But he loped over and started battling the pirates side by side with Lyra. The two creatures quickly worked their way over to Reiko, who was once again fighting her own enemies.
I focused on Davies again. “Now, where were we?”
The captain brandished his cutlass. I braced myself for another attack . . . but he whirled around, ran across the deck, and sprinted down the gangplank.
My mouth gaped in surprise, but I hurried over to the railing and glanced down below. Davies was using his mutt speed to its full advantage, and he was rapidly leaving The Drowned Man behind—
A man strode out from behind one of the wooden crates stacked up along the riverfront. He stepped right into Davies’s path, causing the captain to pull up short to keep from crashing into him.
This man was a year or two older than me, thirty or so, with tan skin; sharp, angular cheekbones; and a straight nose. His longish wavy hair gleamed like polished onyx, while his eyes were a deep, dark amethyst that was the same color as Lyra’s feathers. He was wearing a long black riding coat over a black tunic, leggings, and boots, and the layers of fabric perfectly outlined his tall, muscular body. Black gloves covered his hands, and the cool, steady breeze pushed his black cloak back and forth like a hungry greywolf snapping around his legs. A light gray tearstone sword and a dagger dangled from his black leather belt, but he didn’t reach for the blades. Even without a weapon in his hand, this man was still extremely dangerous.
“Who the fuck are you?” Davies asked.
Instead of answering the question, Prince Leonidas Luther Andor Morricone looked up at me.
Dead or alive? he asked, his low, husky voice curling through my mind and sending a shiver down my spine.
Alive, please. The captain might know more than he thinks.
A grin stretched across Leonidas’s face, softening his angular features. As my lady wishes.
“Get out of my way,” Davies snarled. “Or I’ll gut you like a fish.”
Leonidas’s warm, teasing grin vanished. His face settled back into its usual cold, blank mask, and he gave the captain a bored look, as though Davies’s threat was no more worrisome than the winter wind tangling his hair.
“Fine,” Davies snarled again. “Have it your way.”
The captain raised his cutlass and rushed forward. Leonidas waited until the last possible second before calmly, smoothly spinning out of the way. Davies couldn’t stop his reckless charge, and he crashed into one of the wooden crates and bounced off like an oversize ball. The captain growled, whirled back around, and charged again.
Leonidas watched him come with the same bored expression as before. Once again, at the last second, right before Davies would have skewered him, Leonidas lifted his hand and curled his fingers into a tight fist.
Davies stopped in his tracks.
The captain growled again and tried to move. His biceps bulged, and the muscles in his neck stood out like taut ropes, but Leonidas flexed his fingers, then curled them into an even tighter fist. Despite all his growling and straining, Davies remained frozen in place, like a statue that had been perched along the riverfront.
Leonidas was a mind magier just like I was, and he could do many of the same things I could with his power, including moving objects with his mind—or holding them in place, in the captain’s case.
Every person, creature, and object had its own energy, an invisible layer of power that surrounded it just as surely as Leonidas’s black cloak covered his body. As mind magiers, we could both tap into that energy and bend it to our will.
I’d always thought of my power as invisible strings radiating out from my fingertips and connecting to everyone and everything around me, as though I were a puppeteer moving dolls and scenery around a stage. All I had to do was push and pull, and grasp and release those strings, and I could do almost anything I wanted, from making a flagstone fly up out of the ground, to tearing the top off one of the wooden crates, to holding Davies in place, like Leonidas was doing right now.
Even up here on the ship, I could feel the prince’s power and how smoothly and effortlessly he was manipulating the strings of energy surrounding Davies. In some ways, Leonidas was much stronger in his mind magier magic than I was in mine. He could always completely control his power, whereas I still struggled to wrangle mine. Sometimes, that mercurial storm of magic deep inside me did exactly what I wanted it to. Other times, the power squirted out of my grasp and either drowned me in memories or overwhelmed me with other people’s thoughts and feelings, leaving me paralyzed and useless.
Are you sure you want him alive? Leonidas’s voice sounded in my mind again. I’m happy to toss him into the river and drown him like the rat he is.
That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?
His eyes glittered like dark amethysts. Not when it comes to you, Gemma. I would tear that whole ship apart and drown every man on board if that’s what it took to keep you safe.
Another shiver swept down my spine. Well, for now, let’s keep the captain alive. He can’t answer questions if he’s dead.
Leonidas tipped his head. As my lady wishes.
He flicked his fingers, and Davies sailed through the air and smashed into a nearby crate hard enough to splinter the thick wood. The captain dropped to the ground, unconscious.
A couple of low moans caught my ear, and I glanced over my shoulder. Reiko, Grimley, and Lyra had killed most of the pirates, and the ones who were still alive were too injured to threaten us anymore.
“Well, that was fun.” Reiko stepped over a whimpering pirate with a nasty gash across his chest and walked over to me. “Just the thing to work up an appetite for those apple-cinnamon scones waiting for me back at Glitnir.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “You’ll get your scones, but we still have work to do here.”
Reiko saluted me with her bloody sword.
I turned to Grimley and Lyra. “Stand guard, and make sure none of the pirates try to escape.”
Grimley and Lyra both nodded. The gargoyle hopped up onto the railing, perched there like an oversize cat, and started licking the blood off his talons, while Lyra flapped her wings, shot up, and landed on top of the main mast.
“Let’s search the ship,” I said. “Davies might have been lying when he said Milo hadn’t approached him about booking passage down the river.”
Reiko grinned and swept her sword out wide. “After you, princess.”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t stop an answering grin from spreading across my face. “Come along then, spy.”
* * *
Reiko and I went down the steps into the lower part of the ship. Sunlight streamed in through the round windows, illuminating a long hallway that ran the length of the vessel, with several rooms and corridors branching off it. In the largest room, dozens of hammocks were strung up like gray spiderwebs swooping from one wooden post to the next, while shelves had been built into the walls, stretching from the floor up to the low ceiling. Metal buckets were also lashed to the bottom of the posts, and the sour stench of urine filled the air, despite the lids that topped each container.
“Not the most luxurious accommodations for the pirates and their passengers,” Reiko said. “No matter how desperate they might be to flee from Andvari and Morta, I can’t imagine Milo or Wexel willingly enduring these conditions for days on end.”