Page 4 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

Isle of St. Gertrude

One year later

“If ye be hearin’ this,” the silver-haired, one-eyed man read as he stood atop a table, “it do mean that I, Little George

Partridge, be dead.”

Mutters and murmurs filled the taproom of the Wig and Merkin, teeming with pirates from every corner of the Caribbean that

had gathered by specific request to hear the final message of one of the sea’s most notorious buccaneers.

Alys eased her way into the crowded room, slipping between benches and tables, with countless suspicious eyes fastened on

her.

It was a ramshackle tavern crouched in the center of town. The walls of the pub’s central taproom were streaked with smoke

from thousands of pipes. A spray of rust-colored droplets near the bar was the result of John Clay ill-advisedly starting

a fight with the notorious mage Luca Pasquale. They said it took three whole weeks before the smell disappeared, but even

then, the stench was mostly covered up by new aromas.

Scarred wooden tables were scattered through the room, though the prized seats were the settles shoved against the walls.

The tall-backed benches ensured that no one could come up behind you and slit your throat or cast a blood seeping curse without you being able to throw a shielding spell.

Tonight, though, every seat in the Wig and Merkin was full, men jostling for position so they could take part in the evening’s.

.. well, party wasn’t quite the right word, but wakes weren’t often held in the tavern.

Death was a part of life in the Caribbean, as much

as heat or hurricanes or red-streaked sunsets.

“What are you doing here, Tanner?” A weather-beaten man looked at Alys with distrust. Fontaine was missing most of his left ear, but his

right ear was adorned with a golden ring.

“ Captain Tanner. And you weren’t the only one to be summoned here tonight.”

Fontaine grumbled, “Only been a year since your ship and your infernal witch magic appeared in these waters. Not long enough

to say you’re pirates.”

“We’ve made use of that year. No need to be idle when there’s so much plunder to be grabbed—and if my company and I raid ships

for loot, that qualifies us as pirates.”

“Witches as buccaneers, instead of brewing love potions,” he muttered to the mustached man sitting next to him. “I wouldn’t

believe such a yarn if someone told it.”

“You’d be surprised what witches can do,” Alys threw in, “given the same chances as mages.”

A bald man dressed in crimson from head to toe moved through the tavern. Like all mages, he wore an embroidered black sash,

indicating that he’d been educated and trained at an academy. He waved his hands over candles and lamps scattered atop tables.

With each flick of his fingers, the wicks glowed to life, flames appearing to bring further light to the taproom. The candles

staked onto the overhead wheel-shaped wooden chandelier blazed, and the already hot taproom turned sweltering.

No one blinked or looked skeptically at the mage. But they did glare in Alys’s direction.

A sandy-haired, bearded man glowered at her. “Shouldn’t even be here,” the pirate grumbled. “Witches an’ ships be bad luck.”

“We’re in a tavern, Culver,” Alys pointed out mildly.

He scowled. “You an’ that brigantine full o’ witches, doin’ things only men and mages should do. They talk about ye from Maracaibo to St. Augustine. Ain’t right.”

“We signed articles like every other pirate ship.” She glanced toward a buccaneer seated at one of the tables, and the shaggy

man immediately scuttled away, leaving her to sit at the now empty table. “Even with our magic, we obey the rules of the sea.

Unlike you, Culver, we don’t double-cross anyone.”

Culver’s hand went to the handle of his cutlass. Alys didn’t touch her own weapon. Instead, she snapped her fingers.

All at once, every light in the tavern went out. Curses and swears rose up from the assembled pirates.

They fell silent when a single flame wreathed Alys’s fingertip. All eyes were on her as she touched the fire to the wick of

a candle at her table. Smoke curled up from the wick, and she blew on it. The smoke formed into a sea serpent. At another

gust of air from Alys’s lips, the creature writhed and dove about the room, until it exited through an open window.

Stasia, her second in command, would’ve rolled her eyes at Alys’s theatrics. Yet a point had to be made, and, judging by the

silence that now ruled over the tavern, Alys had done just that.

Just in case, she kept her other hand loose and ready near her cutlass. It had seen her through some rough and vicious fights.

For a woman who, one year ago, never so much as touched a blade longer than four inches to clean and gut fish, she’d quickly

taken to the curved and deadly sword. Now it was her trusted companion, as much as her brace of pistols. And the spells that

danced at her fingertips, glittering with potential.

When it comes to those that take their living from the sea, her second in command had instructed Alys and her company, trust nothing and no one. Stay armed and alert—with steel, and with sorcery.

A moment passed, and then the red-clad mage moved through the tavern once more, relighting the candles and lamps and chandelier

that Alys had extinguished.

“?’Tis a solemn occasion,” Culver mumbled. “Little George wouldn’t want a fight.”

“Of course , Little George would want a fight,” Alys said. “And I’ll be happy to give him, or anyone, a brawl.”

“Ain’t fair for a witch to use magic in a fight,” Culver muttered. “?’Tis only fit for mages.”

“By all means, let’s soothe your worries.” Alys held up her hand, where a flame still danced on the tip of her finger. With

a wave, the fire winked out. “I’ll still beat you from Bermuda to the Bay of Honduras, even without my magic.” She cupped

the pommel of her cutlass.

Culver glanced from her hand on her sword, and then to the steely determination in her eyes. Slowly, his own scarred hand

moved from his weapon.

“Ay, that’s the way of it.”

Alys turned toward Rodrigo Flores, sitting nearby. The pirate gave her a smile, revealing several golden teeth.

Flores continued, “If you, Culver, a man with the brainpower of driftwood, have a right to be here, then so does Capitana

Tanner, who’s vastly more intelligent, and twice the swordsman you’ll ever be.”

Culver muttered but didn’t argue.

Alys sent Flores a quick nod of gratitude. Though most pirates tended toward suspicion, there were a handful who welcomed

her into their ranks.

She turned to face the front of the room, where Little George’s final letter was being read. She kept her awareness on Culver,

in case he decided to slip a dagger between her ribs. Or if he might give the mage a nod, and she’d be suffocated with a smothering

spell. Here in the lawless Caribbean, anything was possible, and she had learned to stay nimble as a wheeling gull to keep

herself and her company safe.

The fact that now over half her crew was comprised of witches made them even more hunted by militias and the Royal Navy. She and her company had come to the Caribbean to find freedom, and they had. To a point. There was nowhere safe.

Nowhere, except on the deck of the now named Sea Witch surrounded by her crew.

“If I be lucky,” the one-eyed seaman continued to read from the creased letter in his hand, “I’ll go to me Maker as I lay

in the arms of a sweet and willing lass, but ’tis most likely that foul murder has sent me speedin’ to Hell, as I justly deserve.”

No one could argue that Little George Partridge had earned his reputation through acts of unequaled violence—though he always

showed exceptional kindness toward animals, particularly cats. Alys had crossed paths with Little George only a handful of

times, but when she received word that she was summoned to this tavern on this lawless island to hold a wake for the departed

pirate, she made sail for St. Gertrude.

Little George wouldn’t request a simple wake. There had to be more to this gathering than that.

“For now,” the one-eyed man went on, reading aloud, hefting a sack of coins, “I command all ye gathered to drink a toast to

me memory, paid for by none other than Little George Partridge.”

A resounding cheer went up in the tavern as the coin was thrown to the landlord, who began filling tankards as fast as he

could, which were handed out by a trio of harried barmaids.

As she sipped spiced rum from a dented pewter mug, Alys took measure of who else she was drinking with.

Every wanted pirate captain that sailed the blue waters of the Caribbean was in the Wig and Merkin.

She recognized the majority of the men that filled the smoke-stained taproom.

These were the most feared sailors known, infamous buccaneers, some missing body parts and most completely lacking morals.

They were men who had come to these waters from every corner of the globe to seize a fortune in blood-soaked gold and treasure.

Young men barely able to shave, craggy-faced veterans, and everything in between.

Mages, too, flocked to the Caribbean, harnessing their academy-trained magical abilities to grab their share of wealth when it was well known that the Royal Navy and merchants paid far less for enchantments, curses, and spells.

A wicked collection of men, like an iron coffer filled with rotten meat. Here in the tavern, they carefully kept from meeting

Alys’s gaze, and others glared with mistrust.

Some, though, were like Flores. Not precisely moral nor law-abiding, but they had a form of honor, and were willing to share

the seas with a ship crewed entirely by women. They gave her a polite nod. Even these small gestures showed her more respect

than any of the men back in Norham.

She didn’t finish her rum. Unlike the other pirates, she hadn’t the luxury of indulging in drink here. A witch pirate surrounded