Page 48 of A Yulean Sister’s Guide to Getting Kidnapped

Her hot anger suddenly cooled to something else. Water dotted the corners of her eyes, and it was clear she was holding back tears.

I sighed. “I’m sorry, it was a bad joke.”

“I don’t care,” she snapped.

Sage turned and strode away, muttering about what a prick I was.

And she was probably right, I was being a prick to her then, but she just knew all the right buttons to push.

I shut my door and returned to my bed.

Or made to anyway, before there was a softer, more patient knock. Even still, it pissed me off to hear it. I knew a captain’s work was never done, but couldn’t it at least take a break?

I opened it, and Bramwell was there, his glasses falling down his nose, though he couldn’t fix them with the stack of books he held in his hands.

“Yes, Bramwell?” I said, leaving the door open to him and going to sit on my bed. At least I could get off my tail for a moment.

“I brought the books you asked for,” he said, dropping them down on the edge of my desk.

“Right, thank you. Did you find anything else?”

“Not yet, though I found a few other sources I want to dig into.”

“Okay, and I’ll go through these, let’s check in before we port.”

“Heard, Cap.”

He nodded and left, finally giving me some peace and quiet. At least for a few moments.

Chapter 16

Sage

That loud, incessant knock I’d become accustomed to didn’t sound the next morning. But as I was getting dressed, there was a different one. A gentler knock that made it obvious it wasn’t Captain Hard Head.

I opened it to Anne, with a plate of eggs and sausage that made my hungry stomach growl.

After my argument, I just went back to the room, and went to bed after a lot of tossing and turning. Who was he to tell me I had to be good at something? He didn’t know anything about me. Or what I could or couldn’t do.

“Yes?” I said, annoyed she’d come to rub in my face that she’d been fed.

“I brought you breakfast…Can I come in?”

I blinked, not expecting that plate to be for me.

“Sure,” I said, stepping aside.

She stepped through the door, placed my plate down, and gestured for me to sit.

“Oh”—she pulled a fork from her pocket—“here.”

“Thanks.” I took it and sat down, digging in. It was so good, considering it was well past normal breakfast time.

“I’m sorry you didn’t eat last night,” she said. “I should have stayed to show you the laundry better.”

I swallowed my bite of sausage. For a second, I thought about making her feel worse in hopes she would keep feeding me, but that would be too cruel. “It’s not your fault, I’m just not good at that type of thing.”

“Nonsense. My aunt used to tell me anyone can learn anything. It just takes some time, and a good teacher.”