Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)
15
Locke knows what Ezri means to do the instant he sees her make a fist, but Jean, his reflexes dulled by love or fatigue or both, plainly doesn’t. And before Locke can do anything, she’s hit Jean, and given him a shove backward so that Locke tumbles over him. Locke looks up just in time to see Ezri jump into the cargo hold, where an unnatural orange glare rises from the darkness a second later.
‘Oh, Crooked Warden, damn it all to hell,’ he whispers, and he sees everything as time slows like cooling syrup—
Treganne at the quarterdeck rail, dumbfounded; clearly ignorant of what her erstwhile good deed has done.
Drakasha stumbling forward, sabres still in her hands, moving too slowly to stop Ezri or join her.
Jean crawling, barely able to move but willing himself after her with any muscle that will lend him force, one hand reaching uselessly after a woman already gone.
The crew of both ships staring, leaning on their weapons and on one another, the fight for a moment forgotten.
Utgar reaching for the bolt in his back, flailing feebly. It has been five seconds since Ezri leapt down into the cargo hold. Five seconds is when the screaming, the new screaming, starts.