Page 39 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

Tinsley stands near the entrance with her ever-present clipboard. She’s wearing a blazer over what appears to be a Viking-inspired tunic, and she looks frazzled but determined. Her chestnut hair is starting to escape its ponytail, and she’s got that slightly manic buzz you get from organizing an event while mentally tallying how many liability waivers you’ll need if someone gets too deep into the mead and tries to actually raid something.

“Don’t give me that look,” she mutters as we pass. “I’ve already confiscated two grappling hooks and a homemade catapult. This crowd is fully capable of pillaging, and my waiver only covers mead-related incidents.”

Honestly, I believe every word of it. And by the way, are the bartenders serving mead? And if so, how did they procure it?

“Welcome to Raiders and Wagers!” Tinsley announces to the arriving crowd, her voice pitched to carry over the slots and fueled by way too much coffee, possibly with a shot of something stronger backing it up—maybe the aforementioned mead. “Tonight, you’ll compete for glory, honor, and the title of Queen of the Fjords! Whoever holds the most tokens at the end of the evening wins bragging rights and a commemorative drinking horn!”

She hoists the thing overhead, and the crowd cheers. It’s an honest-to-goodness drinking horn, polished to a gleam, banded in silver, and roughly the size of a tuba’s rowdy cousin. The winner will need a second cabin to store it in. And maybe a weapons permit to take it home.

Glory, honor, and a drinking horn. Considering somebody in this velvet-clad crowd recently competed for something much darker and won, I’ll be keeping my eye on more than the slots tonight.

“I need that horn,” Nettie says immediately from beside me.

Bess doesn’t bother looking up. “You don’t even drink.”

“I’ll start.”

“Heaven help the Baltic.”

If Nettie actually wins that horn, the Emerald Queen will never know another moment of peace. I make a mental note to warn the crew.

Marina appears beside Tinsley, looking stunning in a forest green dress that brings out her ice-blue eyes, her crimson hair swept up in an elegant twist. Tinsley’s smile tightens a full notch at the sight of her. She did the clipboard, the signage, and the liability math, and Marina walked in wearing green and collected the applause.

Somewhere deep down, I feel for Tinsley. Very deep down. We’re talking spelunking gear and a headlamp.

Marina hands out token pouches to the newcomers, smiling warmly at everyone, and I notice, because I notice everything, that she positions herself so she can see the entire floor. Her back is to the wall. Her eyes sweep the room every few seconds. That’s not hostess behavior. That’s lookout behavior. I have a feeling it’s her go-to response.

Bess and Nettie make a beeline for the slot machines—or as tonight’s signage insists, the One-Armed Raiders—weaving through clusters of book club members who are already gathering around craps tables and debating blackjack strategies. The casino floor is packed, voices rise over the racket of the machines, and laughter erupts from the roulette wheel where someone just won big.

I follow Ransom through the thick crowd, catching snippets of conversation along the way. Two women debate whether the Viking tokens are actual wood or very convincing plastic, and one of them settles the matter by biting hers, dentures be darned.

A man at the bar orders something called a Berserker Brew that arrives smoking, in a gold goblet, and he looks equal parts thrilled and afraid, which is the correct response to a smoking beverage.

The craps table breaks into cheers as someone rolls what I assume is a good number, though I’ve never understood craps, and at this point in my life I’ve made peace with that. A woman my age is entitled to retire a few ambitions. Craps went first. Cartwheels went shortly after, and we held a lovely little service.

I do a slow scan of the room while we walk, and there’s not a single silver star in sight. It looks to me like a dead Viking chose to skip Viking casino night.

Either Magnus Darkwater is sulking somewhere, or he’s off doing whatever it is he does when he’s not haunting me, and it occurs to me with mild alarm that I have no idea what that is. Wherever he is, some poor woman is being aggressively winked at. The man claims he pillaged half of Scandinavia in his day, but from everything I’ve observed, his weapon of choice is the double entendre. A thousand years dead and he hasn’t wasted a single one of them on a pure thought.

We claim seats at a three-person slot machine setup tucked in a corner, the arrangement where you sit side by side at individual machines but you’re close enough to talk without shouting. It’s semi-private, away from the main chaos, which I appreciate because my ears can only absorb so much chiming and whooping before my brain files a formal complaint by way of a migraine.

Wes appears moments later, looking freshly released from captain jail and extremely happy about it. His dark waves are slightly mussed, his captain’s whites are missing the jacket, and he’s got that loose, unhurried air of an officer who is off duty and knows exactly where he wants to be.

With Marina.

“Room for one more?” he asks, his eyes already scanning the crowd for the woman in question.

“Always,” Ransom says, which in Ransom-speak translates loosely to if you must. Ransom more or less tolerates Wes. And sometimes vice versa.

Wes takes the seat on my other side, and now I’m sandwiched between my husband and my ex-almost-something, which would stress me out if I weren’t completely secure in my marriage. Which I am.

The slot machine in front of me has a Viking theme, naturally, with symbols of axes, shields, helmets, and what appears to be a very muscular Thor-adjacent figure. I feed a token into the slot and pull the lever, and the reels whir past every winning combination before landing on two axes and a helmet, which earns me nothing but the distinct sense I’ve let down a shirtless Viking. Twice in one day. My art class ladies would riot.

Across the casino, Nettie’s shriek of delight cuts through the ambient noise. “JACKPOT!”

Bess’ dry voice follows immediately. “It’s twelve tokens, Nettie.”

“TWELVE WHOLE TOKENS!”