I reach for the hilt and slide my hand behind the cupped guard. When I grip it, it’s a little heavier than I’d thought, but I can wield it. I can hold it up, though my arm shakes a little.
“Next time, Moira, you’ll be ready.” She takes my elbow and helps me to my feet. “Swing it. Get a feel for it.”
I do as she says, slicing through the air. “Like this?”
“Good.” She smiles. “Treat it like an extension of your arm.”
A knock comes at the door and then it opens. Hook’s eyebrows rise like a rogue wave as he watches me swing Widow’s cutlass.
“I see I’ve arrived just in time.” He holds the door open as Bill, the tattooed pirate, walks in with a cannonball wrapped in a burlap sack in his arms.
The large pirate deposits it on the foot of the bed, gives me a wry look as I hold the cutlass out toward him, then leaves.
“He was scared,” I tell Widow.
“Terrified.” She nods, her wings tittering.
Widow retrieves her blade and sheaths it. “Excellent. Lessons start tomorrow.” She strides out, her back straight and her head held high.
Hook closes the door, leaving just the two of us in his quarters.
“I guess you’re going to say I can’t learn how to use a sword?” I sink back onto the bed, my energy gone.
“Why would I say that, lass?” He adjusts the cannonball, then pulls down the blanket. “Get in.”
I want to argue with him, but I don’t. Not when I feel the heat radiating off the ball of metal. I ease down and lay on my side.
He tucks the blanket around me then stands. “I’ll check on your leg later. But you certainly seemed well enough to climb down from your room and run to the shore.”
Yeah, hedefinitelyknows what I did.
“What was your plan? Row all the way back to that prick on Neverland?” His tone darkens.
I look up at him. “I was trying to save my life.”
“By getting captured by Calico Jack?” he snaps back.
“No!”
He rubs his forehead. “I’ve told you you’re safe here. You have my word on it. You were safe on Blackbeard’s Cay, as well.”
“Safe?” I snort. “Safe when you’re going to kill me?”
He drops his hand, slapping it against his thigh—drawing my eye to it. “Why would I kill you?”
I force my gaze away from his tight leather pants and back to his face. “Because you want Neverland for yourself!”
“Is that the tripe Pan has been selling you?” He shakes his head and sighs long and belabored. “And you believe him?”
“Of course I do. He has no reason to lie to me. He told me you sent pirates to the mainland to find me. Is that true?”
“Aye, I did. I sent Mullins and Alf Mason.”
“He said you chained Tiger Lily to Marooner’s Rock to drown.”
“Aye. I did that too.”
“And that you’re the reason the island’s magic is dying. That you’re the cause. Because of your greed. Is that true?”
