The wildcat took a step back, rubbing her forehead so that it was as red as her nose and cheeks. I didn’t like the way shewas looking at my tattoos, like she could read every bit of magic hidden in them.
“This is my cabin now,” I said to distract her. “Someone will move your trunk below deck to make room for mine. Alas, my first mate is correct. You won’t be allowed to go with it.”
It worked. “You can’t expect me to stay in these sodden clothes!” she exclaimed.
I shot her a smile as cold as the sea. “Should’ve thought of that before you went overboard. Do it again, and no one will fish you out.”
“Ha!”
The derisive sound had me freezing in the cabin door. Slowly, I turned, using my body to block the way in as I lowered my arm.
She took a step back, but barely.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she said snidely, her neck craned upward so she could properly sneer at me, “because you need me.”
I scanned her from her bare feet to the wet crown of her red head, then turned back toward the cabin. “Prove it,” I called over my shoulder.
I was two strides into the cabin, my hand reaching for the edge of the door to slam it shut behind me, when something hit me square between the shoulder blades, hard enough to steal my breath.
I fell to my knees, eyes wide and panicked as shocks of pain spread throughout my body.
For the second time this morning, the little wildcat sorceress had me gasping for air.
And by the gods of the Prevarian Sea would she pay for it.
Chapter three
Sofie
ThelasttimeIheard such a symphony of blades being drawn, I was in the training yard at Dewspell Academy in my third year. I hadn’t thought much of it then.
This time, the discordant music was as grim as the fate Bluebeard had already handed me.
Now, or later? I suppose it didn’t matterwhenI died, but I thought I’d like to make this pirate’s life miserable for just a little longer. So I turned, magic at the ready.
“If you think the only spells I know are curses, try me,” I said, one hand going to my hip and the other rising before me, a small distortion of light the only hint that I was gathering magic for an attack spell. “I don’t think you’ll like the results.”
The man I’d mistaken for the captain last night—Aoki, Bluebeard had called him—was the first to speak, but had only one word to say. “Captain?”
It was like he was ignoring me completely.
These pirates weren’t taking me seriously enough byhalf.
Deciding this would be a good time to put my fate back in my own hands, I took a step toward the fallen captain, who was just now trying to rise from his knees. I let the spell forming at my palm unwind in favor of other, more insidious magic.
The magic I seemed to be best at.
My wet hair whirled, then landed at my back with a slap as I pulled the strands of a curse out of the raw sea air, settling them over the captain. In an instant, I had them tightened around him like corset strings.
Bluebeard gasped, then fell to the cabin floor again.
His crew rushed towards me, blades rising.
“Stop!” I commanded. “Or do you want your captain to suffer?”
With a sharp hiss, Aoki called off the attackers. Behind him, the wind died in the sails, untended by anyone. Everyone on the ship—even the little cabin boy, with a heap of Bluebeard’s clothes and a folded bath sheet tucked under one arm, had a dagger in his hand.
“Captain Bluebeard,” I decreed, weaving power into my voice, “I curse you to eternal slumber, should you prick your finger on…”
