A sailor brushed by them. “Hey, Crow, who have you got there?”
Charlotte reached out above Richard’s shoulder and gently caressed the man’s weathered face. Her magic rose from her in narrow dark streams, like the tentacles of an octopus, and bit into him. He barely noticed. His skin fractured under her fingertips, sloughing off in tiny white scales of epithelium glistening with magic, and the breeze carried them on, down to the rest of the crew. The man stared at her, seemingly mesmerized but really just dying very quickly. The skin of his face turned to powder, as if he’d dipped his head into a bucket of silvery flour.
Her magic wrapped around him, draining his reserves, and withdrew. The wind stirred the powder that used to be the top layers of his skin, blowing it off. The tiny particles caught on his eyelashes. He sighed and crumpled down softly.
Richard turned, still shielding her, to look over his shoulder. The sailors began to fall one by one, silent, soft, each releasing a cloud of scaly powder as they sank unmoving to the deck.
They were bad people who deserved their deaths, yet she felt a crushing sadness at their passing all the same. She buried it away, deep inside, wrapping it in the layers of her anger and resolve. There would be time for self-pity later.
Richard had the strangest expression on his face. Not quite shock, not quite panic, but an odd mix of awe and astonishment, as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.
At the far end of the ship, Jason Parris turned, his eyes wide, as the sailors around him folded like deflated balloons. The dog raised his muzzle to the moon and howled, his lonely cry floating above the waves like a mourning wail.
Above them something thumped quietly. A man tumbled from the upper deck, his face ashen with powder. Richard lunged at him, trying to catch the body to keep it from making a loud thud. But a gust of wind beat him to it—four feet from the deck the body broke into a cloud of particles. They slid harmlessly from Richard’s skin and melted into the breeze.
He turned to her. “What is it?”
“White leprosy,” she said. It was a terrible disease. She had fought it before, she knew all its little habits and quirks, and she had twisted them with her magic just enough to turn it into her silent assassin. He would think twice about letting her touch him now. Something inside her contracted at that thought.
“Jack,” Richard said, his voice low. “Tell them the ship is ours.”
“He can’t hear you,” she told him.
“Jack has good ears,” Richard reminded her.
Sure enough, Jason’s crew poured out of the cargo hold and spread across the deck, people taking up positions where the sailors once stood. People kicked the fallen bodies overboard. The corpses broke in the wind.
Someone gasped. She saw panic in some faces.
“Tell Silver Death thank you for the pretty ship,” Jason said to them. “And stop gaping. We still need to bring this baby to port.”
There was no escape. Death was now a part of her name.
George and Jack emerged from the crowd.
“I need you to guard your father,” Richard said. “There are things he knows that we need. If you can’t help yourself, tell me now.”
“I’ll do it,” George said. “Jack will need a few moments to vent.”
“I’m counting on you, George. This is your only second chance. If I come back and he’s dead, you and I are done. Do not harm your father.”
The boy reached behind his neck and pulled a long, slender blade from inside his clothes. “Understood. I’ll keep him in perfect health.”
Richard rapped his hands on the door of the cabin.
“What is it?” Drayton called.
“There’s a problem,” Richard replied in his normal voice.
The door swung open, revealing Drayton with a rifle in his hands. He saw Jason’s people and jerked the gun up.
Magic pulsed from George, dark and potent. A woman charged out of the crowd and grabbed the gun. Charlotte saw her face and nearly gagged. Lynda, her slit throat a red ribbon across her neck, her face still splattered with the spray of her own blood.
Drayton yanked the gun, but she hung on, blocking the barrels with her stomach. The slaver captain pulled the trigger. The muffled shot popped, like a dry firecracker, blowing small chunks of flesh from Lynda’s back. The undead woman jerked the rifle out of Drayton’s hand and broke it in half like a toothpick.
Drayton stumbled back.
Lynda dropped the broken rifle at George’s feet. “Maaaster,” she whispered, her voice a sibilant mess. Her neck leaked tiny droplets of blood. She stared at George in complete adoration, like a loyal hound gazed at her owner. “I love you, master.”
Behind her, Jack snarled like some nightmarish monster.
George’s face showed no mercy. “Hello, Father.” He took a step forward, pushing the bigger man into the cabin. “Let’s visit.”
Lynda ducked in after him. The door swung shut.
Oh, George . . .
“To the bow,” Richard said, resting his fingers lightly on her arm.
She followed him to the front of the ship and came to stand by one of the control consoles, all bronze and copper gears encased in glass and enveloped by magic.
Her magic sang within her, the monster satiated but not fully satisfied. The more she fed it, the more sustenance it wanted. It wound and curled around her in dark currents, almost as if it were an entity of its own, and it loved her, like a loyal pet, existing to serve her and bring her comfort. All those endless hours of cautionary lectures she’d heard within the walls of the College were right. Destruction was seductive and self-rewarding, while healing was an arduous chore.
She had taken a chance this time. Instead of siphoning off their lives to fuel her magic, she simply killed them, feeding the disease with her own power. Stealing other lives to feed her magic had felt too good. If she tasted it again, there was a chance she wouldn’t stop, and she didn’t want to risk it. Strangely, even though she had relied only on her own reserves, she didn’t feel that drained. Killing was easier than the last time—and the next time it would be easier still. She was on a slippery slope. She had to fight to keep from sliding down.
One of Jason’s men came to stand by them, saw Charlotte still wrapped in magic, and halted in midstep, maintaining his distance. He looked at her, looked at the console, shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably . . .
“Would you like me to move?” she asked.
“Yes,” he exhaled.
Charlotte took two steps to the right, away from the console and toward two other men near Jason, both looking like they crushed skulls for their living. The cutthroats shied from her, backing up. Jason held his ground, but his face locked into a hard, impersonal mask. He was deeply afraid and determined not to show it.
She felt utterly alone. So that’s what it was like to be a pariah.
“My lady.” Richard’s fingers touched her arm.
She almost jumped.
He offered her his arm. “May I?”
Charlotte rested her fingers on his forearm and stood next to him, painfully aware that their legs were almost touching and the streams of her magic wound about him. She dared to glance at him. His face was relaxed. He looked back at her and smiled, as if they had stopped during a stroll in a park to admire some flowers. It made her feel human.
Why, why didn’t she take Éléonore up on the invitation to visit her family? Had she met Richard a year ago, things might have been so different. He was the kind of man she had always wanted to meet. Strong, honorable, and kind. He is also a killer, an annoying voice whispered in her mind. Well, so was she.
Too late now. They were on a ship sailing to deliver death. Romantic fantasies would get her nowhere. She’d given up that luxury.
Charlotte looked straight ahead. A large island loomed in the distance. Two ports hugged its coast. On the right, handsome piers of cut stone thrust into the ocean, flanked by graceful yachts and private boats. Picturesque palms spread their fanned leaves and wide roads, lit with blue and yellow lanterns, ran deeper inland, toward pastel-colored houses in shades of turquoise, white, yellow, and pink. To the left, rougher piers offered refuge to tugboats and barges, leading to a seedy boardwalk and hostile, dark streets. Farther to the left, a naval fort of gray stone stabbed the ocean, overseeing both ports.