“Aye, aye!” the girl responded.
“Out! All of you,” Hook ordered.
Tink groaned, shoving off the floor. She’d just sat down.
“Not you.” Hook pointed in her direction.
A few pirates tossed pitying looks her way before dashing out into the storm. They worried for her when they were the ones braving that squall again, for however brief a time.
Tink dropped back on the ground and faced the fire. He ordered her to stay?Fine. She’d be warm while he yelled at her about the witch.
Something scraped across the ground. A chair? A heavy thump followed.
Her shoulders stiffened. Any moment now…
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” She blinked at the fire. He was talking to himself, wasn’t he? Ridiculous pirate.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
She spun around on the floor to face him. Hook hunched over the table, his head in his hand.
“You tried to warn me about the boy. You wouldn’t have done that if you were working with the witch against us. Whatever she wanted with you, that’s your affair.”
That’s your affair.She mouthed in echo. Did he get knocked with a tree branch on the way back? Drink too much rain?
“And she seemed…upset when you rejected her. Will that come back to hurt us?” He looked up, all the fire he’d shown before his crew gone out of him.
“Shouldn’t.” She crossed her arms. “She wanted my dust. I didn’t think I could make any more outside my home. Seems I can.” Her wings twitched, wet and miserable as they were bound up and stuck to her back. “She told me how. It worked. But I’m not selling it to her. Or anyone else.”Unless I have to. Again.Her bracelet could only break once. It didn’t break again the more she’d sold her dust, but why add to her sins?
“Pity. It’s the drug of choice all across the seas. Could make us some coin.”
She rolled her eyes. Of course the pirate would bring it back to money. Didn’t he always?
“It was dust she used in her sight spell?”
Her brows arched. Observant pirate. “It was.”
He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “So you can weave some magic.”
Tink huffed. “No, her spells are not…natural.” Not for a pixie, and she couldn’t slide further down the path away from the vale. Their dust was meant to nourish the land, which fed and cared for them in return. The great circle of balance. Humans perverted that use, like so many other things.
He nodded, but his attention lay somewhere else. “And when your wings glow…that makes dust?”
If he hadn’t looked away, he’d have seen her face turn red. Her ears heated. All of her might as well have lit on fire. The raging storm couldn’t break the tense silence that hung between them.
“Pleasure.” Her word was a hoarse whisper. “Happiness.” When the cares of the world fell away and all that was left was something enjoyable, it could happen. Or when her body lit on fire, stirred into a kind of pleasure she’d rarely given herself, though not even that had made her wings glow in thishuman world. It happened with him. A bloody, filthy, thieving, handsome, loyal, delicious pirate.
Holy revered elders, I am in trouble.
Back home in the vale, dust came naturally. Her wings had been laden with it when she and Lily snuck into this world. But after she shed that at Blackbeard’s command, little had come back. Then, none at all. Nothing about her wings worked right outside of the vale.
“I…um…I should find a place to sleep.” She leaped to her feet and wrung water out of her hair, letting it splatter on the floorboards.
Smee’s sisters had practically carried her off into their house when they’d pulled up to the dock—had that been only two days ago? That night she’d been so miserable among their happiness. It was great the way they invited her in, gave her a place to sleep, food, drink. They’d offered her clothes too, but their pretty dresses would’ve made her stand out too much in Rochland and wouldn’t suit a trek to the Shrouded Isles. But watching the crew and their loved ones celebrate, the way they were so comfortable with one another like one large family, it wrecked her. It was too much like home, too much like the family and friends she’d lost. They even worked toward a common good for their community, sharing the work, the food, their treasures—just like pixies—rather than for themselves like many of the other humans she’d observed. The joy of it all had choked her until she’d fled into the night to be alone. But even that joyful misery would be better than lingering with this man who infuriated her in so many ways.
“Stay here.” His gaze caught hers. “You can, I mean. There’s an extra bed.”
