They reached the edge of the warehouse district and there Sirius paused as if trying to decide something.

  Amanda stayed quiet while he thought, wondering what it was he was deliberating.

  Finally he said with a nod. “Let’s scope it out first, then we’ll go back to the ship and make a plan.” He turned toward the warehouse district.

  Amanda followed eagerly, knowing that soon at least she’d get to see where Ghost was. And surely Sirius wouldn’t show her that if he had no intention of helping. Finally, things seemed to be going alright.

  She tried to keep track of where they were. It wasn’t like she was bad at navigation but everything in this place was practically symmetrical. All the buildings were approximately the same large size, made of the same red-painted wood. Everything looked alike and nothing appeared to be numbered.

  It seemed like Sirius knew exactly where he was going though. How he knew that she wasn’t sure. He walked swiftly and with purpose. She had to jog a little keep up and to make sure she didn’t lose him when he took a sudden turn. They went left and right and left again and it almost seemed like they were going in circles. Only the angle of the shadows told her they were still heading roughly in the direction of the sea.

  Eventually he slowed and then he stopped. He walked back a little way and then waited for her to catch up. He seemed surprised that she wasn’t right behind him.

  She dodged a couple of people carrying a large crate between them and then joined Sirius who glanced around. They weren’t alone. Nearby, several people were hauling crates while others passed through on their way to somewhere. True stealth would have been impossible here.

  The air smelt strongly of fish and she could hear the squawk of birds nearby, although she could not see them. As she listened she could hear other sounds as well. Less common dock sounds and more like the sounds of a farm or a zoo? Was that the roar of a large cat? Not a house cat but something like a lion or a tiger? No, not a tiger, not a lion. That sound was distinctly that of a manticore. At least she was pretty sure it was. She’d only ever heard recordings of them. Did that mean Sirena’s warehouse was near here? It sounded like it was coming from the warehouse they were currently standing behind. She glanced from it to Sirius and back again trying to determine if that was the case.

  He gave a single nod.

  But there didn’t appear to be any windows in the back of the building and there were too many people around to try and sneak through a door or burn their way through the wood.

  “How do we get in?” she asked Sirius in a quiet voice.

  He frowned then jerked his head toward the side of the building. “Come on.”

  She followed cautiously. She knew there would be large doors open on the other side but she also knew that they wouldn’t be able to just walk right on in. Maybe they should wait until night when the area would be less populated. She wasn’t sure what Sirius had planned.

  It turned out it didn’t matter. As they were making their way around one side of the building, suddenly half an army came running up behind them. Amanda recognised their uniforms as members of the city guards or police or whatever the law enforcement was called here. They were dressed in the same dark black as the people who had earlier escorted them at gunpoint into the city prison.

  Amanda froze, thinking that the Prince had noticed that they’d escaped or that his sister had changed her mind and they were about to get sent back into the cell, only with no escape tunnel this time.

  But the soldiers simply ran right around Amanda and Sirius and set themselves up near the entrance to Sirena’s warehouse.

  Amanda stared after them in confusion.

  Sirius grabbed her by the arm and tugged her swiftly in the other direction.

  “But, Ghost…” she complained as she followed him away from the warehouse.

  He shook his head. “That’s the Scarlett Police. They’re doing a raid. Not much we can do now.”

  Dejectedly, she followed him back to the small boat docks. The dock hand who had earlier asked her for her docking fee gave her a narrowed-eyed look as she passed but otherwise didn’t approach. Sirius quickly explained that he’d paid both fees and then made her promise that she would sail her boat right back to the ship. She wouldn’t go anywhere else and especially not back to Sirena’s warehouse.

  She assured him she would be good. He gave her a skeptical look but let her set off back toward the ship in her boat, although he did wait until she was moving in that direction before he followed. She had no intention of running off again though, at least not yet. It was obvious that whatever was going on at the warehouse right now was going to make it impossible to steal Ghost back. Still, some part of her felt like she was abandoning him, again.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  So she was more than a little surprised, when she boarded the ship and found Ghost standing right there on the deck. Furthermore, Shiv was standing right next to the pegasus and appeared to be talking to him while giving him gentle strokes.

  “What?” was all she could say.

  She felt Sirius’s presence behind her a moment later. Evidently he was also surprised for his next words were simply, “Shiv?”

  This time Shiv seemed to notice them. He quickly took a step away from Ghost as if embarrassed to have been caught in any sort of proximity with the animal. He shrugged. “What?”

  Before either of them could react, young Bruce rounded the corner and loudly declared, “Oi! Captain’s back!”

  This summoned much of the rest of the crew to come see for themselves.

  “Welcome back, Captain,” said Pierre.

  “While you were gone we all had a vote,” added Benny. “You’re captain again.”

  “We heard you got arrested,” Crick remarked with a nod. “Good timing.”

  Amanda narrowed her eyes while her mouth fell open a little further. Crick appeared to be wearing not one, but several live snakes, up his sleeves, around his neck, and who knew how many in his pockets. There were at least a couple of tails poking out. Billie, who had been closer to the main group before Crick had arrived had now relocated to the edge and was giving Crick dirty looks from a distance.

  Alice also looked less happy but it was for an entirely different reason. “You weren’t supposed to be back this fast though. We had a wager going that you wouldn’t be back until after dinner.”

  “Ain’t his fault you underestimated him,” countered Crick with his hand held out toward Alice. “Now, hand em over.”

  Alice dropped a few coins into Crick’s hand with a sigh. One snake stuck its head out of his sleeve to see what was going on before retreating back into the warmth.

  “Remember how fast he got out last time,” Crick said.

  “Yeah, but I figured they woulda fixed that escape tunnel then, or made it harder or something.”

  Crick shook his head. “Then he woulda figured out a new way wouldn’t he.”

  They fell about into a pattern of debate that was all too familiar and which Amanda found weirdly comforting, even after the mutiny. Seeing Ghost standing there on deck had lifted her spirits substantially. She almost didn’t even care how they’d done it.

  Sirius did though. “Shiv, I thought you gave the pegasus to Sirena?”

  Shiv gave a sheepish sort of shrug. “Yeah well you can blame Crick for that. Apparently he convinced Thatch to shift into a snake and jail break the snakes out of Sirena’s warehouse.”

  “Truthfully, the pegasus just made a convenient sort of escape,” Thatch explained. “We’ve been taking turns riding it while you was on Morgan’s ship so then once I shifted back into a person I just rode it right out of there faster than they could react.”

  “Surely Sirena noticed that?” Sirius replied.

  Thatch shook his head. “I mighta let a few other animals out as a distraction.”

  “Someone must have still seen you though? Surely it won’t take much for Sirena to work out who was responsible.”

  “If they did, all they saw was Michael since I made myself look like him.” Thatch beamed with smug satisfaction.

  Shiv’s grin grew devilish as he preempted Sirius’s next question. “And not long after you two got arrested, when we were trying to figure out where you’d gone, I ran into Michael alone in an alleyway. I don’t think he’ll be doing much talking from now on.”

  “And,” jumped in Neko excitedly, “By some stroke of luck, apparently some of the other animals Thatch let out are the illegal sort, the really really illegal sort, at least in Scarlett. Someone called in an anonymous tip on Sirena’s warehouse and now I hear it’s being raided and a lot of her clientele are keeping their distance.”

  “Someone?” Sirius asked.

  “That wasn’t actually us, honest,” Alice said. “We just went ashore to see where you’d gone and when we heard you’d been arrested again we figured we might as well grab a drink or two while we waited for you to escape. The animals getting out was all Crick and Thatch’s plan. They didn’t tell the rest of us nothing.” Alice looked pointedly at Thatch.

  “That’s cause you can’t keep a secret,” Thatch told him.

  “I can too.”

  “Oh yeah, then how comes I heard about a guy with an earring who looks just like you telling people about a flaming flying ship escaping a kraken?”

  “How’d you even manage to hear about anything when you been busy thieving animals?”

  “I heard it from Bruce just now.”

  “Alright,” Sirius held up his hands. “Sounds like everything’s all under control at least for the time being. Although I didn’t expect quite so much to happen in only a few hours. Any sign of the dragon egg owner? I’m sure the Scarlett police won’t be happy about those if they find them and we might have gotten lucky with Sirena but it’s also bound to put them on high alert.”

  “Not yet.” Shiv shook his head. “Morgan did want to know if you wanted a parrot though?”

  Sirius gave him a confused look.

  Shiv shrugged. “Apparently she found two flying loose in her hold.” Shiv narrowed his eyes in a questioning look. “Apparently they used to belong to The Butcher? Apparently you fought him and killed him?”

  A hush feel over the deck as a few of the men overheard what Shiv said. They passed it quickly along to their neighbors and soon, they were all demanding the story.

  “Technically, Amanda stabbed him first,” Sirius replied.

  His comment did little to calm the men.

  Sirius waved them off. “Later, after dinner.” It seemed he wanted to talk to Shiv.

  As it became obvious when Sirius started to walk across the deck toward Shiv and the wheelhouse that none of them were getting a story out of him, they started to crowd around Amanda. She wasn’t sure she was ready to tell that story though or even how much of it would be safe to tell. In an attempt to distract them all she called out to Sirius, “What did you get arrested for last time?”

  Sirius glanced back and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Her tactic worked like a charm and quickly Neko jumped in with, “It weren’t nothing. He saved a woman. Same woman both times too.”

  “Yeah, you shoulda seen it,” said another.

  “You weren’t even there,” said a third man to the second.

  Sirius glanced back at the arguing crew once more. This time he looked annoyed. Before Amanda could ask him why, and before he could avoid answering or disappear to talk to Shiv, someone else called out, “Vessel approaching!”