She swung the pitcher at his head and struck. The man passed out immediately.
Others tried getting up but fell as their legs gave out.
At the other table, Petrina—even bound by cuffs—made easy work of her attackers. Thorne’s crew was dropping and slouching everywhere. Spoons clattered to the deck. Ale sloshed. The ship became a sea of limbs and overturned bowls.
“Poison!” someone shouted in a panicked tone. “We’re dead!”
Thorne and his able-bodied lieutenants worked around the toppling crew, more focused on Selene and Petrina than their own people.
“Selene!” Petrina shouted. “Move!”
She startled out of her frozen state and dropped the pitcher.
The plan.
Follow the plan.
Get the keys, get in a rowboat, and sail away.
But as Thorne and his lieutenants closed in, the time they had to do any of that diminished. They were supposed to be down with the rest. They were supposed toeat.
“You failed,” Thorne said to Selene. Lantern light glinted off the edge of his sword as he stalked closer, calm and furious.
Selene backed down along the table, pulling a sword from someone’s hip on the way.
One of the lieutenants paused over a slumped body. “He’s breathing—it’s shallow, but he’s alive.” He looked further around. “They’re all alive, Captain.”
In Selene’s peripheral, Petrina bent over her guard, Sebastian, and picked through his keyring.
A dark laugh jumped out of Thorne’s chest. “Sparing lives? You’re always surprisingme, Selene.”
“You know what your problem is, Thorne? You always expect me to think like a pirate.”
He gave a single nod. “True. I expected you to pick up your lover’s habits and traits in those months you spent together, but you’re not like him, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
Her steps backed toward the edge of the table, and just as she turned to run, the men sprinted for her.
Petrina, free of her shackles, swung a sword down on some ropes pulled taut over the side of the ship’s railing. A splash sounded below, almost undetectable under the waves crashing against the hull.
Selene sprinted to the nearest oil lamp and yanked it off the peg. She spun and hurled it at the deck between her and her captors. The oil spread, and a fire sprang up. The men jerked to a stop, arms up, as the wall of heat hit them.
“I think like a survivor,” Selene said to Thorne through the licking flames and smoke.
Snarling, Thorne jumped atop a table to bypass the flames. “If you’re under the impression I won’t follow you into that water, think again.”
“You could, except…” She backed toward Petrina, who knelt in wait on the railing. “I’m surprised you haven’t already guessed. Augustus would have realized the heaviness of his hull a while ago.”
Thorne’s gaze darted across the deck, then pinned to Selene. “What did you do?”
“Her? Nothing. Me?” Petrina shrugged. “Those bilge pumps can be quite tricky, you know? One wrong move, and you might accidentally reverse the water flow.”
It had been hours since Petrina left the bilge, reversing the seawater flow on her way out.
Selene threw another lantern between her, Petrina, and the men. “You should probably see to your ship, Captain.”
Petrina grinned. “Better hurry. Your crew’ll either drown or roast, and neither of those leaves many hands for rowing.”
