“Captain,” Charlotte said impatiently, taking a step forward. “If you just pass the amulet to me, we can depart forthwith.”
“Mmph,” Tom interjected, but nobody noticed him. Alex was regarding the amulet with a slight frown, and Charlotte was regarding Alex with a sterner one.
“Captain,” she repeated.
He looked across at her, and a lovely, tender smile touched his lips, but his eyes were oddly dimmed, as if he saw something through her and far away. “You know, we probably should have paused for a real conversation at some point over the past few days.”
Charlotte frowned. “What do you mean?”
He tipped his head to one side, taking the smile with it into an emotion more aslant of tenderness. “We have to destroy this amulet, Lottie.”
“Destroy?!” she and Lady Armitage echoed in matching tones of horror.
“I understand you have beautiful ideas for its use, and I admire you for that. But no woman should possess such power.”
“Nowoman?”Charlotte felt her eyes—and her heart—narrowing.
“Ignore him, dear,” Lady Armitage advised. “Every man is a chauvinist at heart. Or at another part of their body they treat as their heart. Better just to shoot him. Go on; no one will blame you.”
Charlotte did not even hear the old pirate’s words. It seemed as ifthe entire world had shrunk down to Alex standing opposite her, holding Beryl’s amulet. “We cannot destroy it!”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because...” She gestured rather aimlessly with the guns. “Because.It is mine. Even if I had not stolen it, thus making it my property—which I did—but even if I had not—although in fact I did—then it would still belong to me by reason of my being the Prophesized True Heir of Beryl Black.”
“You know that’s just an invention to keep your family in power.”
“Ooh,” Lady Armitage said. She grinned, looking from Charlotte to Alex as if watching an exciting theater production.
“Of course it was invented,” Charlotte replied with a dignity so stiff, Miss Plim could have used it to prop up her topknot. “That doesn’t devalue its effectiveness. A prophecy is something a witch intends to make true.”
“Fair enough,” Alex said, and Lady Armitage’s hair vibrated as she turned back to him. “But that only supports my argument. And for all that I trust you, darling, I do not trust your aunt. There can be no risk of her getting hold of such power. We have to destroy it. You know that’s the right thing to do.”
Charlotte did not care to know what she knew. “You’re a pirate,” she retorted. “What doyouknow about the right thing?”
He shrugged. “I certainly know enough about the wrong thing. I know what a witch is capable of when she has no limits on her behavior. No empathy. No one who will rouse themselves to stop her. Iknow,sweetheart, and I won’t let anyone else experience that if I can help it.”
Silence hung between them. Alex’s face was stony, but Charlotte saw bruised memory in his eyes, and felt decidedly unwitchy tears rising to her own. Lady Armitage looked like she would murder someone for a bag of popcorn—literally. On the other side of the room, MissDearlove was creeping sidelong toward the bound men and, beyond them, the sitting room door.
“Tell me what’s in your heart, Lottie,” Alex said in a soft voice that might as well have been full of daggers and spikes, considering its impact. Charlotte flinched with unexpected pain. No one had ever asked her that question. They had regulated her life, her dreams, even the words she spoke—and she’d striven to be exactly what they required. She’d tried so hard, even when it had confused her, even when she had to plagiarize novels to furnish the proper response—because, after all, what else was there? Beneath the prophecy and the rules and the old Latin magic, did she even really exist?
Damn the pirate for believing that she did.
She took a deep breath to answer him, and the world flickered with shadows at the edges of her vision. Raising the guns, she shouted.
“No!”
Alex jolted, but it was too late. Miss Dearlove had tossed a dagger to Lady Armitage, and the old pirate, catching it expertly, had grabbed him, yanking him back against the groaning structure of her gown and pressing the blade to his throat before he could even blink.
“Let this be a lesson to you, boy,” she said, her breath hot against his ear, as she snatched the amulet away from him. “I always say that nothing is to be done in robbery without steady and regular attention. If I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage a burglary tutor for you.”
“You criminal!” Charlotte exclaimed, the pistols trembling dangerously in her grip. “You are mangling Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s words most dreadfully!” Alex gave her an incredulous look; blushing, she added, “And you are wicked indeed to hold Captain O’Riley at knifepoint! Let him go or I will shoot you!”
Lady Armitage smirked. “And risk hitting him? I don’t think so. For people who are ‘not together,’ you two certainly have a fine repertoire of passionate looks. Besides, there are no bullets in those guns.”
Charlotte regarded the weapons with frustration, then tossed them aside. Alex saw the magic flare in her eyes and he grasped hold of Lady Armitage’s hand with both of his, clenching it so tightly he heard the bones grind together a moment before she yelped and dropped the knife.
“Aereo!”Charlotte snapped, leaping into the air. Magic propelled her higher, and as she cartwheeled forward, angling her elegant and explosive boot toward Lady Armitage’s head, Alex ducked, escaping the pirate’s clutches effortlessly. He heard a loud twang, and turned to see Charlotte being flung backward as she bounced off the solid fan of Lady Armitage’s hair.
