“You don’t volunteer to sail with the Vipers. You survive them.”
I shake my head and turn my attention back to the ocean. Sometimes I wonder if the sea will always call me back or if one day it’ll let me go entirely. The thought should be terrifying. Instead, it settles in my chest like an inevitability. So long as I can breathe air, I’ll hunt the hunters. Clean the Adamaris Sea one pockmarked pirate ship at a time.
Elio is still leaning against the ship's edge. His silence speaks louder than any words. I need to think. I need to escape the skin I’m trapped in. But I have matters to attend to first. He watches me as I pull the letter from my sister back out of the bottle. Flipping it over, I stride to my quarters in search of an ink pen. Once retrieved, I scribble down a quick response and head back out to the deck.
Elio offers his hand. “Would you like me to take that for you?”
I shake my head. “Thanks, but no. I need to stretch.”
He nods as I shove the note back into the bottle.
With a glance in his direction, I leap overboard and let the shift take me as I hit the water.
Don’tBite the Hand that Feeds YoU
3
Odelia
The map is still in my boot.
If they find it, I won’t get it back, so I haven’t risked pulling it out to see how the water might have ruined it. My stomach twists at the thought. Especially since I’ll be escaping tonight.
The room the cell is in is boring. There’s a chair and table in the corner, goods secured in waxy rope nets, and a second cage next to me, empty, swept. I haven’t seen a single rat—even the chains on my wrist are devoid of rust. The outside sounds are muffled, though I’ve tried hard to eavesdrop. There’s no way to tell how much time has passed and the endless silence makes me fight the urge to grind my teeth.
OnceRunefinally left, I’d laid down, unable to sleep, unable to deny my aching body the need for rest. The strength in my hand is back, but I feel like a bruise from head to toe, and a thin laceration on my left shoulder is lucky it hasn’t started to fester. Seems the captain’s good graces doesn’t extend to bandages.
Who is he? What could he hope to gain from information about my father’s crew? Attacking theSea Banewould onlyearn him a watery grave. If that’s his plan, I hope he waits until after I’m gone. Imagine gaining my freedom—through capture notwithstanding—only to end up back again.
The weapons on his belt were interesting, though. Bone, like the component bolts we’d captured off one of our more impressive hauls. Each of those bundles had proven to have their own attribute. Fire, acid, absurd stickiness. A specialty of the underwater siren kingdom, Nareth, and the creatures of the deep they hunted or farmed for components. The bolts may as well have been magic, their purchase or creation on the mainland being illegal and near impossible. Did the bone mean his sword might have similar qualities? It must have cost a small fortune. Maybe when I leave I’ll take it, see if he grins when I hold it to his thick neck.
He probably would, those sharp eyes calling my bluff. He’s good, sure, but arrogant. And I’ve never let a pretty face stop me from what needed to be done.
Still.
Odelia.
I should have lied, should have given him any other answer. I haven’t been Odelia since my mother died.
Still, no one would recognize the name, unlike Nisse. As much as I’m trying to escape it, I’m all too aware of my reputation. Admitting who I am would be like tying the weights to my own legs . . . but even the memory of how my real name had rolled off his tongue makes my stomach flip again, toeing the line between butterflies and nausea. The knowledge that he’ll likely torture me for information before delivering me to an underground prisonshould temper the feeling, but it’s been so long since anyone has piqued my . . . curiosity. I can’t help but wonder which of us would win in a fight. If I would pull back when it came time for the killing blow.
One after the other, I prick my fingers over the bladed hairpin tangled in my matted, salt-crusted hair.Tavihad missed that too. Rune said she hadn’t taken my pendant, but I’ll have to find wherever they’re keeping my things before I go. There’s no way I’ll leave the last of my mother’s legacy behind.
Time bears down, feeding my impatience. The seconds beat by with the pulsing ache of my injuries. As far as I can tell, the ship is stalled in open water. The thought makes my skin itch. They can’t be far from the mainland if they haven't moved. It’s good fortune, but it means my father could spot them and get murderously curious.
With any luck, Captain Ivor believes his poor Nisse went overboard. After all, no amount of natural murderous talent, no penchant for sleight of hand, no vicious tongue, could ever hope to sway the sea.
Hours pass before the door opens again. I stand, and scowl, expecting Rune to have returned to fulfil his promise of water, but the footsteps are light, and it’s a kid that makes his way down, carrying a steaming plate of no-way-in-hell-am-I-going-to-eat-that.
His brown hair is short and shaggy. His collared shirt is buttoned to the top, but lightly wrinkled around the forearms like he’s constantly pulling up the sleeves. There’s a thin ring in his lip and a single skeleton hand earring that bobs around as he descends. I expect hostile silence, but before his foothits the bottom step, he’s talking faster than anyone I’ve met in my entire life—
“Hey! I’m Bear, well they call me Bear, but my name’s actually Otto but you can call me Bear or whatever. I brought dinner!” The earring waves as he sets the polished plate on the chair in the corner and brandishes a wooden bowl that was tucked under his elbow. “Rune said you were hungry but you wouldn't be nice to me, but I told him I don’t need niceness I just need to feed every person on my crew and he said you weren’t part of the crew but I said that you’re on our ship which means I’m your chef so that means you’re part of my crew, does that make sense?”
“Um, no—?” I answer, unsettled by the sheer exuberance. He scrapes half the plate of food into the bowl as he speaks, then stabs the only fork I can see into the middle and passes it through the bars, not waiting to see if I take it before laying it on the floor.
“Yeah that’s what Rune said, well actually Rune said ‘hell no that doesn’t make sense, Otto.’ Sometimes he calls me Otto when he’s mad, anyways, and then he pulled me aside and said you were a Viper—“His voice catches on the word as he talks down at the half-full plate in his hands, but it’s there and gone as he plows on—“a Viper pirate and that he could bring you food later and at first that seemed like a fine idea but he’s been in his quarters with Elio and Tavi for ages and I just knew you were down here wondering why the chef ofThe Gilded Hartwould let a prisoner starve when our whole goal is to cash in on the bounty we get from turning you in to whoever is ready topay the highest.”
He sits and plucks a section of what appears to be . . . egg? from his plate and pops it in his mouth. The return of silence is a shock, and I ask the only question that he hasn’t already answered.
