Page 29 of Take No Prisoners
"I'd better go before your loverboy gets the wrong idea." Vadim had never been one for shows of affection, but he turned to Efren with his gloved hand raised to his lips and blew him a kiss.
"Get off my deck."
"I'll be fishing for our breakfast from the aft. Tim still trusts me to do that much."
"In the dark?"
"You know I don't need to see the fish to catch them." Vadim sauntered toward the stern and vanished amidst the sails and the fast-approaching darkness.
Efren faced out across the prow again and checked their navigation against the stars. They were still on course for Aquarion. In another day, they would sail between two of the Equis Isles, unnamed islands where the main inhabitants were wild ponies.
"What did he want?" Hannah asked from far too close. He'd missed them coming up the stairs. Not only that, but Niall was with them. Efren was losing his captain's intuition if he couldn't keep track of his crew.
"He's going to fish for our breakfast."
"You weren't talking about food," Hannah said.
"None of us want him walking free, but there's not much we can do to hold him," Efren said. "He would rot his crate in a heartbeat if he thought he was trapped there. He could easily do the same to our ship."
Hannah nodded. "I remember how he sankWoolly Bovine."
"How?" Niall stood behind him at the wheel, close enough to block the steady northerly wind that had been pushing them all day. They would make good time while Tovey and Stan rested. During the daylight hours, when the wind was usually lighter, they could reinforce the winds with their power.
"Vadim doesn't need to be on the ship to compromise her timbers," Hannah said in answer to Niall's question. "Let's leave it at that."
Niall's warm hand settled on Efren's hip. "Hannah showed me how to use lightning to light Stan and Tovey's kindling. I'll be able to help you if you're attacked."
"I told him we're the ones who usually do the attacking." Hannah snickered.
"They also taught me to be stealthier," Niall said. That explained the lack of footfalls on the stairs, then. Hannah cushioned their steps with magnetized plates on the soles of their boots. Their electric charge repelled them off the ground by a sliver. It would give them a hell of a shock in water, but on the dry deck in calm winds, they were deathly silent.
"I'll take your boots to the hold and set your plates overnight. I use a special glue that repels water and keeps you safe from residual shock." They winked. "I had to improvise for all the water when I became a pirate."
"What were you before?" Niall asked.
"A brewer." Their laugh sounded bitter.
Efren felt like he was eavesdropping. Hannah had never shared about their life before Vadim had rescued them from prison in Rodan.
"You don't have to share, if you don't want." Niall always seemed to find the right words to put Efren, and now Hannah, at ease.
"It's fine. It was a long time ago. I've been sailing with Efren for ten years now."
A decade, and Efren had never once questioned whether Hannah had a life to return to in Glamiere after the pirates sufficiently trounced the imperial navy. They had a place to stay when they docked in Aquarion, but beyond that, he'd never asked.
Vadim had called it Efren's impossible dream, but there was still a chance Aquarion could negotiate freedom from Embertide. All the emperor had to do was recognize the pirates' right to govern themselves. The elders had been doing well enough since the empress had declared all weavers either owned by the state or enemies of it.
"I suppose you're wondering how a brewer ended up in prison," Hannah said, taking a step closer to the wheel.
"It's none of my business," Efren said.
"No, but I realized something when Niall came aboard. I've been milking my place as the new one for ten years now. I thought you would replace Vadim long before now, and then I could share my sad story with the new person and the rest of the crew would learn about me that way." They laughed. "Not the case, and then it got awkward, and now I'm so shrouded in mystery, no one dares cross me."
"You have an effective method of keeping people away." Efren pointed upward, where any moment a charged bolt could snap onto the deck from the clear sky.
"I didn't want that," they whispered. "Some of my past is a little hazy, though. I think I went to prison for burning a tavern to the ground."
"With people in it?" Niall asked.
