle overflowed to the quarterdeck. I whirled as feet thumped behind us and shouts filled my ears, all in indecipherable Mereish.
Armed enemy sailors poured over the rails. Just as we’d boarded them, now they used our own nets and ladders to clamber aboard Harpy. Some dropped right onto the quarterdeck behind Grant and I, unfurling like wolves from a forest.
They saw me backing towards the stairs and roared in challenge.
I spun to flee—right into someone’s embrace. I started to push past, expecting the arms to belong to Grant, but found myself face-to-face with the Mereish captain.
Her fingers gouged into my upper arms and her eyes, a startlingly gentle blue rimmed with black, crinkled in satisfaction. She shoved me backwards, a casual hand on my shoulder, and I toppled into the grasp of her crew.
Warm, slick steel pressed into my throat. My body twitched with Grant’s remembered lessons, but I forced them to still. I wasn’t armed, and the blade was so close.
Grant was nowhere in sight. All I saw were strangers and the Mereish captain striding to the rail that overlooked the middle of the ship. One of her crew seized the ship’s bell and began to ring it.
“I have your mage!” the captain shouted in accented Aeadine. “Lay down your weapons, or she dies!”
Thus I found myself standing at the rail beside a Mereish pirate captain—for a pirate she was, I would later learn—looking down the length of the Harpy. Faces turned towards us, one by one and then in droves as Demery’s voice bellowed, “Stand down!”
Muskets and cutlasses lowered. Demery’s pirates backed away from Mereish ones, cutting a clean divide down the center of the ship. Through that no-man’s-land of bloodied, sand-strewn deck, Demery picked his way over staring bodies and a single, severed hand.
My stomach roiled and memories of Lirr’s attack on Juliette surged. I battled them, funneling all my concentration into looking for Grant.
I finally spotted him pressed against the rail behind a knot of crew, blood on his face. Athe was beside him, close enough that she might have been holding him upright.
Demery spoke as he approached the quarterdeck, holding his pistol and cutlass out to either side. But he spoke in Mereish, and all I caught was his name.
The Mereish captain replied in stubborn Aeadine. “You will surrender, you and your crew. If you do so quietly, I will leave you all on the nearest islet.”
“Madam, one Stormsinger is not worth my ship and crew. She can be replaced,” Demery said, also switching into Aeadine. He came to a stop directly below us, far enough back that he didn’t have to crane his neck. “You’ve played this whole encounter rather badly. How about you surrender and I’ll leave you on the nearest islet, grateful for your lives and having learned a valuable lesson?”
My heart jarred against my ribs. Not only was he taunting the Mereish captain, but there wasn’t a hint of a lie in his voice. Would he sacrifice me for his crew?
As if sensing my thoughts, the captain’s gaze fell into mine. There was meaning there, if I could understand it.
I felt a familiar rush in the deck beneath my feet, and my skin began to crawl.
Sister, Harpy whispered.
Oblivious to the voice, the Mereish captain glanced at one of her crew and held out a hand. They gave her a pistol, which she leveled at my stomach.
“Do you have a surgeon aboard?” she asked me, glancing me over with the practicality of a farmwife choosing a Festus goose. “Or will you die wherever I shoot you?”
A choking sound eked from my throat. I unconsciously sucked my stomach in, as if that inch could save me from a lead ball.
“I…” I heard the fear in my voice, hated it, and fought to pull myself together. I was a Stormsinger. I had value.
And beneath my feet, Harpy stirred.
“Take me with you,” I impulsively said to the Mereish pirate. “You need a Stormsinger. Don’t waste this opportunity. Run now, take me with you, and I’ll call down a storm to secure our escape.”
She held my gaze for a moment, then sniffed and brushed the mouth of the pistol at the fur lining of my gown. “What I need is this. So pretty.” Switching into Mereish, she snapped something at her crew.
Hands grabbed at my belt, jerking it loose, then pulling my overgown away. I fought back but there were too many hands, tugging and pushing and digging into my hair.
Then my gown was gone and my accosters retreated. Cold rushed over my skin and I gritted my teeth, watching as the Mereish pirates bundled my fine clothes away.
Left in my shift, stays and petticoats, I clasped my arms around myself. So many eyes. My knife, absent. Grant, Demery and Athe out of reach. I had my magic, but what would wind or snow do against a point-blank shot?
The Mereish woman smiled in pleasure. “There, now my new dress won’t get bloody.”
“Captain?” Demery called from midships, no hint of tension in his voice.
“I am deciding,” the other captain called back.
“I’ll help you get away,” I insisted. The bloody knife at my throat was gone, but the pistol was still leveled at me and her finger rested on the trigger. “I’m a prisoner, can’t you see that? Save me, and I’ll help you.”
Her startled smile and the crinkling about her eyes told me that I sounded naive. Good. The less of a threat I was, the more opportunity I’d have to… What? Make a nuisance of myself and get killed? Take advantage of whatever Harpy was up to?
As if in response to my thoughts, I felt something slip into my hand, down at my side and partially hidden in my petticoats against the cold. I felt the brush of something else too—cool, smoky flesh against my fingertips. The pirates around me did not appear to notice.
I tried not to show my confusion.
“Your mage is trying to barter for her freedom,” the Mereish captain informed Demery. “Perhaps I’ll take her with me, what do you say? You let me and mine return to our ship, with the mage, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Leave the mage and you can have your lives,” Demery answered. “You have my word. We’ll pretend this unfortunate incident never occurred.”
“Do you have a surgeon?”