Page 32 of The Sea Witch
“I cannot speak to the rest of your crew, but you found yourself a fine navigator, Captain Tanner,” Ben said, in the silence. He shook his head. “Odd, addressing you by so formal a name, when—” he swallowed “—you’ve been in my dreams. And I in yours.”
Like a bell that had rung out across a silent valley, she continued to resound within him, even though they now stood at opposite ends of her quarters.
“Calling youSailing Masteror Mr. Priestley seems...” She gave an exhalation. “There aren’t terms for what we are to each other.”
“Not friends.” Though weariness weighted his body, he stayed away from his hammock. Sleep was dangerous now. “Not allies.”
“Not quite enemies, either.” With a flick of her fingers, she summoned a flame and lit another lantern, which she carried to her desk. She sat down heavily in her chair, bracing her elbows on the crimson baize covering the wooden top.
“You’re a pirate. And a witch.” He remained standing, though the span of distance between them seemed to stretch more taut the farther away she was. “I’m a sailing master for the RoyalNavy.Enemiesseems the right word to define our...” he cleared his throat “...relationship.”
“On account of the fact that you won’t hesitate to throw me and my company in irons, if given the opportunity. We all know where imprisonment for pirates leads, and the fate for captured witches is no better. Worse.” Despite the brightness from the lamps, a shadow crossed over her face, carving the hollows in her cheeks even deeper. The whisper of past loss shivered.
“No one forced you to choose a life of piracy,” he pointed out. “Or to be so open with your magic.”
“I’ve learned they’ll always find a way to come for witches,” she continued, “no matter how much we subdue and refuse to acknowledge our power. It just takes a look, a whispered word, a grudge against a woman who rejects a man’s advances, or the insistence that we bow our heads to any man—and then we’re swaying at the end of a rope like so much dried fish. If I’m to be condemned to death one way or the other, then I’ll do so using my magic as openly as I please.”
“You chose to be pirates,” he said again. “You can choose whether or not to use your magic, to let others see it.”
She pushed up from her desk and stalked toward him. “I used to believe that. But I think differently now. Why should we hide our power? No one makes the same demands of mages, and they get velvet robes at their academies, roles of esteem in rulers’ cabinets, well-paying jobs and black sashes as they sail on merchantmen and naval vessels and pirate ships. A mage is respected, revered.”
There was fury in her eyes and though she spoke steadily, her body faintly vibrated. She could explode like so much gunpowder, if given the right charge.
And there had been that woman in her dream, the one she’d warned not to reveal her magic to others. Who was she? What had become of her?
Before he could ask, she went on in a tight voice,
“The same can’t be said for a woman who shows the slightest leaning toward magic. Yet their powers are the same. The only difference is, when they are children, one’s given a poppet and the other a wooden sword. Andthatdecides if they’re to be hunted or honored.”
He stared at her, each of her words landing like a blow that took his breath.
“You’re angry that we’ve walked in each other’s dreams,” she went on, “and angry that I picked a life of freedom upon the seas, where I can be exactly who I’m supposed to be. Judge me how you please, but I don’t give a damn if I have your approval. I’ll hold tight to all of the gifts I can claim. The other choice for myself, and for so many others, is misery and death. Understand that,Ben.”
Rage emanated from her. Her anger thrummed, his own body shaking with its force.
“It would have been better,” he said after a moment, “if we’d met under different circumstances.”
A few grains of the fury in her eyes sifted away, and the barest hint of a smile wryly touched her lips. “No one asked either of us to write prophecies for what’s to come. Like fools, we can only blunder in the darkness and pray we don’t hurt ourselves as we stumble forward.”
The lantern hanging on the wall cast shadows that swung back and forth with the movement of the ship. There was always a remarkable profundity about being on ship at sea, such a small and fragile wooden thing in the midst of the vastness of the ocean. And yet in Alys’s tropic-warm cabin, with her body close to his, her gaze holding his, and the continued sonorous presence of her within him—nothing could be more intimate.
Three bells rang out. At this hour of the night, that meant it was half past one in the morning.
He and Alys blinked, stepping away from each other. Despite the distance they put between them, the air continued topulsate, even as she busied herself at her desk, flipping through pages in a leather-bound book that lay flat on her desk.
“Luna will be back in four and a half hours,” Alys said gruffly, not looking at him. “Sleep while you’ve got the opportunity.”
“I’ve little interest in having you tramp through my dreams again. Or to stumble my way through yours.”
She looked up briefly before returning her attention to her book. “Perhaps if we both fight it, the dreamwalking won’t happen.”
“I’m not much comforted by your hopes and suppositions.”
Still studying her tome, she muttered, “What you do with yourself bears little weight with me. Sleep, dance, frig yourself. I hardly care.”
“All three of those things require privacy that I don’t possess.” Yet his jaw ached with the force of holding back a yawn. Much as he didn’t want to return to his dreams, if he didn’t sleep, he’d barely be able to function. And he needed all his faculties to survive the calculable future.
He went to his hammock and lowered himself back into it. Immediately, the rocking motion made his eyelids heavy. Through his lowering lids, he caught glimpses of her studying the book in her hands. Her head kept dropping, but she snapped it up and glared at the pages she turned as if whatever was written there had insulted her choice in firearms.
