Page 33 of The Sea Witch
He closed his eyes. A hard, dead slumber dragged him down. But she was also afraid. She would resist sleep as long as she could. Staying awake would preserve the distance between them.
Yet it was already too late.
The game might not be entirely hers to play. She’d take what she wanted... and so could he. Make himself indispensable to her, insinuate himself. He had abilities and knowledge she needed, and with them, he’d lead her to the prize.
Together, they would find the fail-safe. And then, he would destroy it.
Chapter Seven
“Sunrises up north weren’t the riot of color they are here in the Caribbean,” Alys murmured to Stasia, her hands on the wheel as she steered the ship eastward, into the apricot glow of the sun. Though the sky was clear, it still held a multitude of hues, from deep indigo to marigold, the shades saturated and profound.
“Gray and heavy as the village itself,” Alys went on. “Every morning, I’d crack my eyes open and say, ‘Oh, fuck, another goddamn day inthisplace.’ Well,” she amended wryly, “I’dthinkit, because if Sam or anyone ever heard me use such language, the best I could hope for was being pilloried. Olive Miller had very good aim when it came to throwing rotten cabbage.”
“Today, you are eager to receive rosy-fingered dawn.”
Standing beside her on the quarterdeck, her second-in-command sipped at a tiny cup of coffee. Upon rising, Stasia always made herself coffee with all the ceremony of an ancient priestess. She’d once admitted that the possessions she’d brought with her from Greece had been few, but the dented copper briki pot was absolutely essential. She’d also shown Alys her minimal other belongings that accompanied her from the Mediterranean, including a set of throwing knives, a brace of pistols, and her mother’s coral komboloi beads, which she still carried and ran through her fingers when there was a rare moment of leisure.
Eris, perched on Stasia’s shoulder, moved to dip her beak into the cup, but Stasia held it away from her familiar. The few times in the past that the magpie had managed to take some sips, it dove and swooped all over the ship and terrorized the company with its manic twittering.
“Impossible to stay in my berth when there’s this to greet me.” Alys gestured to the wide, gleaming horizon.
“It is only eagerness to see the morning,” Stasia said dryly, “and not the fact that the navy man shares your quarters. Perhaps he snores as loud as a hurricane and you cannot sleep. Or is it,” she added with narrowed eyes, “that you do not want to sleep now that you have shared your dreams.”
“You drink too much of this stuff and it’s given you wild imaginings.” Alys snatched the cup from her quartermaster’s hand and took a deep drink of what coffee remained, though she was careful not to get a mouthful of the thick sludgy grounds at the bottom.
The remainder of Alys’s night had been spent sitting up at her desk, forcing herself to pore over magic tomes rather than sleep. None of the books had covered dreamwalking or, more urgently, how to undo the aftereffects of being part of such perilous magic. “Besides, I didn’t do it on purpose. It simply... happened.”
“Perhaps your mind did it without your permission because you wanted the dreamwalking to happen.” Stasia took the cup back and eyed the grounds at the bottom for auguries.
“Being in his dreams... and him in mine... I didn’t like it. He was in every part of me. And I was in him. I’ve never... I’ve never been so... so close to anyone.” She closed her eyes against the rush of remembrance, all the parts of Ben nestling within her as though they fit together like dovetailed walnut, locking tight. “Nothing within me wanted that.”
Alys nodded to the crew who were coming up from belowdecks, having broken their fasts and now ready to face their tasks for the day.
“If there’s any benefit,” she went on, “it’s that we now know where to find the Weeping Princess. We can’t risk someone else finding the Weeping Princess and the fail-safe. Gods and goddesses know what they’d do should it fall into their hands. Little George colluded with the navy, and it’s a safe enough assumption to think that any of the Brethren of the Coast would sell it to the Crown for enough ducats and doubloons. They wouldn’t care if the leviathan kills other buccaneers. Few are as untrustworthy as pirates.”
“We are, rather,” Stasia said with a hint of pride. “Some consider this trait charming rather than a detriment.”
“It’s less charming when there’s a noose around your neck or a spell that makes your innards boil like so much soup. Or makes you flee the sea you once called home.”
Stasia inclined her head in acknowledgment. “You will have to sleep some time.”
“There are other ways to find rest.” Alys stepped aside when Hua came forward to take her usual position at the helm.
Moving to the railing, Alys leaned on the wood and surveyed her company, smoothly and efficiently carrying out their duties. Cora, Dorothea, and Dayanna began the strenuous process of swabbing the decks. Meanwhile, Susannah made fluid hand movements to summon swirling winds. The breezes gently lifted her up the mainmast, enabling her to take her place in the crow’s nest.
“Aloft with you, too,” Stasia murmured to Eris. The magpie crooned before flapping her wings, taking off to keep watch from the skies. “Poor leadership is all that can result from refusing to sleep.”
“I will. At some point.” Hopefully, the effects of the dreamwalking would fade over time. Weaving herself into Ben’s mind and heart—and his into hers—carried too many dangers.
She sensed him now, fainter that there was some physical distance between them, yet his tension and restlessness coursed through her blood, pushing her own concern to greater heights.
If he ever crept back into her dreams, learning her own secrets, delving even deeper...
“In the meanwhile,” Stasia said with a lift of her eyebrow, “I shall brew more kafés for you.”
“If you’ve any kindness, you’ll brew three more cups.” Worry and fatigue made for a long and uneasy day, and, as her quartermaster had pointed out, Alys was the captain of this ship. Decisions, judgment, mediation—it all flowed through her, and the added burden of the sailing master pushed her into new doubt.
She couldn’t fail her company.
