Page 37 of Freeing Hook

Tink blinks at me like this is her first time meeting an idiot. I suddenly feel a heightened awareness of my own stupidity. This woman’s presence takes a flame to the folds of my brain and melts them like wax.

“Right. You understand Estellian; you just never learned the characters.”

Tink purses her lips and raises her eyebrows as if to say,And the idiot’s finally got it.

“Do you think I could teach you?” I know the question is worded the wrong way as soon as it leaves my mouth, but it’s not as if I can take it back.

Tink’s expression goes blank. That’s fair.

I tug at my collar. “Let me reword that. Would you allow me to teach you?”

Tink cocks her brow.

I groan, then try again. “Would you allow me the honor of teaching you?” I almost add,most fair lady, but decide that’s a bit much.

Tink shrugs, then starts picking at her jagged nails.

It’s not a no.

CHAPTER 14

WENDY

The night we leave Morella, I’m woken to a crash as a cannonball goes barreling through the wall of our cabin, missing my head by a hair. It lodges itself into the opposite wall, its shiny black facade taunting me in the low faerie lamp light, reminding me just where my head might have been pinned.

Panic pounds in my chest. I jump from my bed, mirroring Charlie, who already has a saber in hand and a blade strapped to the thigh of her leathers. “Stay here,” she tells me in the most commanding voice I’ve heard her use.

“Stay here?” I ask, exasperated. One would think almost having your head taken off in the middle of the night would deem a space unsafe, but Charlie just gives me a look that says that if I leave this room, I’ll have more than a cannonball to be concerned about. She rushes out of the room, and I lock the door behind her.

From above, I hear shouting. The whirr of cannonballs. The crash of wood and the clank of swords. Screams and gurgles infiltrate the more elemental sounds, and each one of them brings me back to the night of the masquerade. To the moment the captain I thought would rescue me orchestrated a massacre.

I shouldn’t be shocked that his ship is now under attack. I imagine Captain Astor has made some enemies in his day.

Even though I’m worthless when it comes to fighting and am not sure I’d want to be fighting on Astor’s side anyway, I need to do something. I get dressed, shedding my sleep shirt for a tunic and a pair of trousers.

There. At least when I’m brutally murdered, my body will be clothed. Less mortifying that way.

I work my bottom lip between my teeth, pacing the room as I listen for hints of who’s winning up above. Of course, the sounds are no use in uncovering the truth and only serve to perpetuate worst-case scenarios in my mind. I worry for Charlie, though this can’t be the first time she’s encountered an attack like this in her line of work. Still, I don’t like the idea of anything happening to her.

Maybe that’s why I’m relieved when I hear the click of a key against the lock of our door.

“Charlie, what’s going o—”

It’s not Charlie. In steps Ascor, the man they call Teeth on board because his name is too similar to the captain’s. He has a master key ring he’s clipping back to his belt. Even from across the room, his breath reeks, filling my nostrils and making me want to gag. Only decorum has me holding in my bile when he grins at me, thin, blistered lips giving way to a set of blackened teeth.

My instincts might be a tad dulled, but they’re not completely dysfunctional. Unease settles in my stomach, dread creeping up in the waving of rising hair on my forearms, the back of my neck.

Be what he wants, then run, I tell myself, already settling onto the balls of my feet.

“Mister Ascor,” I say, my tone sweet. Compliant. It’s much easier to slide back into this persona than it should be. Perhaps because it’s not so much false as it is natural for me. “I’m terriblyfrightened. What…what’s going on up there? Please, I don’t want to die.” Ironic, given what I’d attempted the night I met my own wraith, but Teeth doesn’t know about that.

“No, missus. Don’t worry your pretty little head about that.” Teeth offers me a wink. “You wouldn’t be as pretty dead.”

My stomach churns, and I instinctively take a step back. Surely this man hasn’t snuck down into my rooms in the middle of a skirmish, abandoning his post just because he knew I’d be alone.

Surely.

But Teeth takes another step forward, his beady eyes full of a hungry greed I’ve witnessed before.

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