Vincent held his breath, watching through the gap in the window and the crack under the door — mapping the layout of the ship, the positions of every pirate he could spot, sketching out escape options in his head.
Fight his way out?
Not an option. With this body and a shard of glass, he wouldn't last two steps.
Sink the ship and go down with it?
Even less realistic.
Wait for a pirate to come in, ambush them, take a hostage?
Er...
He ran through plan after plan. Every single one hit a wall.
After a good while, Vincent finally made his call.
From what he could see, there were only about a dozen pirates on deck, and most of them were barely awake — shuffling around like they'd just rolled out of bed. There might be a window here. If he could slip out through the cabin window, use the cover on deck to reach the stern, jump into the water, and swim to that landmass in the distance—
He knew perfectly well that if he was spotted, he'd have no chance of outswimming a crew of sailors. But what else was he going to do — sit here and wait for them to come in?
He'd rather take his chances in the water.
Decision made. Vincent stripped off the long skirt and kept only the thin linen undershirt. Then he tore a strip from the bedsheet and bound his chest tightly — the last thing he needed was to be slowed down while running.
He moved to the right window, carefully pushed it open just a crack. A sharp sea breeze hit him in the face. He fixed his eyes on the nearest group of pirates and waited.
Five seconds. Ten. Thirty.
Two minutes in, all of them turned away at exactly the same moment.
Vincent shoved the window open, vaulted through it, and crouched behind a stack of barrels just outside. Clean. Nobody saw him.
He let out a slow breath. Then pushed off lightly and began moving fast and low toward the stern, using every bit of cover between him and the railing.
This body is far more agile than it looks.
Up in the crow's nest of the Dawn's main mast, First Mate Crouch — gold-rimmed spectacles, bookish face — was slumped against Second Mate Stefan, who had his shirt half-open and looked like he owned the world. Both of them had been dead asleep. Crouch still loosely held an empty wine bottle in one hand.
Then both of them opened their eyes at exactly the same moment.
Looked down.
There was the Queen Mystic — in nothing but a thin linen shirt, chest bound in strips of cloth — leaping, rolling, and sprinting across the deck toward the stern.
Crouch rubbed his eyes. "...Either the Queen hasn't sobered up yet, or I haven't."
Stefan raised an eyebrow. A theatrical grin spread across his face. "All glory to Her Majesty. She's developed a new ability. I'm calling it... the Hare-and-Tortoise Sprint."
Everyone aboard knew their captain was a high-Sequence Beyonder of the Mystery Prying pathway — capable of reproducing all manner of strange and powerful abilities through Mystical Recurrence.
"Something's wrong."
About ten seconds later, Stefan's grin vanished. He dropped straight down from the crow's nest, called the wind to carry him, and shot across the deck toward Vincent.
Vincent was almost at the railing. Just a few more meters—
Then the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He glanced back.
A man was flying at him, riding the wind.
This world has supernatural abilities too. Wonderful.
His stomach dropped — but his legs moved faster. Three meters from the railing, he hit the deck with both feet and launched himself off the edge.
Stefan arrived at the exact same instant, hand shooting out. "Your Majesty, what are you—"
Shing.
A flash of reflected light. The glass shard.
Stefan hadn't expected an attack from Her Majesty. He threw himself backward on instinct — but not fast enough. A line of red opened across his neck.
Blood dripped.
Vincent hit the water, and the red dissolved into foam.
A few minutes later, in a deserted alleyway somewhere.
Green tendrils — like pea vines — retracted and faded into nothing. Soaking wet, Vincent dropped straight down from midair and hit the ground face-first. He lay there for a beat, then peeled himself up.
Didn't I just jump into the ocean? Why am I suddenly somewhere else?
He thought back to Stefan diving at him on the wind. Had he accidentally activated some kind of ability when he hit the water — something like Apparition? If so, the woman he'd ended up in was no ordinary person.
Then why had she been on a pirate ship in the first place?
He tucked the glass shard away and made his way down the alley, moving carefully, eyes taking in everything. The architecture was different from the Harry Potter world. The clothing styles too. The sense of having crossed into an entirely separate world felt more concrete now.
He reached the street. Busy. People everywhere. Some dressed like Victorian gentry, others with a vaguely more modern edge. Quite the mix.
People were looking at him. Some curious, some covering their noses and stepping aside. A few pointed and said things he couldn't catch. One or two, apparently noticing something refined in the woman's bearing, came forward to ask if she needed help.
Vincent caught his reflection in a shop window and understood at once.
The chestnut hair — presumably neat before — was an absolute wreck, tangled and half-matted to his face with dirt. The linen shirt was soaked through. If he hadn't bound his chest earlier, there'd be nothing left to the imagination.
He looked like a drowned beggar. Or possibly a lunatic.
He didn't dwell on it. More urgent things: figure out what kind of world this was, and start picking up the language as fast as possible. Without communication, nothing else was going anywhere.
He was turning this over in his head when he spotted two uniformed men walking toward him. A badge, a certain bearing — police.
As someone who'd just arrived in a foreign world, the last thing he wanted was a run-in with any official authority. His first instinct was to slip away — but then he caught himself. That would look far more suspicious.
Too late anyway.
The lazier of the two had already clocked his movement. He stepped forward. "Hey. Stop right there."
The other one looked mildly surprised and said under his breath, "Are you seriously acting like a cop right now?"
"Heh. We are cops."
The lazy officer stopped in front of Vincent and looked him up and down. "You saw us just now and your first reaction was to run. Why's that?"
Vincent couldn't understand a word. He quickly pointed to his ears, then to his mouth, and put on his best helpless expression. "Ahh... ahh, ahh."
The younger officer immediately nudged his partner. But the lazy one just let out a dismissive laugh —
"Oh please, she's putting it on—"
Then he stopped. His expression shifted, reluctant and a little surprised. "...She's actually mute."
He studied Vincent with a slightly pained look, scratched the back of his head, and said with obvious reluctance — gesturing as he went — "Great, what a hassle. Come with me. We'll take you to the poorhouse."
Vincent hesitated a moment, then decided to go along. Most of the time, the odds of police officers being decent people were reasonably good... probably.
The whole way there, he kept his head down and followed quietly, but his eyes never stopped moving — taking stock of the surroundings, memorizing street layouts and the routes between alleys, building an exit plan in case things went sideways. Every so often he'd wave his arms around experimentally, testing whether any ability might activate.
Nothing. Every attempt failed.
The younger officer noticed. He shook his head to himself with a quiet sigh. "Poor woman. Deaf, mute, and apparently not all there in the head either."
To be continued…