Page 9 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

“I do not like it,” Stasia muttered, pacing in Alys’s quarters. She paused long enough to stroke the throat of Eris, her magpie

familiar perched on her shoulder. The bird made a pleased, muted sound as it rubbed its beak in Stasia’s thick dark hair,

gently nibbling on her curls. “I do not like him . He is too handsome to be kept alive.”

Alys poured two tankards of rum and handed one to her quartermaster. The tall mugs were of English silver, covered in elaborate

scrolls that could only come from a skilled craftsman. These had been taken from a British merchantman.

She wrapped a square of silk around her head. The scarf had been seized from a Spanish galleon headed for Hispaniola. Its

deep green color had been too delicious for her to resist, especially after the coarsely woven gray woolens she’d been forced

to wear back home were an abrasive memory against her skin. Even so, she only wore plain gold hoops in her ears, rather than

the pearls and gemstones other members of her crew favored.

“Staying a step ahead of him kept me too busy to notice whether or not he was handsome,” Alys answered.

“He has pretty blue eyes and a face too gorgeous for the good of anyone.” After setting Eris on top of a table, Stasia drained her tankard and threw herself into the seat in front of the large window that ran the length of the ship’s aft. “I want to finish the job you started and cut his throat.”

Alys supposed that Sailing Master Benjamin Priestley of His Majesty’s Navy was good looking, in a tidy way, with a hewn jaw

and sharp nose, and instead of a wig, he wore his dark brown hair in a queue. He filled out his fine clothes well, too, and

she had ample evidence he was in good physical condition.

She eyed her friend. “It isn’t his handsomeness you fear.”

“While he is on the Sea Witch , he is a danger to everyone aboard.”

Alys drank from her tankard, yet bleakness flattened her words. “What happened to Fontaine and the Diabolique... ” She shuddered.

“I hope to never witness such a horror again.” Stasia muttered an incantation in Greek.

“So long as the Royal Navy has the leviathan in its power, we’re all a moment away from annihilation. There’s no fighting

it. No way to escape it. All the witches aboard our ship, using every ounce of our power... even together, we couldn’t

stop that creature.”

Both she and Stasia fell silent, considering this ominous fate.

“Little George’s fail-safe is our sole hope of eluding certain death,” Alys concluded. “Priestley may yet change his mind,

and if it means outwitting the navy, I’d be a fool to snuff out our most promising lead of reaching that fail-safe.”

“But what is it, this fail-safe?”

Alys could only shrug. “Little George said nothing on that front. It could be anything.”

“The sailing master brings more peril than promise of finding it.”

“He might be just what we need.” When Stasia opened her mouth to speak, Alys held up a hand.

“You think I’m unaware of the threat he presents?

Forty-five women have now elected me their captain.

They follow me on raids and into battle.

Their lives are my responsibility. And to protect them, I’ve got to find that fail-safe.

If that means keeping the sailing master alive for

a little longer, then...” She inhaled raggedly. “I accept that risk.”

Stasia gazed at her, and then gave a quick nod.

Alys poured herself another drink. She had met Stasia Angelidis shortly after the Sea Witch had first docked in Tortuga, a year ago. Stasia had been a corsair in the Mediterranean, but no pirate companies in the Caribbean

were willing to take on a female crew member, and certainly not one who was a witch.

When Alys had first encountered Stasia, the Greek woman had pinned a buccaneer to the wall of a tavern, magical vines keeping

the pirate restrained as Stasia calmly finished a mug of ale. To ensure that the buccaneer didn’t move, Stasia had enchanted

a knife to rest against his throat. It turned out that the pirate had tried to intimidate Stasia with the threat that all

men deploy against women. Stasia’s crime: daring to seek a place aboard a ship as a crew member.

That pirate’s poor judgment had been to Alys’s benefit. She’d gained not only a quartermaster, but a stalwart friend and counselor.

They’d spent many nights together, studying pilfered tomes about magic. Those books had been remarkably short on details about

how, exactly, one wielded supernatural power, hoarding that knowledge for the magic academies that only admitted male students.

The volumes that Alys and Stasia did find were quick to condemn women who claimed magic for themselves.

Many of those late nights with Stasia had been occupied with testing their magic, experimenting with what they could and could

not do, and writing down everything they learned so that future generations of witches wouldn’t be raised in ignorance, as

both Alys and her quartermaster had. Barred entrance to education, witches had to rely on rumor and word of mouth to gain

any knowledge about how to use their powers.

When there were lulls in the ship’s duties, Alys and Stasia would gather the ship’s witches to pass along everything they’d learned from the books.

Their knowledge would be a flame, lighting one candle, and then another, and another, until someday, the whole world would be brightened by witches’ magic.

It was Stasia that Alys spoke with first thing each morning, and Stasia who Alys said good-night to at the conclusion of every

day.

A plate of stewed chicken now waited for Alys, and her stomach rumbled with interest. She hadn’t eaten since noon.

“You aren’t joining me?” Alys asked.

“I dined while you were attending the festivities ashore.”

Sitting down to eat, Alys said, “Make sure some food is brought to our guest in the brig.”

“His comfort should not be at the uppermost of our minds.”

Alys shook her head. “ Men treat their prisoners poorly.”

Stasia pushed up from the window seat and opened the door of the cabin. To an unseen member of the crew, she issued commands,

and then went to stand at the window.

“We would not serve the king so kindly,” the quartermaster grumbled.

“The king happily makes war to line his coffers. He’s an eager enslaver, too.” Alys prodded her stew with the tip of her knife.

“This sailing master is, right now, merely a mechanism I intend to use. A mechanism you say is handsome.” She exhaled. “Having

men on our ship makes my skin crawl. They’re so... messy. Yet I’ll learn what Priestley knows. He pled ignorance about

his captain’s involvement with Little George. Might be a ruse, might not.”

“He hates pirates. You can see it in every part of his body. He is a warrant officer in the navy. It makes sense he holds no love for buccaneers. He seems uncomfortable in the presence of magic, so a ship of witches is not a place he cares for. Butchering him would be wisest.”

“Killing in the heat of battle has a different flavor than murder committed in cold blood. A flavor I can’t swallow.”

Stasia clapped her hand across her forehead. “The twists and turns of your heart have always been baffling.”

“I’m equally baffled by myself.” Alys took a bite of chicken. “But sending him to hell sits poorly with me. The Sea Witch and its company sail differently from other ships.”

“There are exceptions,” Stasia noted.

“And I make them, without question.”

No one who commanded or crewed on a ship transporting kidnapped Africans was ever spared. Once the people trapped in abominable

conditions in the hold were freed and brought onto the Sea Witch for medicine, fresh food, and proper clothing, Alys and her company locked the captain and crew in the cramped space where

they’d held their captives. She always ignored the sailors’ pleas for mercy when the enslaver ships were set ablaze.

“I’ll kill him if I deem it necessary,” Alys said.

“It is a wonder we have any reputation at all,” the quartermaster groused. “Fine, fine,” she added when Alys shot her a pointed

look, “he lives, but when he is no longer of use to us...” She drew her thumb across her throat.

Eris chattered in agreement.

Satisfied, Alys finished her supper, and drained a mug of rum to chase it all down. She wiped her arm across her mouth.

“Where’s your modesty?”

Samuel’s once-constant demand came back to her in a rush. There’d been a day when she had spoken to Quinton Brown before the

other man had addressed her first. Samuel had quickly dragged her home, sat her at the table, and lectured her for a full

hour about her wrongdoing.

“ I’d only asked him to thank his wife for her gift of elderberry jam ,” Alys had protested.

“Your eyes weren’t downcast, either. You looked around as if you were the mayor and the reverend and the governor all mixed

into one boastful, lewd woman.”

“I knew the road, and didn’t need to look down.”

He’d sat down and clasped her hands in his. “ I love you too much to let you attract any censure. What if someone gets ideas and follows you and sees you... ” He’d shuddered. “ Using magic .”

“They won’t—I’m careful.”

His face darkened, and only then had she realized her mistake.

“Before my recollection of it grows blurred,” she said to Stasia, banishing the memory, “we need to figure out what Little

George’s clue on the window glass leading to the fail-safe meant.”

“Speak, Oracle.” Stasia waved her hand.

“A golden, holy key you seek to open the gates,

But first, you must be penitent.

Bow at the feet of the Weeping Princess

And behind her vale of tears, you will find your way.”

After this recital, both Alys and Stasia fell silent, considering what the riddle could possibly mean.

“Within the Caribbean, is there anything known as the Weeping Princess?” Alys asked.

Stasia looked baffled. “I have been in these waters for only a year longer than you.”