All of this flashed through my mind as I plunged with agonizing slowness. I fixated on the cable, tracing the length where it connected from my wrists to the ominous end that led up, up, up… Where did it go? Was Ashley holding it? Was it tied to something on the balcony? Whatever secured my lifeline was letting it out inch by inch, easing my fall but not stopping it.

My hands clawed at the knot that bound them, my fingers clamping around the rope. I couldn’t see through the blackness to the balcony, didn’t know why Ashley had tethered me before throwing me over. But somewhere overhead, the cable snapped tautly.

I bounced to a halt, my wrists snapping in the restraint as my weight jerked and swung in the tailwind.

Dangling just above the crashing wake behind HMS Blitz, I swayed close enough to taste salt water. The warship groaned as her hull carved a deep black swath in the sea, spraying my legs in a warm mist and saturating Priest’s shirt.

Priest…

I wildly scanned the nebulous landscape, straining to see the horizon. Are you out there?

Now would be a good time for my feral huntsman to do something terrifying. But it was too soon. It would take him weeks to thieve a sloop, woo the new crew, and hunt down this ship. I was on my own.

The rope quavered. And the winds. The tides. The world narrowed to the drum and the whoosh and the dark, the dark, the dark… My heart cried.

“Ashley Cutlerrrrrrrr!” Waves spat at my legs in coughing fits, spinning me round and round. “You miserable little cock! Pull me in, damn you!”

I tried kicking, building momentum to launch myself upward to climb. But with my hands so tightly bound, there was no way to grip. I would’ve had better success if I were armless.

“Cutler! A pox on your blood! A pox on your king! A pox on your whole damn navy!” I screamed again and again until my voice bled and broke.

There was nothing to do but wait. And wait. I waited so long I knew he’d left me here to die.

Why would he do that? At any moment, a giant shark could leap out of the water and swallow me whole. Then he would have no lady pirate parts to deliver to England.

Why hadn’t he just left me in the hold? At least then, he would still have my head.

Needles prickled my hands until they grew cold. Numb. Wet hair stuck to my face and coiled around my throat. Wuthering gusts of briny air carried away my tears and turned my mouth into a desert. Eventually, exhaustion set in, shoving me past the point of weeping.