needed him for something. She was furious he had
left her; she’d have no servant boy now. And no one
to blame for things she had done, such as murdering
the songbirds in the king’s garden. Jacquelyn had always had a strange fixation with death. Even when
they were small children in the orphanage she would
drag her brother to see the public executions, cheering as the guilty party swung from a rope.
death, that’s what you always loved isn’t it? To see
people’s lives snatched away?” Jacquelyn writhed in
his grasp but John had grown strong over his years of
sea life.
“You think you’re a benevolent ruler? You
think you did me a favor by having your dear old father take me in as a servant boy? You know nothing,”
he hissed. “You have deluded yourself again. While
“Your acting won’t fool me,” John said coarse- you were living the high life as a princess I was strugly. “But you’re correct, I was thirteen. And how old
gling to survive day by day. You and your friends toram I now?”
tured me with your ‘games.’” John squeezed a little
tighter. “You’d bat your eyelashes at every adult that
“Seventeen.” Jacquelyn rolled her eyes.
found their way into the orphanage, trying your hard“Four years. I’ve been on the sea for four
est to get adopted while all I wanted was for us to
years. Oh yes I started as a cabin boy, but the men
stay together.”
call me something very different now.” He flipped his
coin again. Jacquelyn was curious despite her better
“Shut up,” Jacquelyn hissed.
judgment.
“A week after mother and father died you
“What?”
were already throwing yourself at every gentleman or
lady that walked through that door.”
“I’m sorry?” John looked over at her. She
rolled