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"Or around it"

Joss lowered the spyglass to give hi abovedecks, anyhow?"

"The cry went up for all hands"

"You’re not a hand You’re a passenger"

"I ood hands, and if I sit on theo mad"

Joss stared at Gray’s open collar, where his cravat should have been knotted "She’s really getting to you, isn’t she?"

"You have no idea," Gray nored his brother’s s tone "Damn it, Joss, just put me to work Send e … I don’t care, just giveto do"

Joss raised his eyebrows "If you insist" He lifted the spyglass to his eye and began scanning the horizon again "Batten the hatches, then"

Gray tossed a word of thanks over his shoulder as he descended to the quarterdeck and went to work, dragging the tarpaulins over the skylights and securing therewhis efforts He saved the vent above the ladies’ cabin for last, resisting the urge to peer down through the grate Instead, he first secured one end, then blanketed the entire skylight with one strong snap on the canvas

"Ahoy! Ahoy!" Wiggins leaned forward over the prow, hailing the approaching ship, its puffed scudding sails a stark contrast against the darkening sky

Gray aping black hole and groping for the handle to draw the hatch closed Soht was battened, the cabin went instantly black Sophia felt the sudden, suffocating darkness, even though her eyes were claainst the?

She stood up on shaky legs, s her bodice in the dark Fu in the darkness, she felt her way toward the cabin door and opened it A square of light pierced the darkness overhead--the companionway hatch

She moved toward the stairs and placed a foot on the bottorab hold of the ladder’s edge, however, her hand

An are hand closed over her wrist His voice His hand

She nearly wept anew He was still there In some absurd, maudlin spike of self-pity, she’d prepared herself to never see hi?" he deh the hatch "Get back in your cabin"

Oh, but of course he was still there His , she told herself sternly It wasn’t as though he’d anythe ship If he had, he surely would have taken it

Even so, she hadn’t the courage to let hi herself up the stairs even as the ladder pitched and rolled beneath her "What’s happening?" The salty breeze whipped loose strands of hair across her face, and she used her free hand to tuck theripped his ar" Deep lines etched his face His own hair clung to his brow in thick, wet locks "You need to re the hair froht her chin in his hand and stared down at her face For a breathless ht wrong

"Look" He swiveled her head toward the ship’s bow

"Oh" The hipped the sound from her lips as quickly as she uttered it Before thereenish-black clouds If Sophia hadn’t suffered through enough geography lessons to know better, she would have thought they’d sailed to the very end of the earth and were about to tu void

He turned her face back to his The threat in his eyes was no less murderous than that of the sky She’d never seen hio below And stay there"

"Are you co with me?"

His lips thinned "No"

"Ahoy!"

Shouts drew their attention to starboard, where a tall ship backed itsthrough the spray, she could barely make out the ship’s name painted on its side: the Kestrel

The wind accelerated, screa overhead The ocean’s surface erupted in a thousand white-edged crests, like a seateeth

"Get below!" Gray steered her back toward the hatch

Then the sky cracked open in a flash of white, just as thunder quaked the deck beneath their feet For a terrifying, endless ht, no sound, only the pungent scent of sulfur and weightless shock

With a swift yank on her wrist, Gray twirled her into his chest, wrapping his ar her down to the deck Sophia cowered between the wooden planks beneath her and the hu her Protecting her She took asure they were all still there Yes, there were her legs, curled aardly into her belly One arm was pinned beneath her; with her other hand she still clutched his sleeve She slid her tre to feel his pulse pound against the crook of her thuainst her ribs Muffled noises reached her ears-- But the only sounds that Sophia cared about were these twin rhythht pressing her to the deck eased, and she felt herself lifted to her feet

"Can you stand?"

She nodded, locking her knees as she rested her back against his chest

"Was …" Her throat worked "Was that lightning? Did it strike the ship?"