TANGLED, genya safin

chapter seven.

"Ah," Alina said, cheeks turning pink. Faster than I could blink, she pulled two knives from her sleeve. "This comes in handy, too," she said.

"However do you choose?" Alina breathed faintly. "Depends on my mood." Then she flipped the knives over in her hand and offered them to Alina and me. "Sturmhond's given orders that you two are to be left alone, but do know how to take care of yourselves."

Alina and I nodded. I didn't walk around with thirty knives hidden about my person, but I wasn't completely incompetent. She dunked her head again, then said. "They're throwing dice above deck, and I'm ready for my ration. You can come if you like."

Alina and I glanced at each other. I didn't care much for gambling or rum, but I was still tempted. My whole body was crackling with the feeling of using my power against the Nichevo'ya. I was restless and positively famished for the first time in weeks, and evidently, Alina felt the same way.

But I shook my head and said, "No Thanks." Tamar shrugged her shoulders, "Suit yourself. I have debts to collect. Privyet wagered we wouldn't be coming back. I swear he looked like a mourner at a funeral when we came over that rail."

"He bet you'd be killed?" I said, aghast. She laughed. "I don't blame him. To go up against the Darkling and his Grisha? Everyone knew it was suicide. The crew ended up drawing straws to see who got stuck with the honor."

"And you and your brother are just unlucky?" I asked. "Us?" Tamar paused in the doorway. Her hair was damp, and the lamplight glinted off her Heartrender's grin. "We didn't draw anything," she said as she stepped through the door. "We volunteered."

❂♕

Alina didn't have a chance to talk to Mal alone until late that night. We'd been invited to dine with Sturmhond in his quarters, and it had been a strange supper. The meal was served by the steward, and a servant of impeccable manners, who was several years older than anyone else on this ship.

We ate better than we had in weeks: fresh bread, roasted haddock, pickled radishes, and sweet iced wine that set our heads spinning after just a few sips. My appetite was fierce, as it always was after I'd used my power, but Mal and Alina ate little and said less until Sturmhond mentioned the shipment of arms he was bringing back to Ravka.

Mal then seemed to perk up and they spent the rest of that meal talking about guns, grenades, and exciting ways to make things explode. Alina and I couldn't seem to pay attention. As they yammered on about the repeating rifles used on the Zemeni frontier, all I could think about were the scales in my pocket and what I intended to do with them.

Did I dare claim a powerful amplifier for myself? I had taken the sea whip's life— that meant its power belonged to me. But if the scales functioned like Morozova's antlers, why had it been given to me? Why not to someone more useful like Alina?

I could give the scales to one of Sturmhond's Heartrenders, maybe even Tolya, to try to take control of him the way the Darkling had once taken control of Alina. I might be able to force the privateer to sail us back to Novyi Zem. But I had to admit that wasn't what I wanted.

I took another sip of wine. I needed to talk to Alina. To distract myself, I cataloged the trappings of Sturmhond's cabin. Everything was gleaming wood and polished brass. The desk was littered with charts, the pieces of a dismembered sextant, and strange drawings of what looked like the hinged wing of a mechanical bird. The table glittered with Kerch porcelain and crystal.