Page 92 of Of Magic and Rum
Ragnar barks a laugh. “No, you’re only eternally bonded to her. You’ve risked your mortal life for her on more than one occasion, and you can’t take your eyes off her whenever she’s around. I’d say you’re quite settled down,ven.”
I know this in my gut and have zero issues with it because Annie is my world, but my best friend, a man I consider a brother, pointing it out? It puts such a giddy smile on my face that I swear I’m drunk.
Digging into my satchel, I feel for three pieces of silver and slap them into his awaiting palm. “Don’t spend it all in one place. Or do. At the brothel.” I chuckle before noticing Mary staring at a map with—spectacles. “Read?”
She lifts her head, eyes largely distorted through the lenses of the wire-framed glasses. “Yeah, Cap?” Mary says this like seeing her with such a thing atop her nose isn’t unusual.
Upon closer inspection, I realize they aren’t just any spectacles. “Mary, are those—were they Duke’s?”
“Yeah,” she says, removing them and turning them in her hands with a remembering grin. “I’m still trying to teach myselfto read these bloody maps and thought if I put them on, it might channel him somehow. It’s stupid, I know.”
I cross my ankles and smile warmly while leaning on a barrel. “Not stupid. I miss him, too. Did it work?”
Mary rolls her big blue eyes with exaggerated mock annoyance. “No. But—” She lifts the map and holds it in front of her with stiff arms. “I’ve been wondering why I have to hold parchment out like this to make sense of it.” After she slips the spectacles on, she rests the map on the barrel. “Turns out I needglasses. Can you believe that?”
Imagining Mary slashing her sword and swashbuckling with spectacles pulls a chuckle from my throat. “Are you certain you don’t want to find a different pair in Nassau?”
“Why?” Mary frowns and peers at me with those fish-eyed lenses again, perplexed. “What’s wrong with these?”
I haven’t the heart to say anything further and shake my head. “You know what? Not a thing, Mary.” Passing by, I kiss the top of her head. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”
“Damn straight,” Mary mumbles, flashing teeth at me when I toss a glare.
The flag hangs from the crow’s nest, displaying our emboldened colors of a black and white skull and cross swords, and flutters in the breeze above me, strong and true. The sails pick up the wind, which hasn’t died down for days. Thank God for it, too, because it’s getting us to land faster.
“Captain, there you are. I’ve been looking for you,” Glog rushes toward me with a wooden spoon, his other hand cupped underneath it as if he doesn’t wish to get this already filthy deck dirty. “Try this.”
I open my mouth to the approaching spoon without fear because if he wishes to poison me at this point, I figure he’d have already done it. It’s a surprisingly spicy, warm broth. Beverage? “What is this? Tastes like wine but mixed with something else.”
Glog does a quick jig, sloshing some red liquid onto my boots. I arch a brow at him. “Sorry. But yes, the wine in storage was close to going bitter, so I thought I’d try something with it. It’s some random spices we had left, fermented fruits, and winewarmedby fire.”
I lick what remains from my top lip. “It’s delicious. What do you call it?”
“I’m thinking of naming it after myself.” Glog clicks his heels together, closes his eyes, and proudly stands straighter.
“Someone is certainly full of themselves,” I jest, strolling past him.
Glog’s eyes frantically blink open, and he stutters. “But I—” He catches my smile and points at me with the ladle, splashing the rest of the contents onto the deck. “—you’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?”
Still grinning, I don’t answer and keep moving. Something drips on the top of my head, and I pause, peering at the clear blue skies without a cloud in sight. Huh. As I walk further, two more drops fall, one on my head, another on my shoulder. Wiping some from my shirt and rubbing it between two fingers, I sniff it. Rum?
Looking up again, squinting against the blazing sun, the crow’s nest in the foreground, I see Squid’s dangling legs swaying with more zeal than usual. I shield my eyes and scoff at the shit-eating grin he’s giving, holding up his rum bottle, gesturing at it, and then his head and laughing. He’s become quite the little prankster as of late. I point at him and make a walking gesture with my fingers to insinuate that he is walking the plank. Squid laughs again, shakes his head, flicks his wrist at me, and continues drinking.
There’s splashing from the rope ladder hanging over the railing, and my heart races. Anne went for a swim hours ago, and I’ve been impatiently waiting for her to return. I prop against abarrel, sporting my best swagger, and when I see longblackhair instead of red, I deflate.
“Aranck. Not the long-haired beauty I was expecting.” I dust my trousers off for no other reason than to not peer at Aranck half-naked.
Aranck wrings out his dark tresses and uses a rag to dry his face. “You think I’m beautiful, Captain?”
My neck stiffens. “I wouldn’t say beautiful per se, but you’re certainly not ugly?”
“That woman can swim,” Aranck says, graciously changing the subject and catching his breath.
The woman is Anne.
“Sheispart fish,” I add, the skin on my fingertips tingling, remembering how her scales felt against them.
Aranck loops the rag over his neck. “She used her legs. Swore not to use her powers.”
