Page 73 of Virelai's Hoard
All traces of amusement vanished from Jamie’s face. It was replaced by complete, unabashed wonder. “You’re pulling my leg,” he said drily. When Riley’s expression didn’t change, he blinked at her, and his mouth parted. “There’stwoof you? How did no one tell me that?!” After his moment of stupor, Jamie narrowed his eyes at her, then at the mirror, then at the page he was scribbling on. “If this is one of your tricks, I’m not sure what you think you’ll gain by it, but…” He shrugged. “Fine. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Jamie turned on his heels and walked straight through the wall.
Riley watched, eyes wide, her envy only tampered by the knowledge that one had to be dead to be able to do that. As much as invisibility and walking through walls would comeveryhandy, she wasn’t ready to die anytime soon.
Please don’t let it be today.
Before she even had the time to complain that there was nowhere else shecouldgo, the ghost was back. He looked more disheveled, and moreexcited. “Twosacrifices!” The pirate circled her, quill and scrapbook gone from his hands, the mirror no longer the subject of his interest. “That has never happened before. Your crew must’vereallyhated you. The tablet was clear that we only required one of you.” He tilted his head then and poked at her arm.
She jumped. Her skin tingled where the ghost’s finger wentthroughit. Riley took a step back, slapping at the air to be left alone. Then an unpleasant shudder went through her.
“So?” He looked at her expectantly. “What did you two do to make them hate you so much?” When Riley’s lips parted to protest, he held a hand up. “Wait! Don’t tell me!” He glanced at the mirror at her back. “Guess we can pretend we’re done here. I got the gist of it, anyway. Sold into indentured service by your father, betrayed by your street gang leader, never let anyone close ever again, et cetera et cetera. Is that right?”
Wordless, Riley just nodded. She supposed that was the gist of it.
The ghost clapped his hands. “Fantastic! Follow me. You and Eryx can tell us what happened together! Oh, I can already imagine the look on the others’ faces. This is the most exciting sacrifice we’ve had in… forever!”
The wall to the left side of the room opened. A secret door. Jamie walked through it and gesticulated enthusiastically for Riley to follow him. Baffled, Riley did.
They didn’t have to walk far. As she crossed the threshold, Riley’s hand came up to shield her eyes from the onslaught of sunlight that spilled into the room.
She hadn’t seen the suns in days, and her head spun with the impossibility of it. Her body was still convinced she was deep underground, and yet the now-familiar lull of a ship on waterreturned beneath her feet. They were standing inside of a cabin, but instead of portholes in the hull there were proper, wide windows allowing the sunlight in. No torches needed in here.
The cabin itself was big, spacious, and filled with ghosts. Ghosts, and Eryx. Patch perched on their shoulder, and Riley nearly crumbled with relief as she saw the both of them. They paid her no mind. Both their attention was on a man sitting at a desk. His clothes were spun from fine cloth threaded with gold, and precious stones and metals hung from his neck, from his wrists. Any piece of that would fetch a fine price. When his eyes flitted to Riley, so did the rest of the room’s.
The ghosts did a double-take between her and Eryx. Fingers raised to rudely point between her and the one other living person in the ghost ship’s cabin. Then they–even more rudely–gaped. The ghost sitting at the desk–their captain?–widened his eyes. They were a familiar warm brown, which threw Riley for another loop. Why did they feel familiar?
“There’s two of them–”
“-two?”
“How are we supposed to–”
“-are they–”
The murmur of the ghost pirates rose in a ripple of excitement and confusion. The captain’s voice rose over the others. “Jamie?” he asked simply.
The others quieted. They looked at Jamie with clear curiosity.
Jamie just lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Looks like she slipped right under our noses. I did think it was weird I found her alone in the corridor. She looked about ready to collapse! Poor thing.” He laughed to himself. “But no, turns out I completely missed Eryx. But she was juicy.Greatpotential here.” He held up the fingers of one hand, listing them off one by one while Riley stared, more confused than ever. “Trust issues, avoidant behavior, opportunism, reckless impulsivity,fear of vulnerability. She’s checking outa lotof boxes there. Oh! Delusions of grandeur, too.”
Confusion slowly morphed to wide-eyed shock and an indignant feeling burning in her chest. “Fuck you, too,” she blurted at the ghost. What right did he have to look at her most traumatic memories andjudgeher in front of a room full of people? She clenched her fists at her sides.
The other pirates chuckled softly. The captain’s eyes crinkled as he shook his head at her. “He’s not insulting you, Riley,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. His accent seemed familiar, too. Less ancientthan the Jamie’s. “They’re all compliments. You fit right in with the rest of us washouts.”
Riley scowled. “I don’t fit in anywhere.”
Sheets of paper rustled, the scrapbook magically back in Jamie’s hands. “But you want to, don’t you?”
Riley bristled, turning on him. “Stop that! You have no right to–to–” Peer in her head, look at her memories, gaze past all the lies she’d ever told herself? She didn’t know how to follow it up, the feelings too big to fit into her mouth. She only knew that she waspissed.
“Riley,” Eryx said gently. They sidled up to her, touched her shoulder. She glared at them too, shrugged them off, but it didn’t phase them. “It’s fine. They, uh, they did the same to me, too. I had a whole crowd looking on.” Their face crumpled. “If that makes you feel better.”
It did. It did make her feel better. She deflated. “What’s going on here?”
The captain rose from his seat and walked around to the front of his desk. He leaned against it as he looked at them. “I’m Alaric, the captain of this ship.” He introduced himself with an incline of his head. “This is highly unusual. Unheard of, really. But I guess we’ll have to improvise.” He rubbed the back of his head, and the uncertainty on his face didn’t look very captain-y to Riley. “Normally we all gather here to give the sacrificed a choice.”
Eryx tilted their head. “A choice?”
