Page 41 of Liar Witch

I owe it to him to try.

So I tiptoe through the ship, sticking to the spirit realm so that none of them will scent my silent journey to a place I’ve never been before: the brig.

“Left, no, the next left,”Opal hisses down our bond.“Now down the stairs and at the end of the corridor.”

Her directions are not helpful, but I keep going anyway, slipping under locked doors as a literal shadow until I reach the room filled with cells.

Why do the pirates need so many? Nearly all of them are empty, and the ones that aren’t are being used for storage. It makes me wonder why Val hasn’t just turned this space into another cargo hold.

But seeing the maddened vampire contained in the largest one puts it into perspective.

They know they need a safe place to keep Rysen at a moment’s notice. A precaution which seems to have paid off.

Rysen looks… crazed. He’s gripping the bars like he thinks he can bend them apart with pure will. The inky purple glow of Val’s magic covers them, and I wonder how much energy the captain has to expend to keep him locked up like this.

“This is bad,” I whisper, reappearing in the physical realm with a sigh. Opal jumps from her spot, stretched out on a sleeping Titan’s belly in the corner, and twines around my legs.

The moment Rysen sees me, he roars again, slamming into the bars over and over.

“He alternates between this and a stupor. This isn’t something magic can fix.”

“Maybe it could if Elsie was here.” A Solar’s powers could soothe mind wounds, give him lucidity.

“I’ve made temporary bonds with him. Talking seems to help.”

Then that’s what I’ll do.

“Hey, big guy,” I whisper.

Then I stop. What do I even say in this situation?

Rysen’s stopped roaring, but he’s still pressed against the bars, eyes tracking my every move.

“So, Petra joined the stars today.” I have no idea where those words come from, but I roll with it. “She gets to be with her mates after all these years. That’s all she ever wanted.”

I skewer him with a look. “If you ever go after someone like the Eagle without me and die, I’ll summon your spirit to possess a dung beetle and let Opal chase it around.”

Opal stops twining around my legs, nose up in the air in fake indignation.

“That would be undignified,”she mutters as she stalks back to Titan, giving me space to sit on the floor.

It’s a lie. We both know she’ll chase anything which scuttles.

“She left me a book with the lore of the Shadows in it, but I still don’t feel ready to be the mentor to whichever witch is born to the position next.” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “If I even live that long. The Queen and her pet mage seem determined to wipe out the witches altogether.”

Rysen sits back on his heels, observing me with his head cocked. His braids are sticking out all over the place and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so messy before.

The wildness of them, combined with his red eyes and distended fangs, give him an eerie, predatory look that unnerves me.

Still, I keep going.

“Before she died, she told me to find my harem.” I shrug, fiddling with my own hair as I stare at my feet. “That means we’re on a detour of sorts…”

I keep talking for hours, telling him random stories, bits of gossip, even confiding in him about Elsie before I feel the Moon set and know I have to leave. He stays frozen the entire time, his eyes tracking my every move silently. I can’t even tell if he’s listening to what I’m saying, and it doesn’t take long for me to get demoralised.

Yet, the moment I get to my feet, his arms are back through the bars.

“I’ll be back,” I promise, turning with a sad smile.