Chapter 16 A Seat at the Captain’s Table
By midday the next day the sun turned vicious.
Morning’s cool salt air burned off until the sky looked bleached white and the deck baked under it. Heat climbed up through the planks into my bare feet. Tar softened in the seams. The whole ship smelled like salt and pitch and sweat.
The wind died.
Not faded. Dropped. One moment the sails snapped and breathed, the next they sagged heavy and limp like lungs that had forgotten how to work.
The Ghost kept moving anyway, gliding forward on her own stubborn momentum. Slow. Patient. Like she knew the sea well enough not to hurry.
I kept working.
Tar stuck to my palms. Sweat crawled down my spine. My hair curled damp against my neck until it felt like someone had tied a rope there.
I was halfway up the port ladder with a coil of line over my shoulder when the sound reached me.
Boots.
Not the heavy thump of Bram or the lazy drag some of the crew favored. These were sharp. Even. Each step landing exactly where it meant to.
I glanced up through the glare.
Talon stepped out of the navigation room.
He moved across the deck like he’d been cut out of shadow and dropped into daylight by mistake. Lean angles. Black hair dark as tar. His beard trimmed close enough to show the sharp line of his jaw.
His eyes caught the light. Pale. Almost colorless. Even with the sun blazing overhead he looked like he belonged somewhere dim and quiet.
I wiped my hands on my skirt and fell into step beside him.
Someone had to start the conversation, and I was done waiting for the world to make the first move.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
My voice came out casual enough, I hoped. “Feels like we’ve been running east all morning.” Talon didn’t even glance at me. One hand rested lightly on the rail while his eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.
“Captain’s orders,” he said.
“That it?”
“We don’t question them.”
I huffed a laugh.
“You don’t strike me as the blindly loyal type.”
That finally got a reaction. His mouth twitched, but there wasn’t anything friendly about it.
“You don’t know me.”
“Not yet,” I said.
I kept my tone light, though the heat and the silence were starting to grind under my skin.
“We’re sharing a ship for two weeks. Its almost been one. Figured I’d start learning.”
He stopped so suddenly I nearly walked straight into him.
Talon turned.
Those pale eyes landed on me and stayed there.
Something in his expression shifted. Not anger. Not amusement.
Something closer to pity.
“The captain collects strays,” he said quietly.
The word sat ugly in the air. “Finds them in trouble. Drags them aboard. Teaches them a few tricks so they think they belong.”
His gaze flicked over me once, quick and sharp.
“They never last.”
My spine stiffened.
“I’m not a stray.”
A short laugh escaped him.
“You’re not a sailor either.”
The words hit harder than I expected. Maybe because they were true. Maybe because they sounded exactly like something my mother would have said when I came home with another impossible plan. I lifted my chin.
“Then teach me.”
That made him pause. For the first time he looked at me like he was trying to decide whether I was joking.
“You’re the one hiding in the navigation room all the time,” I said. “Show me how you do it.”
The silence stretched long enough that the creak of the rigging filled the space between us.
I waited.
Talon shook his head once under his breath, muttered something I didn’t catch, and turned away.
A moment later he disappeared up toward the quarterdeck. I stood there longer than I meant to, my heart thumping harder than the conversation deserved. Then I grabbed my bucket and went looking for shade.
—
The galley felt ten degrees cooler. Dark beams cut the sunlight down to narrow gold stripes across the floor. The air smelled like boiling roots and hot fish fat.
Silas Marroway stood at the prep table.
His cleaver rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
He didn’t look up when I stepped inside. I grabbed a bowl and a knife from the counter and started peeling onions. The skins slipped under my thumbs. My hands worked automatically, muscle memory taking over.
Silas kept chopping.
He hummed under his breath. Some rough little tune that didn’t quite hold together. When I finished the onions I slid the bowl across the table.
He finally glanced up.
Then down at the bowl.
His mouth twitched.
“Didn’t think you’d last a day,” he said.
The cleaver lifted again.
“Figured you’d be over the rail by sunrise.”
I shrugged.
“I’m stubborn.”
He grunted like that answered everything. A pile of carrots landed in front of me. I picked one up and started cutting. The rhythm settled in again. Chop. Slide. Chop. Slide. For a while the only sounds were knives and the quiet simmer of something bubbling on the stove.
Then the galley door burst open. Reed nearly tripped over a sack of potatoes on his way inside.
“Hey!”
His cheeks were flushed and his eyes looked ready to jump out of his skull.
Silas paused mid-chop.
“What?”
Reed pointed straight at me, grinning like he’d just discovered buried treasure. His excitement and pure joy always amused me.
“The captain wants you.”
The cleaver stopped in midair. Silas looked at me. Then at Reed.
“What for?”
Reed’s grin widened.
“Dinner.”
The word hung there.
Silas’s eyes slid back to mine.
For the first time since I’d met him, something like concern flickered across his face. I wiped my hands slowly on a rag. My fingers suddenly felt clumsy as I tried to smooth the sweat from my hair.
Dinner.
With the captain.
My stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. I stepped out of the galley and headed down the corridor.
Boots thudded somewhere overhead. Voices drifted through the beams. A few crewmen watched me pass.
No one said a word.
But I could feel the weight of their attention.
Curiosity.
Maybe a few quiet wagers. I kept walking. When I reached the captain’s door I stopped. As much as time has passed on this ship, we hadn’t any alone time together. I slept in the chair that was by the bed. I never saw or heard Fisk come or go once I went in for the night.
The ring at my throat had slipped free of my shirt again. It rested warm against my skin, the metal almost hot from the day’s heat. Outside the hull the ocean murmured and shifted. Hungry as ever. I lifted my hand.
And knocked.