—Ibid, Act II
“What’s going on?” I asked, bolting up the narrow stairs to the deck as the ship took on the gentle rolling motion that instantly had my stomach protesting.
“We’re leaving,” Corbin answered, his back to me as he directed his crew. I watched for a moment, envious at the precision with which the six crewmates performed their duties. My crew always had to be nagged into doing anything.
“Leaving? As in, leaving the island? Sailing?”
“Since I didn’t write in a teleportation function, yes, leaving in this instance means sailing. We’re heading for Mongoose, the island we port at.”
“But that means we’ll be heading out into the open sea,” I said, watching as we approached the silvery black rocks that guarded the harbor like dark, foreboding sentinels. The moon was waxing full, the night skies a dark, velvety indigo sprinkled with glittering stars. I tried reminding myself that none of it was real, that the night sky, beautiful and serene, wasn’t really there, but ended up deciding with a mental shrug that so long as I was there, I’d enjoy the beauty of the surroundings. Corbin and Holder had clearly gone to an enormous amount of work creating the visual aspects of the world. Who was I to discount them?
“Aye. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Several, the most pressing of which at the moment is that I get seasick,” I told him. He turned to cock a questioning brow at me. “Really seasick. Like ralphing my guts up the entire time.”
“Ah.” He frowned for a second, then whipped off the navy blue bandana that had been carelessly knotted around his neck. He slapped the pockets on his jerkin a few times, pulling out a small black object, which he held up to show me.
“Is that a pearl?”
“Aye. Black pearl. Very rare. Don’t lose it, please.”
“Huh?”
Before I could ask what he thought I was going to do with a rare pearl, he tied his bandana around my wrist, tightly, but not tightly enough to hurt or cut off circulation.
“Have you ever heard of seasick bands?”
“Nope, not unless you’re talking about musicians on board an ocean liner.”
“Not quite. Seasick bands use acupressure to stimulate the Nei-Kuan pressure point on your wrist,” he said, slipping the pearl between the bandana and my flesh. “It stops nausea.”
“A pearl strapped to my wrist is going to keep me from being seasick?” I asked, more than a little disbelief rife in my voice.
He grinned. “It works, I swear. I was sick as a dog the first few trips I tried until Holder suggested seasick bands. What were your other issues?”
“Well, for one, it’s this whole kidnapping thing. You’ve been reading one too many pirate novels, Corbin. I don’t want to be swept away with you to your island paradise. I’m right in the middle of learning how to sail my sloop well, not to mention the wonderful retirement fund I’ve started for the ladies at Renata’s house—honestly, you would not believe the lax sort of record keeping that goes on there, and the wasted profits, oh, God, the wasted profits!— and then there’s Bas. I think I have Renata and her ladies close to set, but I’ve got to get Bas situated so that when we do find a way out of here, he’s taken care of.
I’m thinking some sort of a trust fund might be in order if I can round up a couple of responsible administrators and a guardian…”
Corbin laughed and sat down beside me on an overturned bucket. I had hoisted myself onto the capstan, a large vertical cyndrical winch, and sat with my feet dangling. Despite the situation I found myself in, I was enjoying the soft tropical evening breeze as the ship slid slowly out of the sheltered harbor.
“Have you always arranged people’s lives like that?”
“Like what?” I asked, bristling a little.
“Like what you’re doing—taking over their lives and arranging things for them.
You know, organizing them.”
“You say organizing like it’s a bad thing,” I said slowly, frowning down at him.
He’d taken off his captain’s hat, the moonlight doing wonderful things to the planes of his face that left me wanting to grab his head and kiss the smile right off his lips.
“Of course it’s not; not when it’s kept in control. But you seem to be bent on organizing everything and everyone within your reach. This is a game, Amy.
You’re supposed to relax and enjoy yourself.”
The urge to kiss him didn’t dissipate, as I imagined it would under such an attack, but it was joined with the mild desire to throttle him.
