Igot a taste of what their ship really looked like as Gus and Finn hoisted me up the ladder and dragged me across it. It seemed as though my cell had been located on the deck near the center, surrounded by piles of rope and stacks of crate and barrels. When I glanced back, I realized my cell wasn’t even a cell meant to contain prisoners. It was a place to hold goods because three ship hands immediately began tossing the gear and items back inside it.

But there was a message in their actions. They had no intentions of putting me back in there. I truly was going to die at the hands of ruthless pirates. A cold sweat broke out all over my body and pooled in unsightly places. Days of being in the cell had taken a toll, my hair and skin smelled as bad as it looked. Not that any of it mattered.

We stopped in front of the large door of the ship’s stern, wooden and hand-carved with intricate details of vines and strange symbols. If any movie or TV show taught me anything, this is where the captain’s quarters usually were. Finn banged on the door and waited. My heart thumped hard against the inside of my chest and then squeezed tight when a voice bellowed from the other side, telling us to enter.

Gus opened the door and Finn grabbed the knot that held my hands together, pushing me inside. The space was surprisingly large and far too tidy for a pirate. A massive desk with wooden claw feet anchored the room, its surface covered in scrolls, maps, and strange metals objects.

A bed could be seen off to the right and nestled in a nook, red velvet curtains hung down and were pinned off to the side. Book filled shelves towered above our heads, almost as tall as the large stern windows that lined the back of the room. My eyes then landed on a figure standing in the sunlight streaming in, facing the sea. Captain Devil Eyed Barrett, in the flesh.

“Captain,” Finn addressed, “We brought her, as requested.”

The figure, still with his back to us, replied, “Very well. Leave us.” The deep, raspy sound of his voice raised every hair on my body. They’d brought me to the devil’s den.

The two men turned to leave but I panicked. “Please!” I cried, “Don’t leave me here. You can’t do this! I don’t deserve to die!”

They exchanged a glance and then burst into a fit of laughter before leaving me, closing the door behind them. I stood there, staring at the door, frozen stiff, my body refusing to do anything. My back was to the room and I could hear Devil Eyes’ clunky boots walking toward me. Try as I might, my lungs wouldn’t inflate enough to take a deep breath and my chest moved with short, tiny breaths. A hand touched my ratty hair and gently pulled some of it back before running fingers down the sleeve of my jacket.

“Are you scared?” he asked with the smallest hint of a British accent.

Of course I was scared, and I was betting he knew it. But now was the time to establish where I stood.

“No,” I answered, my chin held high. “Should I be?”

The captain let out a hoarse, guttural laugh and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The sound of his footsteps retreating gave me the courage to turn around and I found him leaning over his desk.

He was tall, much taller than Finn, even. An all-black leather ensemble dressed him from head to toe, the only contrast was his long, white-blonde hair that tied back at the nape of his neck, under the captain’s hat. Finally, he revealed his face as he peered up at me from the desk, and I understood why he was named Devil Eyes. His gaze pierced through me like two black holes, threatening to suck me into oblivion.

“That depends,” he replied.

“On?”

I watched as the captain picked up a metal device, no doubt used for reading maps, examined it between his fingers and then pointed it at me. “What you did with the bottle.”

Crap. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

He tossed the item back down on his desk and glared at me. “You’re lying. Strike one.” He then unsheathed a dagger from his side and examined the tip. “Where is the ship in the bottle?”

That’s really what he wanted? Out of everything in that chest, he wanted the darn trinket? “I don’t–I can’t tell you. I don’t have it.”

He circled the desk and sauntered toward me, the dagger swinging between his fingers. “What would you say if I told you your life depended on it?”

I narrowed my eyes at him while my hands strained to wiggled free of the rope ties. “You’d seriously kill someone over a stupid toy?”

He closed the distance between us, leaving nothing more than breathing room, and held the dagger’s tip to my throat. Those black eyes just inches from my face. “I assure you, it is far more than a mere toy.”

I swallowed hard, the simple movement caused my skin to brush against the sharp tip of his blade. The pungent smell of tobacco and wine assaulted my nose. “Well, perhaps if you untied me, we could sit like civilized adults and discuss it. I can’t think straight when I’m bound and threatened at knifepoint.”

Devil Eyes let the blade slide down my throat, scraping the skin as it did. He never took his eyes off mine and I could see then that they weren’t truly black. They were just such a dark brown that, with the pupils, appeared to be big and black. He leaned in even closer and reached around me, his face nearly touching mine, and my heart beat wildly for fear of my life.

But I was surprised when the captain grabbed my wrists and spun me around. The sound of his dagger slicing through the ropes and the relief of my hands being freed was refreshing and I turned to face him again, rubbing my wrists to help the circulation come back.

The captain began walking over to a small table with two chairs that sat under the stern’s window. “Come,” he ordered, and I scrambled over, “Sit down, then. And you can tell me all about where you hid The Burning Ghost.”

Wasn’t that Maria’s ship? I tried to swallow again, but I was just way too dehydrated.

“Here,” he added with a heavy eye roll and scooped up a metal pitcher.

Devil Eyes poured me a glass of what looked like red wine and I sat down across from him to drink it. I was right, it was wine, and it burned my salt dried throat. But I didn’t care. It was wet.

“The Burning Ghost?” I repeated, eyeing at the tray of fresh bread and dates over the rim of my cup.

He sighed impatiently and pushed the tray toward me. “Yes, the ship.”

I shoved two dates in my mouth and lobbed off a chunk of bread. It actually wasn’t that fresh, but it was heavenly compared to the cardboard they’d been feeding me the past three days.

Between chewing, I replied, “Why would someone want to make a model of such a horrible boat?”

My question caused a surprise on his face that caught me off-guard.

“You think it a horrid vessel?”

I shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mean, Maria was a monster, wasn’t she?” His lack of response gave me the opportunity to keep going. I had to gain his trust somehow if I wanted to stay alive. “Unless you’re still working with her? Then I would understand if I’ve offended you with that comment.”

His eyes widened in horror. “How do you–”

“Listen,” I cut to the chase, “I don’t know what you think of me, but I bet it isn’t good. What, with me showing up wearing this jacket, her chest clutched in my arms. But I promise you, it’s all a coincidence. I only found it, I swear. I put the jacket on, I looked at the stuff inside. I never meant to break the bottle, but I did, so–”

He shot up from his chair as if I’d electrocuted him or something. “What did you say?”

“That it’s a coincidence–”

He grabbed his dagger again and spiked it into the table just inches from my hand. “No, about the damn bottle,” he demanded, furious.

“I-I broke it,” I told him. “I’m sorry! If it was of any value I’ll… pay you back?”

He removed his hat and tossed it on the desk, then began pacing nervously. “You stupid woman!” he yelled at me. “How could you be so careless? You’ve no idea what you have done!”

“I’m sorry, it was an accident,” I pleaded, “how was I supposed to know it belonged to someone?”

The captain stopped and looked at me, a realization falling over his vulnerable expression. “Yes, you’re correct, you had no idea. Nobody knows…” he spoke, seemingly to himself and stared off into the distance.

I don’t know why I felt sorry for this man, this person who was just as much a monster as Maria, according to Henry’s journal. But I did. He looked absolutely distraught over the breaking of the bottle. Maybe it was a memento from his days with Maria? Maybe she gave it to him as a gift or he was supposed to keep it safe or something? I wondered then if they’d been romantically involved. Obviously, Eric never cared what she did.

“I’m really sorry for breaking your ship in a bottle,” I approached him slowly, “will you… will there be repercussions for it? Will you get in trouble or something?”

Devil Eyed Barrett turned to me, his eyes glossed over. “Oh, my dear, we’re all in a world of trouble if you truly broke that bottle.”

I shook my head in confusion. All this over a dumb trinket? “But why? What’s going to happen?”

He laughed, the kind that crazy people let out when they can’t think of any other way to react. “The Burning Ghost was trapped in that bottle, with Eric and Maria aboard it. By breaking it, you’ve set them free to wreak havoc on the world once again.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “You can’t be serious,” I replied, “Why would you think that?”

Captain Barrett downed an entire glass of wine, then grabbed the rope that had tied my hands and came toward me with a fierceness in his soulless eyes. “Because I put them there.”