Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(24)

“A four-poster bed?” she muttered. “What need does a man have of a four-poster bed out to sea?”

It wasn’t very large, hardly enough room for two people, but it took up a remarkable amount of space. A wooden red desk was shoved in the corner. It didn’t look like anyone used it at all. There were no papers, no inkwells, nothing to suggest that Manus ever sat at the desk.

Sorcha peered underneath it.

“No chair?” she muttered. “Of course it would be for decoration only.”

Brown sheep skin covered the floor, soft against her bare feet. She curled her toes in its thick wool.

Someone pounded on the door. Whirling on her heel, she called out, “I’m not taking visitors!”

“Good!” Manus shouted back. “We’re going to be heading straight for the eye of that storm. It’s moving away from us so we’re going to put some effort in to catch it. Stay in the cabin! I don’t need you falling overboard.”

Her lips curled as she mimicked him. “I don’t need you falling overboard. It’s a good thing you’re helping me captain, or I’d have half a mind to trip you into the ocean!”

A chuckle echoed through the door, growing quieter and quieter until it disappeared.

Sorcha huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. She should feel tired, but the long night’s sleep was plenty. One might think that a sea captain would have an entertaining room, but there was little here.

Where was the treasure? The maps of wondrous places? At least trophies from all the places he had traveled! The man had a Fae-marked ship!

She gritted her teeth and rummaged through her pack. There was one thing that always settled her mind, no matter where she was.

Soft vellum covered the worn leather journal. Its parchment paper curled at the edges, darkened with age and brittle. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled.

It still smelled like her. No matter how many years her mother had been dead, her books still smelled like her. Aged paper, lavender oil, sunshine, and the faintest hint of clover.

As always, tears pricked her eyes.

“I miss you,” she whispered against the journal’s spine. “I left Papa yesterday, and I hope it was the right decision. You always told me to be brave and kind. I think that’s what this journey is for.”

She turned the page and lost herself into a naturalist’s recounting of healing. She read of teas which could stop bleeding, setting bones, cleaning wounds, walking a woman through every step of pregnancy. Sorcha’s mother had unimaginable knowledge that she wrote down every moment she could.

It would never be enough. She would always want to devour her mother’s words and wished she could remember her voice. Ten years was enough to forget many things about a person.

If Sorcha tried very hard, she could remember the way sunlight turned her mother’s rosy hair to fire. How Sorcha had spent hours counting the freckles on her mother’s arm when she had been ill. But she couldn’t remember the tone of her voice, the whispered stories, or what she sounded like when she told her daughter “I love you.”

Sorcha sniffed and blinked away tears.

Shaking her head, she patted the journal and placed it back inside her pack. “You’ll stay there,” she whispered. “Safe and sound.”

Slapping wings smacked against the porthole of the ship. Sorcha flung herself back against the bed and stared at the giant raven poking its head into her room.

“Excuse me?” she gasped. “Who are you?”

It cawed at her, cocking its head to the side and staring at her with a single yellow eye.

“No,” she said as she rose to her feet. “Absolutely not. I do not need a feathered friend in this room with me.”

The raven didn’t listen. It hopped from the porthole down onto the desk.

“No!” Sorcha said again.

She flapped her hands at it. There wasn’t anything to shoo it away with, and now it might be too late. Ravens were intelligent, but she wasn’t certain it could fly out the porthole. If she scared it into the air, then she might never get it back down. She eyed its wings.

“You’re mighty and quite large,” she said. “I think if you were flying that your wings would hurt me.”

It tilted its head to the other side and jumped one hop towards her.

“Ah,” she gasped. “Please don’t do that.”

The raven hopped backwards.

“No,” Sorcha shook her head. “Don’t do that either.”

The raven froze and met her gaze.

“Can you understand me?”

It squawked at her.

Overwhelmed again, Sorcha tried to back away from it. Her heel caught on the edge of a rug and she tumbled hard onto the floor. The bang of her tailbone hitting solid wood made her wince just as much as the sudden lightning bolt of pain.

The raven lifted its wings as though it might fly into the air.

“No!” Sorcha lifted one hand, the other rubbing firmly at her bottom. “I’m fine. Please don’t do that!”

It seemed to hesitate, wings still poised for flight.

“Really, I’m fine. I just didn’t expect you to understand me. Are you the captain’s?”

The raven’s reaction was immediate. Its wings snapped down at its sides, its head rose from its feathers to an impossible height, and it croaked angrily at her.