CHAPTER 44: [44] TANGLED

"I—" she started, then stopped, her voice barely above a whisper.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Pierre’s head turned toward the sound, and he saw Raven leaning against the mainmast with one eyebrow arched and an expression of profound, almost pitying amusement on her face. She looked like a parent who’d walked in on two children playing dress-up and making a spectacular mess of the costume box.

"Bravo," Raven said, pushing off from the mast. "Truly spectacular. I’ve seen jesters with less natural timing."

She approached, her walk an unhurried saunter. A slow, knowing smirk played on her lips, and her blue eyes drank in their ridiculous, tangled predicament.

"Now, if you’re quite finished with your... whatever that was," Raven continued, "perhaps we could focus on not sinking the ship?"

Pierre’s arms dropped away from Alyssa like he’d been burned, and she stepped backward quickly, putting distance between them while trying to look anywhere except at his face. The rope, still connecting them in several places, created an awkward web that neither of them seemed to know how to escape.

Raven sighed as she walked over and began untangling them, her fingers working through the knots and loops they’d created with embarrassing ease.

"Lift your arm," she instructed Pierre, and he obeyed without thinking. "Duck," she told Alyssa, who bent forward as Raven pulled a loop over her head.

In less than ten seconds, they were free, and Raven held the rope in her hands, already beginning to coil it into a perfect, tight circle.

She finished the coil and set it on the deck between them, then looked up at Pierre and Alyssa with an expression that managed to be both patient and deeply unimpressed.

"Here’s the new rule," Raven declared. "Neither of you touches a rope, a sail, a cleat, or anything else that keeps this ship floating and moving without my express permission. Are we clear?"

Pierre opened his mouth to protest, then caught sight of the perfectly coiled rope at his feet and thought better of it. Beside him, Alyssa had gone quiet, her earlier bravado shattered.

Pierre gave a short, sharp nod, his mouth a tight line. Beside him, Alyssa stared at the deck planks, her silence a confession of her own.

"Excellent." Raven turned and walked back toward the helm.

She left them standing on the deck in a cloud of shared humiliation, the morning sun beating down on their red faces like a spotlight on their incompetence. Pierre could feel the weight of his captain’s authority crumbling around his feet like sand, while beside him, Alyssa studied the deck planks with the kind of intensity usually reserved for ancient texts.

Well. That went well.

The silence stretched between them, filled with the sound of wind in the rigging and the distant cries of seabirds.

"So," he said finally, because someone had to break the quiet. "That was..."

"Humiliating," Alyssa finished, her voice flat. She still refused to meet his eyes. "That’s the word."

"I was going to say educational."

That earned him a glance, quick and sharp. "Educational how?"

"Well, now I know that neither of us has any business touching anything important on this ship."

Alyssa was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice had lost some of its edge. "I’ve never actually been on a real ship before. The Sparrow was always docked when I visited her."

Pierre looked at her, surprised by the admission. "Never?"

"Father didn’t believe in taking me on actual voyages. Said it was too dangerous for a lady." She laughed. "Turns out he was right, just not for the reasons he thought."

"Hey, at least you tried. That counts for something."

"Does it?" The defiant tilt of her chin was gone, her shoulders were slumped just so, and the usual cold fire in her pale green eyes had been banked, leaving behind only the dull, uncertain embers of a girl completely adrift.

"I can’t cook, I can’t sail, I can’t fight... What exactly am I good for?"

"You’re good at being brave." He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Hell, he barely believed it himself.

Alyssa blinked, clearly not expecting that response. "I’m not brave. I’m terrified."

"Being brave doesn’t mean not being scared. It means being scared and doing what’s right anyway."

She studied his face for a long moment, those pale green eyes searching for something he wasn’t sure he could provide. The light caught in her hair, and for a disorienting second, he was back in the tangle of ropes, the memory of her weight against his chest so vivid it was like a physical blow. The way she’d fit against him...

Don’t go there. That way lies madness and complications.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "For catching me. And for... what you said."

"Don’t mention it."

From the helm came the sound of Raven adjusting something, a reminder that they weren’t alone on this ship and that their navigator was probably listening to every word. Pierre glanced over and saw her standing with her back to them, but her back was ramrod straight, a stillness that spoke of someone listening with every fiber of their being.

"We should probably get out of her way," he said. "Let the professional do her job."

Alyssa nodded, but she didn’t move immediately. Instead, she looked down at the perfectly coiled rope, then back at him.

"Pierre?"

"Yeah?"

"When we get to Orellia... what happens then?"

It was a good question, one he’d been avoiding thinking about too carefully. The truth was, he had no idea what came after they sold the map and divided the money. His original plan—such as it was—had been to find a way to the Crimson Belt and figure out why OneAboveAll had sent him here. But that felt distant and abstract compared to the very real people standing on this deck with him.

"I don’t know," he admitted. "I guess we’ll figure it out when we get there."

"Together?"

"Maybe," he said. "If that’s what everyone wants."

Alyssa smiled, small and tentative but genuine. "I’d like that."

Well, shit. This just got complicated.