Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
WENDY
O nce, after my mother had allowed a particularly grisly suitor into the parlor with me, then left us alone for the better part of an hour, I’d found her in the wine cellar and begged her to end this plan of hers to find me a husband to break my curse.
Blood was still staining the fabric of my dress from where the man had bitten my shoulder. The pain of it was nothing compared to the hollowness in my chest.
I’d squared my shoulders and summoned that last bit of courage left in my bloodstream. When I spoke, I hadn’t sounded brave, nor had I sounded at all sure of myself. “I’m afraid this plan of ours”—why I’d said ours, to this day I still can’t fathom—“is proving ineffective.”
My mother had just stared at the dusty wine bottles, refusing to look at me. She never could bring herself to look at me immediately after the parlor. The next morning, she would be herself again, as if nothing had ever happened. But tonight I was dirty—a reminder of her failures as a mother.
“Oh, Wendy, my girl. Don’t be so pessimistic. Lord Erasmus is noble. He understands his responsibility to you.”
I fought back the urge to argue that noble men don’t take advantage of their potential brides, and continued. “Mother, if I can’t find a husband before my twentieth birthday—”
She snapped her head toward me, an ever-present smile on her face. At least she was looking at me now. “My sweet girl, we have years to find you a husband.”
Years. Years of enduring the groping hands of hungry men. I wasn’t sure I’d make it years.
“John’s found a book,” I’d explained, my voice warbling. “He says the fae are vulnerable to iron.”
“The fae are vulnerable to nothing, my dear, except upholding bargains,” said my mother, still searching for the perfect nightcap.
“Yes,” I’d said, fighting to keep my voice level. “But if we cannot fulfill our side of the bargain, I should like to be prepared.”
My mother had cocked her head at me with a thin-lipped smile. Then she’d brushed her hand against my cheek, stroking my Mating Mark. “My dear. I wish it were so. I wish I could train you to defend yourself against him. You have no idea how often I’ve imagined fighting him off myself. But we are not made to fight. Our bodies are at too much of a disadvantage. We must learn to resist in other ways. Our wit, our…” She bit her lip and sighed. “It would be simpler if you could fight your way out of this. But we must be wiser than that. We must be what they want us to be.”
Her words had landed in my pride, pummeled as it already was. I hadn’t been foolish enough to believe I could win a fistfight between myself and the fae Shadow Keeper. I’d only wanted something to give me an advantage, the element of surprise. A weakness I could exploit when it came time to run.
That conversation in the wine cellar is all I can think about as Charlie and Maddox carry me by carriage back to the ship. Being what men wanted me to be had only gotten me so far. Sure, it had provided me an opportunity to slip from Vulcan’s grasp. But even then, I’d eventually been cornered in an alleyway, another man’s hand at my throat. And there was nothing I could do to escape. No words I could speak to outsmart a man who couldn’t be reasoned with.
My mother would have wanted me to go with Vulcan. To be what he wanted me to be, too. She would have thought I’d be safe there.
Charlie and Maddox each fuss over me in their own ways—Maddox constantly asking if I need water, like that will somehow fix anything that’s happened over the past night. Charlie pulls my head into her lap and tells me to prop my feet on Maddox’s legs, who doesn’t protest. I try to fall asleep, but there’s little use, so I ask questions.
“How’d you find me?” And why did Peter not?
“The captain saw Teeth passing you off to the traffickers,” Charlie explains. “He tried to get to you, but by the time he cut through the attackers, you were gone.”
“Teeth wasn’t though,” says Maddox. “He was still trying to escape in one of the safety boats, but he knew the captain was coming after him. His hands were shaking so bad he couldn’t get the knot untied that secures the boat. He told the captain everything. Apparently when we made port in Morella, he contacted a band of traffickers. Told them we had a girl with a Mating Mark. Offered to get you off the ship if they could cause a distraction. So they leaked the information to a band of pirates they knew would go after you.”
Charlie flits her hand. “Can no one even be bothered to hire their own mercenaries these days?”
Maddox continues. “All the while, the traffickers were at the ready to steal you away. Suppose Teeth thought telling us was his best chance at keeping his life.”
Charlie lets out a wry laugh. “He did manage to extend it by several hours. We needed him to lead us to the traffickers. By the time we got there, you were gone. One of the servants must have taken a liking to you, because he told us the name of the buyer and where he’d be keeping you. Even told us of his master’s plot to steal you back. So we came and got you.”
She says it so simply. Effortlessly. Like coming to get me was a given.
“You make it sound like it was easy,” I say.
Maddox glances at Charlie. “She might have left out some details about how Astor went about questioning the traffickers.”
That’s fine with me. I don’t really want to know. “Did you see any other girls there?”
Charlie strokes my hair. “Evans came with us. Astor had him stay behind and get them to safety. He’ll meet us back on the ship.”
The muscles in my shoulders relax a bit. “And Teeth?”
“Once Teeth led us to the traffickers,” Charlie says, “well, let’s just say he’d outlived his usefulness.”
Once we’re back on the Iaso , Charlie helps me bathe and change. I barely register the boards that someone has nailed into the wall to repair the hole where the cannonball went careening through the cabin before I crawl into bed and doze off.
I sleep the day away, though my rest is punctuated by dreams of men either stealing me from my bed or crawling into it. Maybe that’s why, when I wake and discover it’s nighttime again, I find myself searching for the captain.
“You won’t find him out here,” says Maddox when he finds me on deck. His tone is sly, though it’s doing a poor job of concealing the concern in his gray eyes. “Try the map room.”
The map room. The room where I first spied on the captain and learned of his plan to fool the Carlisles.
When the door creaks open, Astor is leaning over his spread of maps, palms splayed atop them. He opens his mouth to say, “I’m not to be disturbed at the m—” but stops himself mid-sentence, ears flickering.
“Darling,” he says before even looking up. When he finally does, his gaze is curious rather than cold. He doesn’t ask me why I’m here. Just waits expectantly.
With Peter, everything is a game. With Astor, everything is a challenge.
I shuffle over to him, knitting my fingers together in a loose fist in front of me. “I need to ask you something.”
“Then you should ask it rather than waste your words and both of our time,” he says, though not as cruelly as his words might otherwise suggest. It’s more like he’s nudging me in a more assertive direction.
I reach for where I’ve rehearsed the request in my mind, but where there should be a script, I find emptiness. I don’t know why I’m like this—why I can assemble a sound argument when I’m alone, then find myself flummoxed once it comes time to spout the actual words. Feeling stupid, I flush.
It’s a simple request, one I’m fairly sure he won’t deny, yet still, I feel like I’ve hit an impenetrable wall in trying to ask it.
Astor cocks his brow, and it’s enough to set me off.
I punch him in the face.
Well, that’s a bit too generous. I attempt to punch him in the face. He catches my fist in his much larger palm before I get anywhere near him, his jaw ticking with an emotion I can’t read. It’s not anger though. I’ve seen the captain angry, and this isn’t it.
“And here I was,” he drawls, “thinking I’ve been behaving myself as of late. What have I done this time? I must admit, usually I know.”
Reasons rattle between the edges of painful memories, but I can’t form them into coherent words. It’s the tenor of my mother’s voice telling me what kind of things men might want from me that won’t leave evidence behind. It’s the touch of velvet against my splayed hands, underneath my painted fingernails. It’s the wishing to be stolen away so that I’ll no longer have to fear my fate, only know it. It’s Vulcan’s fingers tracing my jawline, the temptation to heed his words, just stop fighting. It’s all of that, and it’s too much to put into words.
So I punch at Astor again, this time with my weak hand, hoping he’ll understand.
He catches it—it would be a shock if he hadn’t—then cranes his neck to the side. “Is this it?” he asks. “Is this what you want?”
There’s a knot forming in my throat. Because this isn’t at all what I want, not really. What I want is for nothing bad to have ever happened to me. What I want is to have never known a man’s greedy touch. What I want is not to be terrified all the time. What I want is for my parents to be alive—but not be them. To be alive, and to be versions of themselves that would have protected me. To have been thrown into an impossible situation and gotten it right.
I can’t have any of that.
“This is the best I can do,” I say. “This is the best I can settle for.”
I expect a reprimand, but I don’t get it. A wave of understanding washes over the captain. In a flash, it’s gone, replaced by a tactical practicality. The fierce facade of someone who knows the hairline difference between succumbing to the blade and conquering it.
I brace myself to be thrown to the floor, already willing my bones to get back up, but the captain has other plans. Instead of shoving me down, he pulls me into him, so that my chin rests against his heaving chest. His grip slides on both sides so that it’s firm around my wrists. The feeling of being constrained like this makes me want to gag. Makes me think of Teeth’s hand on me, my inability to escape. Shadows speckle my vision, but the captain just whispers, “Look at me.”
I do.
I do, and it hurts.
Astor is the rugged sort of beautiful. There’s not a single soft feature on his face. His tanned skin is slightly weathered, a byproduct of years at sea. His jaw is set, its sharp angle visible even under his dark beard—he keeps it trimmed so neatly. When my gaze lifts, I feel the sting of the needle that pierced the pointed tip of his ear, where his golden earring glints.
But his beauty isn’t what hurts. It’s the way he’s looking at me like I’m the one capable of wounding him.
“Where are my weaknesses?” he asks. I can’t help but notice the way his eyes trail my cheekbone, my nose, down to my lips.
His breathing quickens.
I try to angle my knee toward his groin, but he’s gripping me too close for me to get a good shot. My efforts result in a weak jab against his thigh, one he barely seems to notice.
“Look again,” he says.
I jump, thinking to slam my head into his, but he’s a head taller than me, so that’s bound to fail. When I stomp on his boots, they’re plated with steel.
“Not there,” he whispers.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m pushing myself onto my toes. Astor’s craning his neck over me. The movement has his chin grazing my forehead, his mouth at the crown of my head.
When I tip my head back, his eyelids are heavy, obscuring the upper half of his beautiful green eyes. He looks drunk, and though he tightens his grip on my wrists, I know it’s only to steady himself. To hide the trembling that’s crept into his fingertips, his muscles.
“Where then?” I venture to ask, half breathless.
His fingers trail my wrist, up my palm, across my fingertips. But then his touch finds my ring finger, the cold metal of Peter’s emerald ring.
The tension between us snaps.
Astor skates his hand back down to my wrist. “My thumbs,” he says, voice now as serious as it is disinterested.
I blink. “What?”
“The weakness you’re looking for,” he explains, words coming out rushed. He nods toward his grip around my wrist. “It’s by itself, doesn’t have anything else to support it. If you shift all of your weight there, your attacker will have a difficult time holding on.”
I nod, grateful the strain of trying to get out of Astor’s grip must be masking the heat on my face. It’s more difficult than Astor makes it out to be and takes me shifting my feet and body weight, rolling my wrists at just the correct angle.
Eventually, he lets go, but I have a feeling it’s not because I overpowered him.
“Well done, D—Wendy,” he says, swallowing as he returns his attention to the map stretched across the table. “Now, if you don’t mind, I truly was busy when you arrived.”
There’s no harshness in his voice, but I’m mortified all the same.
I’m hardly aware of my short journey back to my and Charlie’s cabin. So oblivious am I to my surroundings, so embarrassed by my encounter with the captain, that I don’t notice that I’m not alone in the room until Charlie’s voice rips me back to the present.
“Wendy? What are you doing?”
What am I doing? I glance down, almost surprised to find my fingers unraveling the pouch of faerie dust Peter gave to me the night I threw myself overboard. I’d hidden it under the bed, and it’s been a nightly battle to keep it there.
The soft, fine powder already coats my fingertips. I can almost taste its sweetness on the back of my tongue.
Charlie, standing over me from behind, swoops in and wrenches the pouch from my hands. “Go wash your hands off,” she says. When I don’t move, stunned just as much by the fact I hadn’t even realized what I was doing as I am by getting caught, she stuffs the pouch into her pocket. Then she drags me by the wrist over to the water basin. She doesn’t move until she deems my hands sufficiently scrubbed.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, still feeling as if I’d been sleepwalking.
Charlie sighs, tugging at the end of her braid. “You’ve had a rather awful few days.” She chews on her lip, hands on her hips, then flicks her head to the side. “Come on. Actually,” she says, “meet me on deck.”
Too ashamed of my lack of self-control to argue, I do as I’m told. On the way, my mind races, trying to account for the time between leaving the captain’s cabin and the moment I sifted the pouch of faerie dust out from underneath the bed.
By the time I reach the deck, Charlie isn’t far behind me. She comes ambling up next to me, pouch in hand, the loose hairs framing her face whipping around in the night’s cool breeze. It’s the type of cold that should feel invigorating. I just feel exposed.
She beckons me to follow her to a section of the deck railing out of sight from the night’s crew. Then she hands me the pouch. “Go on, then.”
I blink, peering over the railing down at the foaming black waves. The rocking of the ship is making me nauseous, or perhaps it’s simply the compilation of the last few days’ events.
The pouch grows heavy in my hand. My mind races, thumbing through my options for any possible scenario that would play out with me successfully getting the faerie dust back to our cabin. But Charlie is staring at me intently, and I’m not talented enough at sleight-of-hand to switch the pouch out with something else.
Charlie sighs, though it’s more patient than not. “I’ll do it for you if that’s what you need. But it would be best if you did it.”
Peter had wanted me to have this, but there’s no way of explaining that to Charlie. No way to tell her about my attempt to take my own life because of the wraiths, not without betraying Peter visited me.
I could throw Charlie overboard.
The waves are angry tonight, crates sliding across the deck every few minutes. The wind is howling. It’s unlikely anyone would hear it happen. And Charlie wouldn’t be expecting it. It’s doubtful I could overpower her otherwise, but aided by the element of surprise…
“Wendy?”
Shame and realization wash over me in equal measure. I shove the murderous thoughts back down, horrified they even popped into my mind.
“Right,” I say, hands shaking as I hold the pouch over the railing. I will my fingers to let go. Such a simple motion, but they seem locked in place. Like the faerie dust itself holds the key and has no intention of sharing.
“It’s the only thing that helps,” I whisper, not really intending for Charlie to hear.
“I know,” she says. “But we’ll find you other things. I promise.”
I let go.
The next day, Maddox informs me that he’s been assigned to teach me to defend myself.