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  *

  “Uh-oh,” Orin mumbled, just as the Peggy’s Pride rounded the breakwater and the first swells of the trade winds took her on the port quarter. “What’s gotten into the little bugger now?”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Ben stood beside him, his eyes searching the rigging for the elusive little seasprite.

  “There’s something wrong with Mouse. I don’t know, but he’s stopped flying about. He’s sitting on the main-tops’l yard just looking around. It’s almost like he hears something.”

  The two men looked at one another, and sudden worry passed between them. Both looked over the taffrail toward the estate that dominated the hill to the east of Southaven. There, barely discernible in the distance, several figures trundled down the expansive lawn toward the low wall that girded the estate. One, a small one in white, dodged and evaded the others, then broke for the wall.

  “Oh no!” Orin said, looking back up at the rigging. Mouse stood rapt, his eyes locked onto the distant spectacle. “He’s onto something. I think that’s Cyn up there, and it looks like the maids are chasing her around the yard. Knowing my Cynny, she’s screaming her lungs out. If he hears her…”

  “I think you’re right, Orin. Look.” Ben pointed. Mouse had snatched a rigging knife from a sailor’s belt. It wasn’t much bigger than a butter knife, but it was a lot sharper. The faerie flew twice around the quarterdeck and set out for the distant cliffs and the Garrison estate.

  “Damn!” Orin swore, cracking his fist down on the taffrail. He watched every hope of keeping Mouse out of his mother-in-law’s way vanish into the distance.

  *

  “Cynthia, you come down from there this instant!” Julia screamed, brandishing the broom and taking another step closer.

  “NO!” Cynthia shrieked, stomping her feet on the top of the three-foot wall that surrounded the estate. “I won’t!”

  The girl was in no real danger from a fall; if she fell forward, the maids would catch her, and if she fell backward, she would land in foot-deep scrub grass as soft as any featherbed. But that didn’t dissuade her from stomping and kicking and screaming every time one of the ladies tried to grab her. Her face shone red as a beet and her hair rivaled any dandelion in the realm, but her voice was her real weapon and it rose to screeching heights that threatened deafness to anyone who dared approach.

  Julia had just about had enough.

  “This is the result of a house with too little discipline,” she explained more to herself than the three puffing maids. She withdrew a small pen-knife from a pocket and handed it to the nearest of her charges. “Lori, cut me a switch. It’s just about time someone laid down the law in this household.”

  “Yes’m,” the maid said, taking the tiny knife with wide eyes, clearly in shock that the mistress intended to meter out punishment without Lady Peggy present. But she answered to Mistress Garrison, and turned to cut a switch.

  She didn’t make three steps before Mouse flew in to the rescue. His little rigging knife flashed, and in a blink he’d cut the maid’s apron strings and pulled the garment up and over her head.

  “Mouse!” Cynthia squealed in sudden delight. “You came back!”

  The little sprite landed on the befuddled maid’s head, danced a little jig, sketched a bow and darted off just as Julia’s broom came crashing down. The maid screamed at the blow, though she was not really hurt.

  Now Mouse had his true enemy in his sights, and he darted in for the kill.

  In a flash of gossamer-crystal wings and steel, two of Julia’s pearl buttons were snipped off. The broom swung, but he flew like a flash of greased quicksilver, streaking in for another slash and two more buttons. A peal of high-pitched laughter followed him as he circled her head and hacked a third of the bristles from her broom in one lightning pass.

  “Hold still, you little insect!” she raged, swinging the broom in a broad arc, to no avail.

  Mouse snipped three more buttons before she could even swing back again. He laughed and lunged, carved a quick “M” into the broom’s handle and darted away before she could even gasp.

  “Yay, Mouse!” little Cynthia cheered, dancing out of reach of the maids again and laughing. The spoiled little monster was enjoying this even more than her inane little games.

  Julia’s corset risked rupture with every breath she drew and every button that flew, but now she knew she could not hope to hit the little sprite. She wasn’t fast enough. But she was smarter than any sprite, or she would sell her good name and all her worldly possessions to any pauper for a penny!

  She swung again, gasping as she missed, and the sprite darted in. Another pair of buttons fell free, and the strain proved too much for the bedraggled bodice. The remaining buttons popped free in a ripping volley not unlike a full broadside of catapults fired from a man-o-war. Julia fell to her hands and knees, gasping and crying out. Her maids were at her side instantly as the sprite cheered in its screeching little voice and flew to Cynthia.

  “Wait,” she told her maids, glaring them to silence as she gathered her legs under her skirts. “Just wait.”

  The sprite circled Cynthia once, dropped the knife and joined hands with the little girl for a spinning cheer.

  “Now!” The maids pulled her up, broom in her hands and her corset flapping in the breeze. As the child and faerie spun in a laughing, dancing circle of merriment, Julia timed her swing perfectly.

  Broom met sprite with a sound like a crystal goblet striking stone.

  Mouse flew in a flat trajectory, trailing glittering bits of fractured wing fragments. The low stone wall stopped his flight short and he fell, leaving more bits of gossamer-crystal stuck to the stucco.

  “NO!” Cynthia screeched, her voice rivaling that of any sprite. “You killed him!” She started to dash to the fallen sprite, but the two maids grabbed her arms, holding her fast between them. “I hate you! I hate you!”

  “Now, Cynthia…” Julia’s diatribe on the necessity of her attack fell short, however, as thunder boomed from far out to sea. No storm darkened the horizon and no lightning flashed, but the thunder continued to rumble.

  “Odea!” one of the maids murmured, aghast.

  “Nonsense!” Julia hefted her broom and turned back to the fallen sprite, but Mouse had managed to stand and now fluttered unsteadily into the air. He didn’t fly straight, and he didn’t fly fast, but he flew. He flew over the wall and vanished into the shrubbery. “Now, where did that little insect go?”

  Thunder ripped again, this time closer, and still the sky shone clear.

  “Perhaps we’d best move inside until this strange weather passes,” Julia suggested.

  The maids needed no encouragement. They took little Cynthia back to the house as peal after peal of thunder sounded from a clear sky and a teary eyed sprite sat in a shrub and nursed his broken wings. Mouse was crying, but he wasn’t crying for himself, or even for his shattered wings; he was crying for poor Cynthia.

  Orin Flaxal was right; there was a storm on the way.

  Chapter One

  Moonlight Memories

  Cynthia’s hands clenched the low stone wall as the moonlight on the sea gripped her heart like a siren song. The silvery orb that was her namesake glowed three quarters full. It had invaded her study and cast its spell on her as effectively as any wizard’s love potion, calling her to the sea.

  The sea…

  It was in her blood; as her mother’s sandy hair and her father’s sea-blue eyes had been passed down, so had their love of the sea. The sea had taken much from her in the years since she played sharks and mermaids in the mud puddles of her back yard, but it had never relaxed its hold upon her soul.

  She closed her eyes and could almost feel the long, gentle swells lifting her, could almost taste the salt spray. Oh, to have the winds push her effortlessly out to sea, to watch the land sink and finally fade away until nothing surrounded her but the waves. She gripped the stone harder as the fantasy filled her, but the sweet dream shattered with a
wavering call on the wind.

  “Cynthia. Cyn-thia!”

  She cringed at her grandmother’s call. She should not have been out this late, and the month-end accounts were past due, but the columns of numbers, balances, debits and credits had no power against call of the sea. She looked over her shoulder at the house and smiled thinly, knowing she was safe out here. Grammy never left the house after dusk.

  The Garrison home was more of an estate than a simple house. Coconut palms and frangipani lined the wide drive, and bougainvillea colored the trellises on either side of the pillared foyer. The great stone turret commanded a view for leagues, and had been Cynthia’s favorite place to look out over the sea until her grandmother had discovered it, forcing her out onto the grounds.

  “The old place isn’t what it used to be, Grandpa,” she said to nobody, unless the spirit of the old sea dog still haunted the home he’d built. Memories of those days rose unbidden: climbing the ancient banyan tree, jumping from the low branches into her grandfather’s gnarled hands. Yes, it had been a home then. Cynthia had been the beginning of the third generation of seafarers to dwell here, with the hopes of many more on the watery horizon. Now all those hopes were as dead as the stone under her hands.

  “Odea’s toll,” she muttered, remembering the tales the maids told her as a child, the curse that had been levied upon the Garrison family. She honestly didn’t believe in curses, but the fact remained that the sea had taken away her parents and her grandfather. And still, she loved it beyond all else.

  “You’re a harsh mistress, Odea.”

  Despite the losses, Cynthia grew up well enough. She had never lacked pretty dresses, always slept in a warm bed and received a proper education from private tutors. Julia Garrison spared no expense to ensure that she was raised in a wholesome and healthy environment, and for a few years after the loss of her parents, that structured existence had been comforting.

  But the song of the sea would not be ignored, and as the girl became a young woman she began to hear that song more clearly. The moon called her up to the tower at night to watch its beams dance on the waves, and the sun woke her at dawn when the ships slipped out of Southaven on the ebbing tide. Then one day she asked her grandmother if she could go down to the docks to see the ships come and go.

  “The docks? Why ever would you want to see that dirty, smelly place, Cynthia? That is no environment for a young lady! Sailors are nothing but a lot of irresponsible drunkards! You’re best off if you concentrate on your studies.”

  “Cyn-thia…”

  Resentment swelled at the memory and her grandmother’s relentless call. She whirled away from it, pressing her palms to her ears, banishing the voice that had kept her prisoner in her own childhood ignorance. With no influence but her grandmother, Cynthia had tried to live her life as she was told, learning to read and write and dress properly as well as mastering the ciphers and ledgers and account books, all boring as stale bread.

  The moon emerged from a concealing cloud, casting its light onto the harbor below and the cluster of stately craft swaying at anchor. The sight banished her anger. She dropped her hands and cocked an ear, smiling as she thought she heard distant music of revelers in the local pubs.

  “Not tonight,” she admonished herself, as the desire to steal down to the docks tugged at her. She’d done it a thousand times since her discovery that she could disobey with little repercussion. Her first rebellion had been ridiculously trivial, refusing to attend her lessons, but her grandmother had simply talked softly to her, pleading with her never to do it again, a far cry from the harsh disciplinarian of Cynthia’s childhood. The loss of her daughter had changed Julia Garrison; she viewed the world as a threat, and wanted only to protect her single remaining relative. Cynthia, on the other hand, viewed the world as a forbidden adventure.

  Southaven quickly became her childhood playground.

  She would steal down to the docks, the shipyards, the wharves and even the taverns that lined the waterfront, sneaking around and learning every foul word, ill manner and habit of every sailor she could meet. By fifteen she was a holy terror, and could spit, swear and drink as well as any sailor on the wharf. She showed up at home at dreadful hours, sometimes drunk, and never endured anything more than a stern lecture from her grandmother. Cynthia thought it was all a wonderful game, and would simply sneak out again at the next opportunity.

  The full arrival of womanhood tempered her impetuous nature, but had not quenched her love of the sea, nor her desire to steal away aboard one of the stately craft that slid effortlessly out into the limitless blue of Odea’s domain. Now, at twenty-two years of age, she watched those ships and sighed, for that was the one adventure she had never managed to achieve: going to sea. That was where the sailors’ indulgence of her antics had ended. They put up with her tomfoolery on land, but they had never allowed her aboard their vessels, despite—or perhaps because of—who she was. At times like this, with the moonlight on the water glittering in her eyes, that unrealized dream broke her heart.

  A patch of blackness moved around the headland to the west, and Cynthia’s thoughts shifted from her spiraling self-pity. One hand wiped at her tears while the other fumbled in the pocket of her dress for the bronze spyglass that had been her mother’s. Her gaze never left the ship as she extended the instrument and brought it up to her eye. She smiled at the thought of the daring captain bringing his ship in under moonlight, a dangerous practice even in tonight’s calm breezes. She twisted the scope and the distant vessel came into focus.

  Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the galleon’s mangled rig. The foremast was a stark pole, the yards gone and the forestays and bowsprit missing save for an improvised spar lashed to the foredeck. The mainmast sported only about half the canvas it normally would, probably in an effort to balance the sails. She could see men dumping buckets over the side at regular intervals. The ship had obviously fallen prey to the greatest threat in the Southern Ocean.

  “Pirates!” she said between clenched teeth, climbing atop the low wall for a better view. “The bastards!”

  Memories of a thousand stories of the pirates of the Shattered Isles surged through her mind. Those stories had been her only education about what had really happened that day her parents had fallen in a welter of blood and seawater before her eyes, for she had no clear recollection of it. Only in her nightmares did those images surface. Even to this day, visions of blood-red sails, and a deep-throated laugh plagued her sleep. Her hands clenched the telescope until the view shook in her eye.

  “Cyn-thia!” came her grandmother’s urgent call, snapping her attention.

  She looked back at the house and judged this far too important for her grandmother to spoil. She pocketed the telescope and hopped down from the wall, drawing up her skirts and striking out at a jog for the gate. She could make the docks well before the ship if she ran part of the way, and the last thing she wanted was to miss a single word of what the sailors had to say about the pirates.

  Chapter Two

  Tall Tales

  “Kathlan!” Cynthia yelled, elbowing her way to the head of the quay. “Kath! Over here!”

  The call jerked the sailor’s gaze up like a marionette. He raised a hand and let it drop to his side. Cynthia saw the bandage on his forearm and the bloodstain on his shirt, and felt guilty for what she was about to do to the poor, tired sailor.

  “Heya, Cyn, you seen us come ‘round the point, huh?” He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. If the ship leaked badly, the off watches would bail to keep her from foundering. They clasped hands briefly and lightly as his exhaustion warranted.

  “Looks like one of the slimy bastards got a piece of ya,” she said with a wry grin, touching the bloody bandage of his forearm. “You must be gettin’ old and slow since they made you third mate.”

  “Second mate now, Cyn,” he said grimly, turning around to watch as three canvas-shrouded bundles were carried down the gangplank. “Forsee took a burnin
’ tops’l yard alongside her skull tryin’ to get aloft to cut the flamin’ canvas free.”

  “Those filthy bastards,” she hissed. She wanted his first-hand account before a tavern full of drunken sailors amplified the facts threefold, but did not want to push him too hard. “Come on now and we’ll get that arm looked at by a physicker and get some hot food into you. Was it that whore-spawn Bloodwind that did this?”

  “Naw, and I couldn’t be happier that it weren’t!” Kathlan made a quick sign of devotion to Odea and nodded back to the ship. “If the scourge o’ the Shattered Isles had been at the helm of that corsair, the Latharnia wouldn’t be still floatin’, to be sure. It’s plain luck we got away, and if that bastard had’a known his arse from his rudder post, he’d a had us sure and simple.”

  “Well, come along then and tell me how you got away. I told Brulo I’d bring you by.” She jingled her purse as much to emphasize the fact that she was offering to pay as to add credence to her claim: “I had a good night playing Five Card Mango.”

  “Well, I really should stay close to the Latharnia, in case the captain wants me...”

  “Oh, you can’t fill a sail with that, Kath!” Cynthia laughed and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder, ushering him through the crowd toward her favorite inn. “Besides, Brulo’ll send his lad to tell your captain where you are if you like. I told him to set up a private room for us so the crowd won’t bother you. You can have a bath and a pot of ale while I get dinner. I’ll even pay an extra crown for that fair lass Marcia to help you scrub!”

  “Well, now that’s enough to make a man want to bathe on a right regular basis!” he laughed, quickening his suddenly less-tired steps toward the Galloping Starfish Inn.

  Cynthia hurried to keep up, and began to wonder if Kathlan’s injury and exhaustion were as severe as they appeared, and if she were not the one really being taken for a sap. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to get a reputation as a meal ticket.