Page 24 of The Sea Witch
“Physical attacks are not of much concern to me,” Stasia noted dryly. “Even Blind Yannis from my village would be aware of how the sailing master looks at you.”
“The navy man is afraid and uncertain.”
“There is more than fear in his eyes.”
Alys glanced in Benjamin Priestley’s direction. His own gaze darted away, but not before she felt his regard on her, warm honey upon her skin. It wasn’t quite the way a captive contemplated their captor.
He was a warrant officer of His Majesty’s Navy. If he’d been so determined to chase her from the tavern through St. Gertrude and then onto the naval shipJupiter, andthencling to the side of a longboat as she made her escape... she’d be a damned fool to think he wouldn’t seize any opportunity to reverse their situation and seeherin irons. And, unlike her general policy of not killing those she captured, if she fell into the hands of thenavy, she’d be summarily tried and hanged at Gallows Point in Port Royal, with her rotting body displayed in a cage as a warning to others who might follow in her footsteps.
They would love to see not just a pirate but a witch executed for the crime of existing.
“He serves one purpose. Warming my berth is not it.”
“You have another aim in mind. If it is what I believe you intend, I consider it a prodigiously bad idea.”
“What choice do I have?” Alys demanded lowly. “He won’t speak of what he knows, but there’s another way to get him to reveal his secrets.”
Stasia’s lips thinned. “Dreamwalking is a dangerous tactic.”
“What happens in dreams isn’t real.”
“Not in the dream itself, but,” the quartermaster added in a whisper, “what happensafter. I have heard that dreamwalking binds you to someone. It is impossible to step through someone’s dreams without having a part of you interwoven with some part of them. There is no going back from taking that leap into their mind.”
Dreamwalking was something Stasia had told her about, a legendary practice that witches and mages of the Mediterranean and Levantine Sea dared to employ whenever they needed to go deep within someone’s mind to unlock hidden mysteries. It was seldom done, though, risky as it was for both the witch and the dreamer.
“How’ve you gained this knowledge?” Alys asked. “You’ve never done it before.”
“Neither have you.”
Despite the unease in her belly from the danger that loomed, Alys clipped, “I’ve little choice in the matter. His dreams will give us what we need, and the task’s too important not to try. Consider what it’d mean if we used Little George’s fail-safe. We’d have far less to fear from the threat of theJupiterif it didn’t have the leviathan. If that means taking this risk, I’ll do it.”
Stasia drew closer, and said in a whisper, “It is not something you canforceupon another. If one party is unwilling, the dreamwalking cannot happen.”
“?‘You and me, we’re enemies to the bone, but do you mind if I enter your dreams?’?” Alys exhaled. “He’d never agree.”
“I would not wish someone to do it to me. The mistakes I have made in my life have been my own—and even then, I paid for them.”
Though Alys was tempted to press Stasia for more details, she held her tongue. They had grown close over the past year, but even so, the details behind Stasia’s reasons for putting the Mediterranean behind her remained hazy. The few hints Alys had been able to figure out had been enough to reveal that a broken heart and betrayal lay at the core of the trouble, and when it came to matters of shattered love, it was best to leave that wreck at the bottom of the sea.
“I will leave his dreams alone,” Alys finally said. “I’ll find some other means of learning what he knows.”
“There is no need to keep him this close. The brig should be where he sleeps.”
“He’ll be less of a mind to help us if his view is spoiled by bars. Staying in more comfortable quarters could sway him.”
“Are you thinking of his comfort, or a view of his fine thighs?”
“I’m captain of this ship,” Alys fired back, “and more concerned with the fate of my crew than the navigator’s thighs.” She forced herself not to look at Priestley, or the long taut length of his legs shifting beneath the tight fabric of his breeches.
“Apologies, I must be thinking of another redheaded captain who stares at him like he is the fresh beef after months of hardtack.”
Alys sent her friend a rude hand gesture.
“Back to your duties,” she said to the crew once they had finished hanging the hammock from two hooks. It swayed withthe motion of the ship, as though being rocked by an unseen mother.
The crew saluted her before quitting her quarters.
“That includes you, quartermaster,” Alys added for Stasia’s ears only. “We’ll break our fast at four bells. Josephine might be flattered into making coddled eggs and toasted cheese.”
