Page 40 of The Sea Witch
Only to find himself surrounded by a score of crew members, all of them pointing pistols and cutlasses at him. Three of the crew that didn’t have weapons trained on him had gold and purple magic dancing on their fingertips. All of them appeared ready to unleash the full power of their arsenal, both mundane and magic, on him.
An Indigenous woman stood at the fore, clearly the one in charge. Long-limbed but solid in stature, she held herself with authority. Her onyx eyes flashed with anger in her sun-kissed copper face.
“There’s no escape, navy man,” she said tightly.
Frustration clenched his muscles even more than the magic that bound him. The broken spyglass lay nearby, its metal body dented and its lens shattered.
“Give me another spyglass,” he said to the woman currently in command.
Her eyes widened.
“Hurry,” he snapped.
“Prisoners who attempt escape don’t have the luxury of making demands,” Alys said, climbing over the gunwale. The restof her crew followed to join her on the upper deck, but Ben’s only focus at that moment was theEdelsteen, currently hoisting its anchor.
“Give me—”
“A spyglass, so you’ve said.” She moved closer, glancing around at her crew that still had their weapons and magic aimed at him. Her gaze landed on the remains of the spyglass. “You’ve destroyedminein a bid to escape,so I’m not going to put another one into your hands. Or give you anything at all that you want.”
He hardly heard her. Van der Meer’s ship had raised its anchor and was currently, cautiously, sailing past theSea Witch. The other crew of pirates sped through their duties, and though they were too far away for Ben to see the expressions on the company’s faces, they moved furtively, anxiously. Almost as though they were afraid of theSeaWitch. In a few minutes they would be beyond the cove, and heading into open waters.
“Please,” Ben gritted to Alys as his gaze was fixed on theEdelsteen. “I have to see—have to know—”
“To the brig with him.” Her words were clipped and cold. “Escape attempts aren’t rewarded with staying in the captain’s quarters.”
“You don’t understand—”
But four members of theSea Witch’s crew laid hands on him and forcibly dragged him toward the companionway. He strained and fought against them, frantically trying to reach the railing so he could get a final look at the other ship before it disappeared into the night. Yet before he could reach the gunwale, another weblike spell encircled him, making it impossible to move. His feet lifted a few inches up from the decking. Hefloatedacross the upper deck, down several companionways. Until he found himself back in the brig.
He was thrown unceremoniously into the stockade, landing roughly on the floor. The bars clanged shut, and one of thecrew murmured under her breath. Once again, the bars of the brig glowed with green energy.
“I have to get out!” he insisted. “Have to see—” Ben heaved to his feet and grabbed the bars of the stockade. He was thrown backward into the wooden bench that stood against the bulkhead behind him. The seat of the bench rammed into his spine, and he groaned in pain as he fell to the floor. Yet nothing compared to the agony of knowing that his chance to learn more about his father’s murderer was, at that very moment, sailing away.
All of the crew left him, save for one woman who sat in a chair opposite the stockade, her pistol pointed at him, her face completely vacant of sympathy.
Ben sank to the ground, his head in his hands. Everything he’d done, all the risk and danger and hope. It had all been for nothing.
Chapter Nine
Alys strode down the passageway, her boot heels sharp on the planks beneath them. A bedeviling red-edged sensation gnawed at her.
She wasn’t hurt. Anyone in the sailing master’s position would have tried to escape. Alys would have done the same, and it was almostmoreadmirable that he’d attempted to flee rather than sit meekly and pray that fate saw to his welfare.
And yet instead of going to her quarters to rinse off the sweat of the nerve-inducing day and have a hot meal, she found herself standing at the entrance to the brig. Inés served as guard, her pistol pointed into the stockade, her face wearing the same terrifyingly blank look she would use when playing cards. That expression had cost Alys more than a few doubloons.
Inés did, however, wink at Alys when she stepped into the brig. It was a brief wink, barely noticeable, but Alys saw it. Ben, however, didn’t, since he was hunched on the floor of the stockade, his head in his hands.
His desolation was a palpable thing, in his posture. And within her, his fathomless sorrow and fury was harrowing.
Her heart squeezed, but it was a stupid and foolish piece of meat that only ever caused her problems.
“Is the ship gone?” he rasped from behind the cage of his fingers cradling his head.
“I’ve given Van der Meer ample time to lose himself and his ship,” she answered. “By now, they should be en route to Havana, or wherever the hell he can peddle his unique flavor of charming treachery.”
“Fuck,” Ben said on a long growl.
She blinked to hear him curse. Sailors were infamous for their crude language, but nothim.
