Free Balanced on the Blades Edge #2 Deathmaker by Lindsay Buroker Page B

shackles clanking against the pipe. Voices sounded in the hallway, a part of some quiet conversation. She turned her head toward the light, hoping one of her captors was bringing food. Her stomach was as empty as her soul.
    Tolemek walked in, carrying a lantern. He looked around the room for a moment, then spotted her under the hammock. His lips thinned, then he held up a finger and walked out again. He returned after a moment with a key ring. He stopped only long enough to light a few more lamps from the one in his hand, then knelt in front of her. He unlocked the shackles, but paused before standing up, lifting a finger to her chin.
    A gentle gesture, but Cas wasn’t sure how she felt about having him touch her—was that the hand he used to pet his snakes? She glanced at the terrarium.
    “Someone hit you?” he asked, then backed away so she could stand up. “Someone here?”
    She opted for staying on the floor. This corner was less odd than the others, and something about having the clothing trunk on one side and the hammock dangling overhead made her feel protected, like a child in a fort that adults were too big to breach. An illusion, of course, but she leaned her back against the pipe and stayed there anyway.
    “Not exactly,” she said—he was regarding her steadily, waiting for an answer. “I tried to take advantage of a guard’s inattentiveness to arm myself.” No need to mention that she would have shot the man and anyone else in her path to the exit if she could have managed it. “There were repercussions.”
    “Hm.”
    Tolemek walked over to a counter, unlatched a cupboard below, and pulled out a bowl and a pitcher with a tight lid. Everything in the cabin looked like it was secured, at least somewhat, as things would be on a sailing ship where the pitches of the waves were a constant. The pirates had to be ready for battle at any time, she supposed. Tolemek poured water, dipped a rag in it, then grabbed a small ceramic jar from one of his cabinets.
    “Would you like to sit in a chair?” He waved at one at a desk with a lamp on it, then held up the rag. “I’ll be able to see what I’m doing.”
    “Are you a doctor qualified to treat patients?” Cas made a point of looking around the laboratory. “The stories pin you as more of a mad scientist.”
    “Mad?” Tolemek arched his brows.
    “Something has to explain that hair.”
    He blinked a few times, then surprised her by laughing. It was a pleasant sound that didn’t seem to fit with the macabre laboratory surroundings, but she could only stare at him, not finding humor in the situation, or in the entire day. Make that the entire month.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think you would talk to me at all, and here you are, as genial as ever.”
    “If having girls insult you is what you consider genial, then you’re spending too much time with the wrong kinds of people.”
    His lips quirked upward. “Tell me about it.” Tolemek pulled the chair out from the desk and brushed off the seat, though she didn’t see any crumbs or dust on it. He opened his palm toward it again. “To answer your question, I’m mostly self-taught, with a lot of my education coming through books and experimentation, but I was sent to the field medic course when I was in the army.”
    Cas struggled not to shudder at what qualified as “experimentation” for him.
    “I can get the sawbones if you prefer, but he does live up to his name.”
    “Yeah? Is that where the captain’s finger bone chest protector came from?”
    “I believe he traded a bottle of brandy to a South Isles cannibal for that a few years ago.”
    Cas snorted. She bet that story wasn’t widely known. “I’m fine.” She waved away his offer of help in favor of hunkering in her corner. “I don’t need any attention, medical or otherwise.” The dried blood on her chin probably said otherwise, but she didn’t want to cozy up with the Deathmaker. They’d bonded enough during their