To The Sky
Chapter thirty-eight
Wren walked up the stairs of the quarterdeck, eying Finn’s hat with amusement.
“I cannot believe you’re still wearing that.” She laughed.
He grinned and braced his hands on the railing.
“Whyever not? I am fond of hats.”
“I have only ever seen you wear a top hat, and that is reserved for balls,” Wren said as she came to stand next to him.
They looked out onto the main deck together. Lucianna stood near Cora, who was holding up the smoke pouch and explaining how to best use it. Castien was not far off, listening with intention.
“She likes it,” he replied with a smirk. Finn didn’t have to say who he meant.
Wren laughed again.
“She thinks you stole it. Or rather, tricked it out of poor Kelwin’s hands.”
Finn shrugged. “Doesn’t change what I know.”
“I won’t indulge your ego by confirming, nor bruise it by denying,” Wren teased.
They were quiet for a moment. Finn gazed at his wife, who had now brandished one of her blades and was inspecting it as Cora continued to blabber.
She slid it back into her scabbard belt, next to his dagger that she stole.
He smirked. Pirates’ rules, indeed. He planned to take full advantage of those words.
“She is suspicious of all of us,” Wren said quietly.
Finn snorted softly.
“Of course she is. Her father trained her to be a thief and a spy. I don’t doubt he instilled a lack of trust into her very marrow.”
“It will be difficult for us to work together if she does not feel she can trust at least one of us. Ideally, you, but . . .”
Finn’s brows furrowed. “What are you trying to say?” He turned to look at his friend. Her blonde hair was windswept and her pink dress wrinkled. She stayed looking ahead and did not meet Finn’s searching gaze.
“Do you think we can trust her?” she asked him instead of answering.
He thought back to their shared moment in the crow’s nest. The secrets they traded.
The way she had looked at him, not with pity, but a kind of deep understanding that made him feel both the safest he’d ever been and the most vulnerable.
It could have simply been a result of the circumstances.
He had been exhausted from the adrenaline of anxiety, and seeing Lucianna surrounded by glimmering starlight had muddied his senses.
But Finn thought there was something deeper between them, whatever it was worth when tossed in the murky waters of their marriage.
“Yes,” he said quietly, and turned back ahead. Lucianna glanced up and caught him staring. She ducked her head. A faint smile tipped his lips. “I do.”
“Then I could tell her—about my Gift, I mean. She already suspects something after this morning. Perhaps she would trust me if I bestowed upon her a secret of great magnitude.”
Wren kept her true Gift hidden from everyone except those in the royal family.
She wouldn’t have told anyone beyond Castien and Finn, but it aided in the emperor’s approval of her and Castien’s marriage.
Though now that she had shared the secret, she voiced more than once it was freeing to have a home where she didn’t have to hide it.
Finn recognized that in boarding a ship of strangers, she had gone back in time to when she did.
Though he hated that Wren was confined to secrecy, he did not want to lie to her.
“I don’t know if that would make her trust you or simply feel she has enough leverage to use in the event of your betrayal.
Something . . . happened to her, I think.
It will take time for her to feel at home with us.
I know that is not helpful in regard to Cas’s plan, but—” He shrugged.
“I think that is the truth of it. She needs time.”
“I can understand that,” Wren said. And he knew she could, on many levels. Wren had been deeply wounded in her past. Finn did not know all the details, but he had enough to surmise that once Lucianna did trust Wren, they would be great friends. Sisters, even, the way Marina had so boldly professed.
“Come down, you two!” Castien called up. “Everything is prepared.”
Finn turned and winked at a smiling Wren.
“Let the games begin.”
They made their way onto the deck, and Finn sidled up to his wife, who was already giving him that unamused glower he had come to know well.
“All right,” Castien said, raising his voice. “We will be split into two teams. Men, and women, namely.”
“What about Kelwin and Kaiden?” Wren inquired.
Everyone glanced over at the two men who were working across the ship. Kelwin was watching the captain with rapt attention, as though Kaiden was performing a grand trick instead of tying a knot.
“I will go ask them,” Wren said, and Castien nodded his approval.
Finn took this delay to participate in his new favorite activity: teasing his wife.
“Shall we bargain?” he asked with a smirk. “Whoever wins can ask a question. The other has to answer it truthfully, no matter what the topic is.”
Curiosity mingled with hesitancy in Lucianna’s hazel gaze.
“I don’t make deals without knowing the full scope of the agreement. State your question, so I know what the stakes are.”
Finn chuckled at her counter.
“That is decidedly less fun, but fine, I suppose I would ask . . .” He lowered his voice. “Have you, at any point since our meeting, wanted to kiss me?”
Her cheeks turned pink even as her eyes flashed with indignant anger.
“I would rather walk into the Tides than kiss you,” she whispered harshly.
He grinned at her.
“Ah, but maybe that wasn’t the case when you first saw me? Or on our wedding day?” he prodded. Her blush deepened a shade. “There was quite the pause between the first and second squeeze of your hand.”
She continued to glare at him.
“Fine, I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m winning.”
Wren returned, with Kelwin and—much to Finn’s surprise—Kaiden.
“They agreed to play!” Wren cheered.
Kaiden scowled over his beard.
“You said it was training,” he groused.
“Training often looks like a game, no?” Wren replied with a sparkling smile.
Castien chuckled at his wife’s mischief.
“Wren is correct. Though this may feel like a game, it is important to pay attention to the effects of the smoke and how it impacts your vision,” Castien instructed. “Now, as for teams, Kelwin will be with Wren, Lucianna, and Cora. Kaiden with us.”
“I’m playing?” Cora squeaked. “You know I don’t wield weapons; I create them.”
“There will be no weapons used. The way to win will be for one team to get to the other side of the ship without getting caught by the other. At most, you will be grappled,” Castien replied.
Cora’s eyes went wide, but not as wide as Petals, whose eyes seemed to triple behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. Finn stifled a chuckle and bent down to his wife’s ear.
“What is your question, little thief?”
She crossed her arms and did not turn to meet his gaze. A smirk played on her soft pink lips.
“I think I will hold onto mine until after I win. It’s decidedly more fun that way,” she retorted.
Finn grinned. “That it is.”
“Our team will make a line in the center of the ship. The rest of you will stand near the captain’s quarters. Cora will drop the smoke pouch, and from that point forward you will have until the count of thirty to advance without us moving. After that, the game begins in earnest,” Castien explained.
The two groups separated into their respective areas. Finn kept close watch on his wife. Though their bargain was simply for one to win, Finn knew she would accept nothing less than his hands capturing her as a loss.
“When you’re ready!” Castien shouted from his spot next to Finn.
Cora slammed the pouch on the ground. Thick gray smoke billowed from the spot.
Finn’s gaze did not waver, and his dedication was rewarded—for he caught his wife’s gaze spring upward right before the smoke swallowed her.
A devious smirk curled his lips. He listened to Castien’s count with unfettered anticipation.
Once it was over, Finn navigated the shadows to the nearest rope.
Then he took to the sky.