“I’ll keep him safe.”
Ariella made a face. “How? Are you going to take over as captain and push him out? Because that’s the only solution I see.”
Max’s face went through a complicated array of emotions from shocked to confused to annoyed to mad and back again. “No. I’m not the captain, Ariella.”
“You should be,” Willy said.
Max’s eyes widened, then flicked between our two friends before landing on Ariella. The two of them shared a long look before Max turned away, seeming to stare into space while she frowned at him.
After a few seconds, I said to her and Willy, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys.”
Ariella shook her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I know what it’s like to be hunted for what you are. It’s not safe to tellanyonesomething like that.” I supposed, out of everyone, she’d understand. Being a weaver herself meant she’d likely had to face similar circumstances at some point in her life. Windweavers weren’t hunted the same way fluxweavers were, but there were absolutely people who’d love to take advantage of any kind of weaver.
“Yeah, well, that ship has sailed—ha, pun.” Definitely not funny, and my laugh was beyond weak. I sighed. “Everyone’s gonna know now.”
“We can make up some story about Murray finding another source or something. Maybe we can say he found an anchor-grade fluxstone in the hull,” Max suggested.
Ariella raised a brow. “As much as I wish we could, no one’s going to buy that, Reap. We might not be the smartest bunch, but we’re not quite that stupid, either.”
“She’s right.” Willy grimaced. “No one’s gonna buy that story, and I don’t think it’ll be hard for everyone to figure it out. How many other times have we been in shit situations with little to no fluxpower? No one in the crew has ever done anything like this before, and Ghost is the only new person on the ship.”
Ariella nodded. “They might not make the connection right away, but it won’t be long before they do. And once one of them figures it out, the rumors will spread.”
Max closed his eyes and let his head drop back for a few seconds. “Alright. Just… don’t talk about it right now, okay? Let’s get the ship fixed before we worry about anything else.” He turned on his heel and left without another word, making me wince at his abrupt exit. Although, he didn’t go far, and I knew without asking that he was keeping me within his sights. He’d meant it when he’d said I was staying with him.
I couldn’t very well just… stand there beside him and do nothing for the rest of the night—not only would Viper not stand for that, but I wanted to help. So standing nearby would have to do.
“Wow. He’s pissed.”
“Thanks, Ariella, I hadn’t noticed.” I rolled my eyes at her.
She grinned and nudged my chin gently with her fist. “Cheer up, bucko. He’ll get over it.” Then she too walked away.
Willy sent me a soft smile and awkwardly patted my arm. “It’ll be okay. Reaper’s in your corner.” He nodded toward one of the broken masts. “Come on. Let’s help before we get yelledat and have to do something scary like fix the broken wing or something.”
I definitely didn’t want that job. Even being harnessed up wouldn’t make me want to climb out onto the wing of the ship to make repairs. Between the strong winds and having to balance, I was sure I’d fall… many, many times.
My body was worn down between the fight with the storm, the battle with the sand kraken, and powering up the fluxstones. I could barely keep my eyes open at this point, but that didn’t matter. They were right. We needed to help. If we didn’t get the ship repaired quickly, we’d wind up back in the sand, and I doubted we’d get lucky twice.
So with a sigh, I joined the rest of the crew in helping with repairs.
Hours and a ton of sweat later, the repairs were good enough for us to take a rest period. There were some things we couldn’t do while flying, but we were able to move forward now. We wouldn’t be outflying any other ships anytime soon, but we had the height to stay safe, and since I could recharge the engine fluxstones, it didn’t matter that it would take us a little longer to reach our destination.
As the sun began to set, Viper stood on the quarterdeck, hands on the rail overlooking the main deck. The captain watched us with an eager eye as we crowded in front of him at his request. Max stood beside him, glaring angrily. Although I wasn’t sure, I figured he was stewing in his anger at me.
Dragon balls. That definitely wasn’t a good thing.
Once everyone was there, Viper held his hands up, the light from a flux-powered lamp casting strange shadows across his face, and the crew quieted down.
“Everyone fought hard today, and we can now claim our glory over the mighty sand kraken!”
“Ourglory?” Hawk-Eyes whispered from beside me. “He didn’t do shit, the prick.”
“He locked himself in his chambers,” Moonie whispered back.
Sage grunted. “He’s a coward.”
My eyes widened. I’d known the crew was getting sick of Viper, but I hadn’t realized how bad it’d gotten until everyone around our group nodded their heads in agreement.
