Page 73 of A Curse of Salt

‘Give us a minute,’ he said, jerking his chin at Mors. My uncle glanced at me, questioning.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, waving him off reassuringly.

Mors turned slowly and headed towards Golde, saying something to her in a low voice. I watched them go, before dragging my gaze reluctantly back to Sebastien.

He waited until I did, eyebrow quirked slightly. The dark growth along his jaw was getting longer and I itched to run my fingers through it, to feel the coarse hair beneath my palms.

I glanced away. ‘How’re you feeling?’ I asked.

He stepped closer, still watching me with the same expression, halfway between grave and bemused. ‘Better now. I see Mors finally told you the truth.’

I bristled. So he’d known. Of course he had. There were no secrets in this place, only between the crew and me. ‘No thanks to you,’ I muttered. You could’ve told me.

‘Aren’t you happy?’

‘Of course I am,’ I sighed. ‘In this sea of strangers, I found a part of my family, yet—’

‘Strangers,’ Sebastien echoed. ‘Is that what we are to you?’

He fell back a step and I cursed my body for arching with him, mourning the space between us. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Two and a half months ago, that was exactly what we’d been. Strangers. Yet there I stood, all logic stifled beneath an ocean of shadows. Mors, my uncle. Una, my friend. Aron – less of a stranger than anyone I’d ever met. They were pirates, yes, their lives steeped in blood and chaos, but also loyalty, love, joy . . .

Before I could say anything more, something cold and hard struck my shoulder. I yelped and spun around to see Aron duck behind a stack of barrels. I cursed, stifling a laugh as I bent down to scoop icy slush into my hands and launch it in his direction.

Sebastien shook his head in exasperation, but Mors was quick to my side, sending a lump of snow hurtling straight for Aron’s stomach. Only then did Una swing down from the rigging, pelting snow over our heads.

I squealed, my cries turning into laughter as our battle continued, stretching on until sunset gleamed against the verglas, turning the deck gold. The crew’s spirits only heightened as the moon emerged and we tumbled inside, shaking snow from our hair and tracking wet footprints through the halls.

Una pulled me into a chair by the hearth in the dining room, insisting she needed to do something about my hair.

‘Ye look far too much like a princess still,’ she said, skilled fingers working quickly to weave small braids into my curls. The crew gathered around the table behind us, far enough away that their conversation became indistinguishable from the crackling flames.

‘So,’ she began, her fingers twining through my hair in a steady rhythm. A single word and my skin already singed with embarrassment. ‘Sebastien . . . ?’

‘It’s nothing,’ I muttered, knowing full well she wouldn’t let me leave it at that.

Una’s fingers stilled in my hair. ‘Told ye – I’ve lived here almost a decade and the man’s never once shown his face to the crew,’ she said. ‘It ain’t nothin’, lass. Not to me.’

I bit my lip.

You scare me, too, blackbird. He’d said that – that he was afraid of me. I shook my head. ‘I mean it. You know who he is, what he’s like.’

Una tied off the braid she was working on with a length of string and perched on the arm of the chair, her citrus and wood smell filling my nostrils. ‘Nothin’ good’s ever easy,’ she said, nudging my shoulder.

Good? What good could come from a place like this? From a man like him? I wrapped my arms around myself with a shrug. ‘He’s a monster,’ I whispered, my last defence in a battle I’d stumbled into unarmed.

‘A monster he migh’ be,’ she said, a wicked gleam in her gaze. ‘But he’s a man in the ways that count, if ye know what I—’

‘I know what you mean,’ I snapped, cheeks flaming. ‘But haven’t you seen his eyes? You can’t explain away a darkness like that.’

‘The colour don’t mean nothin’, lass,’ Una insisted. ‘It’s what ye see in ’em that matters.’

I threw a glance behind me, catching Sebastien’s gaze for a moment, those glittering depths spearing through me like iron. My mind filled with visions of him, of his lips, his hands, his voice.

I looked away. ‘It can’t – I can’t.’

Una’s brows inched slowly higher. ‘Ye’re a bad liar, even to yerself.’

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