30. Chapter 30
Ididn’t care I could barely see, and I didn’t care if I lost my voice forever, so long as I could use it one last time to save Ben. I screeched a noise similar to the one Mum had made, hoping for the same effect. But instead of falling down unconscious like the other pirates had, the Captain only staggered and grabbed the edge of one of the mirrors for stability. Clearly, I hadn’t the fortitude my mother did.
With a gasp, my voice shot from my throat again and zipped to the Captain’s collar beneath his shirt. As Eyepatch had already warned me, the Captain came prepared for merfolk.
In the second I had bought Ben, he grabbed hold of the Captain’s outstretched arm, and the inky blackness of his bad luck power seeped down his arm like molasses.
“What in Jesus’ name...?” The Captain held his wrist up to his eyes for all of a second, before gritting his teeth and seizing the hilt of his blade once more.
But with a clang, the hilt snapped off the cutlass, and the pirate held up nothing but a jagged metal stump, barely long enough to shave his own beard off.
I whirled around to dump the egg onto the Captain’s desk and sprinted toward Ben, but not soon enough. The Captain jammed the metal edge toward Ben’s face and slashed it across his cheek. Ben’s cry filled the air, and I barrelled into him, dragging him through the gap between the two mirrors.
“I would have enjoyed running you both through like the cowards you are.” The Captain kicked the bottom of the mirror, slamming it into me and Ben. We fell against the wall, clinging to each other. “I’ll have to make do with choking the life out of you with my bare hands as soon as you’ve taken me where I need to go.”
Oh, he could go where he wanted, and I’d make sure of it.
I threw my entire weight against the back of the mirror and it slammed into the Captain, knocking him off his feet.
The Captain’s howl cut off the sound of smashing glass, and I knew it wasn’t the mirror.
“My potion!” he bellowed.
How unlucky, I thought. With the amulet still in my hand, I pressed it against the back of the mirror.
A blinding light engulfed the Captain, and his primal roars disappeared. Blinking away the odd-shaped colours flashing in my eyes, I rolled off the mirror and picked it up. Beneath it was only the wooden floor of the ship. The Captain had gone, and with him, my voice.
I swallowed hard. It wasn’t the biggest price I could have paid.
“Maeve, your voice.” Blood poured down Ben’s face from the gash on his cheek, but to my relief, his skin knitted together before my eyes.
He reached out his hand to me, and I took it, falling against his chest. The adrenaline still shot around my system as if the danger still bore down on us, but the sweet relief of his embrace took the edge off.
It didn’t matter. The Captain’s intentions couldn’t have been clearer: hurt Ben to make me put him through the portal and then drag us through with him to kill us and go on his way. I would have given up much more to avoid that eventuality.
I nuzzled Ben’s jaw with my nose, hoping the act would reassure him on some level. His fingers entwined themselves in my hair, and he squeezed me to his chest.
“You knew that would happen,” he muttered. “Why did you do it?”
Without my voice, I couldn’t exactly explain to him. Something told me I’d have to write everything down for the foreseeable future. But we couldn’t dwell on that. We had the egg and had gotten rid of the Captain. We had to find the others and get off the ship before the rest of the crew found out what we had done. With no captain, there would only be chaos, and we couldn’t find ourselves in the middle of it.
I pressed a kiss to Ben’s jaw and wriggled out of his arms to pick up the mirror. As I heaved the mirror back on its stand, a tiny golden orb shot out of the glass and into my throat.
“Thank the gods,” I said, pawing at my throat.
For all my initial acceptance, not having my voice had scared me deep down.
Perhaps the Captain couldn’t take a part of me with him through the portal. It was my voice after all, and as its owner on a ship that demanded everything remained intact, perhaps the ship’s magic wouldn’t allow my voice to disappear to a different time without me.
“I thought I wouldn’t get to hear your voice again.” Ben wound an arm around my waist and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “What a travesty that would have been.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.” I grinned.
“Maybe just a little.”
As much as I wanted to banter with him, an urgency in my gut begged me to get off that ship.
“Come on,” I said, dragging him over to the desk with me. “We’ve got to-.”
I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of the egg, half draped in tea towels. Its surface gleamed a gold that seemed too... ethereal. Was I imagining this?
The egg rocked on the desk, nearly rolling itself off the edge. Ben threw out his hands to catch it, but the egg remained balanced just on the precipice, still once more.
“Did you see that?” I whispered.
“I saw it.” Ben picked up the egg and held it up between us. “It’s alive...”
My hands shot to my mouth as I squealed my delight into them. Ben laughed out loud, adjusting the tea towels to conceal the egg entirely.
“I can’t believe this,” I muttered through my fingers. “Come on! We don’t have a second to lose!”
As we dashed out of the Captain’s quarters, an overwhelming sense of hope wrapped me up in its cocoon so tight that it threatened to smother me. After weeks of mounting despair, we had finally had a chance to save Dusk and everyone on it.
Dad, I thought. When we got back and gave the phoenix her egg back, he and Allison would survive. And the moment he felt better, I would tell him everything: all about Mum, that I was a mermaid...and even about me and Ben. His dance with death had made me want to open up to him, especially since I knew how much Mum wanted him to know our shared secret.
“Where would they be?” Ben asked as we jogged down the hallways together.
“Do you think they’re listening to Bronwyn’s stories in the food hall again?”
It was the only proven method to keep the pirates sweet so far. That and magical ice cream.
“It’s worth a shot. Let’s go,” Ben said.
I walked a few steps ahead of Ben, ensuring to block any view of the egg from approaching pirates. If their stereotype of gold hoarding, plundering, and pillaging natures were even remotely true, I didn’t want them catching sight of it.
When we reached the door to the dining room, I pushed it open just a crack and peered inside. Bronwyn was indeed telling stories surrounded by pirates, though she looked almost as invested as her avid listeners. Adrian stood against the wall with Kira, both of them with their arms folded, chatting quietly to each other.
I waved wildly at Kira, hoping to get her attention. But it took several minutes of me jumping up and down like an idiot before she finally noticed me.
Where the hell have you been?She mouthed the words, but something told me I’d get a proper tongue-lashing later.
We have to go.
Kira pulled a face and lifted a palm toward the ceiling. She had no idea what I was talking about.
I beckoned her with my entire hand, and with a big roll of her eyes, Kira edged her way around the room to me. Adrian followed her, craning his neck to listen in on the conversation.
“What is it?” she whispered through the gap.
“Look.” I stepped aside to show her the egg in Ben’s hands. “It’s alive, Kira. We’ve got to get it back to the phoenix.”
Kira’s mouth fell open, and she stared at the egg, her eyes shimmering so intensely I wondered if she would cry. But after a few moments, she blinked her shock away.
“Are you serious?” she murmured. “We’ve... we’ve got a way out of this?”
“I mean, I think so.” I shot her a warm smile. “But we can’t exactly leave without Bronwyn.”
If nothing else, Allison would never forgive us. But I would never leave a young woman alone with a bunch of bored pirates. We were lucky stories were all they wanted so far.
“These guys are going to riot if Bronwyn leaves,” Kira hissed. “Where’s the Captain?”
“Right where he wanted to be,” Ben said, grinning.
Kira narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, that’s a story I want to hear later. But what are we doing now?”
“Just grab her and let’s go!” I said.
“Did you not hear what I just...? Okay, you know what? Fine. Let’s do it your way.” Kira spun around on the ball of her foot and beat her wings, propelling herself over the heads of the pirates before setting down next to where Bronwyn sat on her stool.
I grabbed Adrian’s arm and dragged him out of the room. This was about to get hectic.
“Okay, time to get a head start,” I said to Ben. “Get down to our portal with Adrian right now.”
“You’d better be right behind us,” Ben said as he and Adrian jogged down the corridor.
Something told me we would.
I peered back through the doorway to see Kira flying toward me at full speed, holding a bewildered Bronwyn.
“Hey!” Several roars of disgruntlement rose from the crowd of pirates.
“Time to run!” Kira said, slamming the door shut behind her.
The three of us bolted, and I didn’t look back as the sound of the door bursting open followed us around the corner.
“Are you telling me you’ve solved our problem?” Kira asked as we ran. “Because I’ve got news for you. They won’t welcome us back if we need a return trip.”
“Trust me, I think we’ve actually got this nailed.” I skidded at the top of the stairs that led down to the crew’s sleeping quarters.
But the thundering footsteps approaching us told me we had little time. We hurried down the steps to where Adrian and Ben waited at the porthole that led to our time.
“We don’t have any gear on,” Adrian said as I fumbled for the amulet.
I hesitated. He was right. When the amulet hurled us all into the ocean where we had come in and we were in this state...
“Everyone grab an oxygen enchantment,” I said, slinging the back off my back and opening it to them. “Hold on to them tightly.”
“We can’t swim up to the surface with just an oxygen enchantment!” Adrian said as he plunged his hand into the bag. “It doesn’t matter if we can breathe, we won’t make it!”
“I will get you to the surface.” I raised my voice so much that Adrian took a step back. “All of you. But we don’t have time for this.”
“She’s right.” Ben clasped the enchantment in his hand, his arms wrapped around the egg. “We don’t have a choice, Ade.”
Bronwyn held the oxygen enchantment to her chest, her lower lip quivering. But no matter how terrifying this prospect was, the alternative was getting savaged by pirates.
Taking a deep breath, I pressed the amulet to the porthole.