A voice rumbled low from below deck, a voice that was unmistakable even muffled by wood and distance. Thrain.
“Downstairs,” she murmured to Bonnie, and moved for the stairs before she’d finished speaking.
Bonnie was a beat behind her as Cali took the painted steps in a single leap. Over her shoulder, she heard the captain tell Gert to check the deck for hellkins, and Gert’s affirmative grunt, and then they were below and moving down the corridor.
The kitchen door was shut, but light peeked under it, and Thrain’s voice was clearer now, even though she couldn’t make out words. Cali raised her bow, glanced at Bonnie with her saber drawn, and kicked open the door with one foot.
Both women rushed inside with weapons drawn and then skidded to a stop.
A hellkin sat tied to a ladderback chair with what appeared to be the strings of a few aprons.An oven mitt was stuffed into hismouth. In front of him, standing very upright on the edge of the worktable, was Bramble. The raccoon had a whisk gripped in both black paws and pointed it at the hellkin with his dark eyes narrowed.
Across the kitchen, Thrain stood with his arms folded and his back to the stove, deep in conversation with Marvella, who was leaning against the counter with her own arms crossed and a wooden spoon tucked into her apron like a weapon being rested, and Seraphina, who towered over both of them.
Then he saw Cali and Bonnie in the doorway, and he spread his arms wide.
“There you are.” He looked genuinely delighted and not at all concerned. “You missed all the excitement.”
Thirty
Cali stoodin the kitchen doorway for a long moment, taking in the bound hellkin and the raccoon with the whisk. Her gaze traveled from Bramble to the oven mitt jammed in the hellkin’s mouth, and she lowered her bow.
The point of Bonnie’s sword drooped, and she pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Someone, please explain.”
Marvella and Thrain exchanged a look, and she dipped her head toward the dwarf beside her as if granting him a favor.
Thrain rocked back on his heels and drew a slow breath. “We were in the kitchen,” he began. “Marvella and me.”
“Making scones,” Marvella added.
“Aye, but not just any scones.” He raised a finger. “She got coconuts and sea limes from a fruit vendor at the end of the dock.”
Marvella hiked a thumb toward Thrain. “He’s never had coconut before.”
“Never in my life.” Thrain shook his head. “Not many co-co-nuts in the Ice Lands.”
Marvella smoothed some errant red curls back into her kerchief and nodded to a bowl of small, turquoise fruits. “Or sea limes.”
“Aye,” Thrain said. “That’s true enough.”
Bonnie cleared her throat, her toe tapping softly on the floor. “The hellkin?”
Thrain looked briefly abashed. He tugged at the hem of his shirt. “Right. So, we’re making the coconut sea lime scones?—”
“I was rolling out the dough,” Marvella said. “He was eating the coconut.”
“—when we heard the thumping.” Thrain lowered his voice. “On the side of the ship. Like something climbing up the side. We didn’t know what it was, but then we heard the commotion up top.”
Marvella nodded grimly. “We grabbed what was at hand.”
“She had her rolling pin.” He gestured to it on the counter. “I had the iron skillet, and the wee fella grabbed a whisk, as you can see.”
The raccoon, still on the worktable, squared his small shoulders.
Thrain leaned forward, his voice a hush. “We crept down the hall and hid under the stairs, the three of us, and we waited. When the footsteps came down—” He brought his hands together in a loud clap. “We hit him before he’d cleared the last step.”
The bound hellkin made a noise through the oven mitt.
Thrain shuffled from one foot to the other. “We didn’t know that Seraphina had already subdued him and tied him up.”
