Chapter 44: [44] Tangled
"I—" she started, then stopped, her voice barely above a whisper.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Pierre’s head turned toward the sound, and he saw Raven leaning against the mainmast with one eyebrow arched and an expression of profound, almost pitying amusement on her face. She looked like a parent who’d walked in on two children playing dress-up and making a spectacular mess of the costume box.
"Bravo," Raven said, pushing off from the mast. "Truly spectacular. I’ve seen jesters with less natural timing."
She approached, her walk an unhurried saunter. A slow, knowing smirk played on her lips, and her blue eyes drank in their ridiculous, tangled predicament.
"Now, if you’re quite finished with your... whatever that was," Raven continued, "perhaps we could focus on not sinking the ship?"
Pierre’s arms dropped away from Alyssa like he’d been burned, and she stepped backward quickly, putting distance between them while trying to look anywhere except at his face. The rope, still connecting them in several places, created an awkward web that neither of them seemed to know how to escape.
Raven sighed as she walked over and began untangling them, her fingers working through the knots and loops they’d created with embarrassing ease.
"Lift your arm," she instructed Pierre, and he obeyed without thinking. "Duck," she told Alyssa, who bent forward as Raven pulled a loop over her head.
In less than ten seconds, they were free, and Raven held the rope in her hands, already beginning to coil it into a perfect, tight circle.
She finished the coil and set it on the deck between them, then looked up at Pierre and Alyssa with an expression that managed to be both patient and deeply unimpressed.