Page 18 of Shiver Me Satyr

“Not to me—”

“Because you lured them to the railing with your dairy, love,” Teeth interrupts. “They had weekly services where a bald sailor with no metals and a cleft through his lip said grace. They also prayed between day and night watch, but those things aren’t out of the ordinary.”

“It’s not like I can dress up as some phantom atop a ghost ship anyway,” I reply with a sigh. “Ever since the governor wrote about Sam Black taking theWidahwith such a stunt, the sailors aren’t scared of ghosts.”

“No, this must be something unique to them,” Hybris says, rubbing his chin. “We can’t just copy Magda’s ideas because the sailors didn’t have the writings on pirates back then. The pamphlets they circulated when Magda was captain were to scare the colonists so they wouldn’t trade with or befriend pirates. That backfired. Now, the pamphlets are designed to discredit the stories that helped to elevate us into legends.”

Many dangers lurk in the deep, like schools of sharks or… “What if they weren’t afraid of us? I mean…what if we rescued them from something truly terrifying?”

“What could be more terrifying than Magda?” Chub asks with a twinkle in his eye.

“Teeth, do you think you could tip that boat over? Not enough to capsize it, but enough to scare them?” His tentacles ripple with excitement at my proposal.

“He might not be able to alone,” Sabrina interjects. “But together, we can give them the ride of their lives.”

“The crew won’t be happy; they’re spoiling for a fight. And won’t the birdbrains suspect we’re flying under the black when we arrive with our floorboards discarded for cannons?”

“Well, put the floor back,” comments Sabrina with a hair flick.

“No, we can’t, and it’s all my fault—”

“Blasted puddinghead set the kitchen ablaze, baking hardtack in fancy dress!” Chub elbows Teeth as he rubs in Hybris’s mistake. I wish the two would settle down. Hybris was about to take responsibility for something other than some woman’s orgasms. He could have shown real growth, but instead, the immature nutmegs at my feet made fun of it.

“Our main deck planks now reside in the kitchen,” I explain with a tired wave. “Whether we’re pirooting or sailing straight, we don’t have enough floorboards.”

“If you attack at night, they won’t see the missing floorboards until you’re too close to use the cannons,” Teeth says. “They will count their lucky stars you didn’t fire on them. If anything, the missing floor will make you seem kinder—”

“Or dumber,” Chub says with a chuckle. “You’ve got a point. I’ll have the crew secure the cannons and shot to the middle of the boat, so one doesn’t roll forward and accidentally open the cannon doors.”

“Maybe lay them sideways so they aren’t on wheels either,” Hybris adds.

“So that’s the plan?” Sabrina says to Betts. “Tomorrow night, Teeth and I will rock their boat and reveal our kraken nature.Patricia’s Wishwill sail along broadside and—”

“Steal her planks for floorboards when they try to build a bridge between the two boats?” Teeth and Chub roll with laughter once again. I don’t know which nutmeg blurted out the comment to make Hybris blush. This time, Sabrina shares my eye-roll.

“Yes, we will also tie lines to her as if we’re her savior,” I add.

“That’s one role I know you can play,” Sabrina says with a bittersweet smile.

10

Hybris/Flint

“Flint, go to your bunk and stay there,” Chub lectures me. “Betts may have entertained your crashing her meeting with her family, but I won’t put up with that level of disrespect. Stealing, lying, and disrespecting the captain would put any matey off the plank—”

“If we had any planks to spare,” I grouse with an eye roll because I’ve had it with mydisrespectingBetts. She’s in an elected position, not appointed by the King or ordained by God.

“I hope you learn how much further you will go in life when you think before you speak…if you live beyond tonight. We must band together as brothers and sisters, trusting one another to guard our backs. We don’t kill to save ourselves but to save our hearties and the boat we call home. So there’s no room for scoundrels,” he says, pushing me by my lower back toward the galley stairs like I was a maiden in need of her fainting couch.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, stepping down the top step to appease him.

Thankfully, the windbag runs out of air and turns toward a crash in the cannon galley. Other than the thin joists holding the two halves of the boat together, it’s an empty cavern from the sterncastle deck to the forecastle deck. The tops of people’s heads move in the cannon galley below like ants marching on apantry floor. They swing the cannons forty-five degrees, so they face the bow instead of the little doors on the sides of the boat. The doors are locked, so it seems like overkill to me. I don’t know how the cannons would undo the mechanism…maybe the fear is that they will burst through. When a second crash reverberates from below, Chub disappears as he jumps into the hole.

“Good riddance, killjoy,” I mutter, changing my path. Instead of climbing down to the galley, I take the steps upward to the sterncastle deck.

Betts rests one elbow on the wheel spokes as she faces the port side. She taps a silent rhythm, betraying her anxiety. With her spyglass trained on the prize, I can’t read her face. Her hair blows around as if it has a life of its own. She’s a wild creature, no matter how prim and proper she forces herself to be. Tresses tease the opening of her blouse that reaches her waistband. A sword hangs from the leather belt slung around her hips, as well as a cat-o'-nine tail. The weapons tap her thighs in the same rhythm as her fingers.

“I could help you release the tension before the battle, you know.”

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