Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Cali stepped closer to the hellkin. The circles under his eyes were deep, and the bruises she now noticed all over him came in at least three distinct shades. There were old yellow ones at his jaw, greening ones along his forearm, and a fresh purple one on his forehead.
Bonnie pulled a stool from beneath the worktable and sat on it with one foot on a rung and the other leg stretched long. “Start from the beginning.”
“I wasn’t trying to cause trouble,” he insisted.
“You climbed up the side of my ship,” Bonnie said with a chilling smile. “I watched you.”
“I tried to get on board without anyone raising an alarm.” He had the decency to look uncomfortable about it. “I knew if I walked up, you’d raise the alarm.”
“Correct,” Seraphina hissed.
“Why come to this ship?” Bonnie asked. “Any other ship could give you passage back.”
“I have no coin,” the hellkin said, “but I thought you’d trade with me. It’s Marina you want, anyway. She was the one who decided to take that possessed boat.”
Bonnie made a sound in the back of her throat. Cali glanced at her and caught the corner of her mouth pulled tight in the effort of keeping it still. So, the rumors they’d heard of Jolli tormenting her captors weren’t exaggerated.
“Codswallop and dragon dung,” Thrain muttered. “Boats can’t be cursed.”
The hellkin leaned forward as far as the rope allowed.
“It’s cursed, I tell you. Whatever Marina thought she was taking when she stole that thing, she was wrong.
We couldn’t steer it. Every time we thought we had a direction, it’d go sideways on us.
It spun us in endless circles. The oars kept moving on their own.
And when any of us tried to take them, they’d—”
“Whack you?” Marvella offered with a glint in her grin.
The hellkin nodded. “Marina was furious. She kept trying to take the oars herself, and they kept fighting her, and she had no powers left to do anything about it, so that made it worse.” He blew out a breath.
“We were stranded in the middle of the sea for so long that I lost track of the time. And then the mermaids found us.”
This, Cali noted, tracked exactly with what Arabella had told them.
“What happened with the mermaids?” Bonnie asked.
The hellkin cringed. “Marina tried to bargain with their princess. She said she’d bring the princess a new love better and truer than the last.”
Bonnie rubbed her hands down the front of her trousers. “The princess didn’t take that well, did she?”
“She nearly put us all in the water.” He rolled one shoulder, as if shaking off the memory. “Instead, she guided us toward the rocks at Claw Island. The channel through them.” He was quiet for a moment. “I think she was hoping we’d wreck.”
“But you didn’t,” Bonnie said.
“No, though it might have been better if we had. Because the sirens were waiting at the other end.” He stared at the floor. “They took one of my mates. He’d been with Marina for years.” A muscle moved in his cheek. “The sirens went for him, and Marina didn’t try to save him.”
Cali had a hard time summoning sympathy considering what the hellkin crew had done in Wayside, but she also knew what it was like to trust the wrong person. Bonnie must not have felt bad for the hellkin either, because she made an impatient motion with her hand for him to get on with the telling.
He licked his lips. “When we finally reached Claw Island, the boat refused to go near the docks no matter how hard we rowed. It finally steered us into a deserted cove. Marina was furious. The boat’s too far to carry the cargo she planned to steal, so she sent me to hire muscle while she guarded the boat in case it floated away.
“He straightened in the chair, and the apron string tightened across his chest. “But I decided I was done.”
Bonnie had been quiet for a moment, but she slid to the edge of the stool. “Then you know the location of my boat?”
He met her eyes. “I do.”
“And you’ll lead us to it.” It wasn’t a question.
“If you get me off this island and back to the Known Lands, I’ll take you straight to it—and her.”
Bonnie held his gaze for a few beats. Then she dipped her head. “You lead us to the boat, and I’ll guarantee you safe passage back.”
Some of the tension went out of his shoulders all at once, and he sagged forward as much as the bindings allowed.
Bonnie stood up from the stool and glanced at Seraphina. “Get him above deck. Have Gert find out where the cove is and what we should expect.” She moved toward the door. “Then we can retrieve Jolli.”
The nagine was already gliding toward the prisoner as Cali followed Bonnie out of the kitchen and down the corridor. She waited until they were in the captain’s quarters with the door shut before she said anything.
“You’re letting him sail back with us?” She kept her voice even, but she didn’t keep the judgment out of it entirely. “He snuck on board. He was happy to crew with Marina until it became too dangerous for him. And now he gets safe passage home?”
Bonnie sat at the edge of her desk and folded her arms across her chest. But she didn’t look upset. She looked amused.
“I said I’d guarantee him safe passage back to the Known Lands,” she said.
“I didn’t say he’d be getting it on this ship.
” She paused, letting that settle. “Once he leads us to Jolli, I’m going to have a word with Captain Bawdry.
He captains the Black Diamond. Rougher crew than mine.
Less forgiving. He’s always looking for deckhands, and he doesn’t much care how they came to him.
” She grinned. “The hellkin will have to work to pay off his passage back, and it’ll be back-breaking, blistering work. ”
Cali’s jaw dropped, and Bonnie laughed at her surprise. “It won’t be pleasant, but it’ll be passage. I won’t have broken my word.”
Cali liked the sound of that.