Chapter Eighteen: The Disappointment

I really should not have gotten excited for this fight. It sucked. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Prudence, Phoebe, and Ravenclaw travel back to Wolfinger by coach and James sails there in Will-o'-the-wisp, his ship. I dunno, I think he's trying too hard with that name. Well, someone is anyway...

Mrs. Worth freaks out that she and her husband have to deal with three people. Prudence offers her and her sister's help to Mrs. Worth. Silly Prudence, that's not allowed. Mrs. Worth says she'll manage somehow. The next day James walks in. He's alive! Mrs. Worth says she'll trust Sebastian more now. Oh, Mrs. Worth, did we mention that James' crew is staying here too? Poor woman.

James' crew watches the cave every night, but the smugglers don't come back until the dark of the moon. Sebastian hangs in the shadows, intimidates the smugglers with his name and the threat of the abbey itself, and refuses to be bought off or let the smugglers leave. Two of the smugglers try to run so James shoots one of them. We don't know where the guy gets shot until the end of the paragraph. No, he didn't die and neither did James shoot him in the kneecap to keep him from running. The guy got shot in the shoulder. Anyway, James' crew ties up the smugglers and disarms them.

James steps forward and asks if they remember him. He calls a few by name, but he's so different now that they don't recognize him. James tells them who he is, then starts deciding what to do with them. He could turn them over to his captain, but that guy is...out of business now. (I'm going to pretend that the captain is dead. It makes this more interesting.) Then there's this guy who wanted James dead. James puts his gun against the guy's temple, sighs, and doesn't shoot him. You know, guys, let's just turn them over to the magistrate. Lame.

James' crew hauls off the smugglers and James adds their ship to his, making a fleet of two. Oh, also, Sebastian thinks about how his brother came out of this experience much better and different and stuff. Wow. It's a good thing Phoebe still loves him. Although, I'm not sure if that'll last too long since he's so changed now.

Sebastian thinks briefly about how he doesn't want to smugglers to know about the secret passage, but then he starts thinking about Prudence and he stops caring. She's probably peeking around the corner of the secret passage, you know. Prudence is worried the magistrate will just let the smugglers go, but Sebastian tells her she's over thinking this. Prudence decides to take the Beatles' advice and let it be. Sebastian plans how they'll get back into the house, go in the library, take the secret passage, and go have sex.

Oh hi there, Mr. Worth. No, you shouldn't shoot Sebastian. Mr. Worth's gun hits the floor and fires. What? Really? Fine. The rest of the house comes running and Phoebe cries on Sebastian, asking where her husband is. No sex for you tonight, Sebastian.

Anyway, all this adventure and such makes Prudence want to write. I mean, it's too bad she and Sebastian didn't get to have sex the night before, but they did earlier this day so it's okay. It's way past midnight now and Prudence is in the library writing. Hey, there's someone walking around out there. Sebastian would use the secret passage and Phoebe wouldn't be walking around at night. Secret passage? Oh yeah secret passage. You know it's there.

Anyway, it's Mr. Poo-Face himself! He and his buddies are gonna steal from Sebastian...but he's totally not a thief. Just in case you were curious. Anyway, he makes a comment about how Prudence is the uglier sister, but it doesn't matter in the dark. Prudence hefts a big ol' brass ornament and told him to step up off. Resistance? Well, we've seen that Mr. Poo-Face can't handle that. He basically says that no one wants her anyway. Then he says he'll go visit Phoebe instead. Just do that. Can there be something that results from this? Anyway, he locks her in the library. Clearly, no one will hear her yelling and he can get on with looting.

It seems Sebastian not having a boat and not leaving by water made the smugglers catch on that he go into the cave some other way. Maybe he should have given them a way that he got there. All he had to do was mention a boat and have one of the crew members look like he'd been swimming. Nah, that's too difficult.