“Holy dragon balls,” I muttered as I started to rush over.
Hawk-Eyes snagged my shirt collar, stopping me in my tracks as she hissed, “Don’t even think about it.”
“But Ariella needs—”
“Willy’s bringing Stitches up now.” She gestured to where the two of them were climbing up the ladder. “If you go over there,you put yourself in Viper’s path. Don’t make hurtin’ you easy on him, Ghost.”
I itched to go over there and help my… my friend, but I knew Hawk-Eyes was right. Viper was in one of the worst moods I’d ever seen him in, and that was saying something. The last thing I needed to do was put myself on his radar.
I grimaced as Max stepped in front of Ariella, blocking her from Viper’s sight while Willy and Stitches fussed over her. I couldn’t hear Max’s words—he was speaking far too quietly for his voice to carry—but Viper’s face, or what I could see of it under his tricorn, was purple with anger.
Stitches and Willy managed to haul Ariella off the floor and began carrying her down to the lower deck. I saw Stitches give Max a reassuring nod while Viper cursed up a storm and barked angry orders at everyone around him.
It was his own damn fault. He shouldn’t have pushed her. Now we were stuck in the cloudiest area I’d seen yet with little wind and no windweaver to help us if we ran into trouble.
Fingers crossed no sky monsters found us anytime soon.
Since I didn’t want to get caught in Hurricane Viper, I grabbed my bucket and headed to the storage closet where my mop and other cleaning supplies were. If I couldn’t head down to check on Ariella right now, I’d keep myself busy with scrubbing the deck—a never-ending nightmare of a job.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been scrubbing before Willy came up, looking haggard. After glancing over my shoulder and finding Viper busy using a telescopic, I rushed over to Willy, asking, “How is she?”
He shrugged. “She’s in rough shape, but Stitches says she’ll be okay after lots of rest and food. Can’t use her magic for a few days, though.”
“Fairy wings,” I muttered under my breath.
That made Willy smirk, and he elbowed me. “She’ll be okay. She kicked me out of the doc’s room, said I was tryin’ to mother her.” He snorted. “If she’s complaining already, you know she’ll be fine.”
Relief made all the tension in my body release, and I sent him a small smile. “Good. I—”
“Sail, ho!” Greybeard yelled, making everyone look up at him to see where he was pointing since that meant he could see a ship.
Crap. I really didn’t want Viper to make us attack another merchant ship.
Greybeard was pointing at the starboard side, so I squinted my eyes, trying to see whatever was out there.
Viper saw it first, if his, “Son of a bitch!” was anything to go by. “It’s a damn Sunada Imperial Fleet.”
My heart thumped loudly, and I sought out Max.
Max was still using his telescopic, so he didn’t see the look of terror on my face, but after only a few more seconds, he agreed with Viper. “They’re flying the Sunada seal now, but it’s definitely the same fleet we saw at Duskwater. Three sentinels heading right for us. They had to have followed us.”
“Fuck. I knew it! Get Ariella up here. Now!” Viper yelled.
Willy flinched, but bravely said, “She can’t work magic for two days, sir. Doc’s orders.”
Viper stared at him, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding, and for a long moment, I thought he was going to take his anger out on the poor boy. But then Max stepped in front of Viper, blocking his view of Willy, and said, “There’s only three sentinels. We can take them.”
While Max dealt with Viper, I grabbed Willy and pushed him behind me, further blocking him from the captain. Then I pushed him again, forcing him to move as far from the scary man as possible.
Once we reached the far side of the ship, Willy bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. “Shit, I thought I was done for.”
I patted his back. “So did I.”
I’d found a telescopic in the weapons closet and claimed it as my own, so I pulled it out now, wanting to see the Sunada fleet for myself.
As soon as I spotted them, I decided it was a mistake to look.
The ships were smaller than ours, but that only made them faster, and they were armed to the teeth.
