Steel

Jill was set to scrubbing the decks again, clearing away splinters and debris, throwing buckets of scrap overboard. And getting rid of more blood. She’d seen more spilled blood in the last two weeks than in the whole rest of her life.

And still, Jill and Henry practiced swordplay. She’d felt helpless during the battle, and she didn’t feel helpless with a sword in her hand. She never wanted to see another battle. But if she did—and if they were boarded next time—she wanted to be able to defend herself and not cower on deck while debris rained down around her.

Swordplay was different on the deck of a rocking ship than it was on a sandy beach. Jill learned the trick of it quickly. You always wanted to keep your knees bent and loose when you fenced; it kept you nimble, able to respond and move, advancing and retreating quickly while keeping good balance. The less you worried about where your feet were the more you could focus on the blade—yours and your opponent’s. On a rocking deck, she just had to keep even more loose and nimble, so that her legs moved under her to keep her balance while her upper body—and her sword—remained steady. Then Henry got tricky, jumping onto the shrouds, swinging from a line to the deck, fighting from the boom or even the gunwales, risking losing his balance to get her in a bad spot. Then he’d have the high ground, the position of strength—and they were fencing in three dimensions, not just the back-and-forth of competitive strip fencing. It was maddening—but thrilling. She could feel herself getting better. When she and Henry fought, everythin

g else, all her problems, and the fact that she was so far from home, faded away.

All this time, Captain Cooper stayed at the helm, staring through her spyglass to open sea, or checking the direction of her makeshift compass. The rapier tip always pointed away, to where the Heart’s Revenge had sailed.

In a moment of quiet, Jill crept toward the helm, expecting the captain would yell at her to get back to work, and find some new chore for her. The captain glanced at her—and didn’t yell. Encouraged, Jill nodded at the rapier point, resting in Cooper’s hand.

She wanted to touch it—it was why she’d picked it out of the sand in the first place, and kept it. It still seemed to whisper secrets to her, just out of her hearing.

“How does it work?” Jill asked.

Cooper gazed over the water. “That’s ‘How does it work, sir.’”

Jill glared. “Sir. How does it work? How does it know?”

“Blane’s got the rest of the sword,” she said. “That’s how.”

“Can it do anything else?” Jill asked. Like reveal the secret of how she got here, and how to get home.

Regarding the pitted steel, Cooper shrugged. “I don’t know. The sword it came from has power—that’s why it wants to get back. What do you think it can do?”

“I don’t know. But I think it has something to do with me.”

This time, Cooper looked at her, her eyes narrowed, showing wrinkles from so much time squinting in the sun. “You do, do you? What, then?”

If she could explain it, she wouldn’t need to ask. “All I know is I found it, then I fell into the water, and then all this happened.” Jill spread her arm to show the Diana, its crew, and the ocean around them.

“And you think, somehow, this has the power to undo it all?”

“I don’t want to undo it—” And Jill stopped, because she didn’t want to forget this. She didn’t want it to have never happened, even the worst parts, like the battle, the amputated arm, and the slave ship. She wanted to remember Nanny, the nighttime sky, and learning to fight with Henry. “But I want to go home. And if some kind of magic brought me here, then it can send me back.”

Cooper might have yelled at her about being part of the crew and never going home; but she didn’t. Instead, she looked sad, her expression turning soft. Jill hadn’t expected that.

“Get back to work, Tadpole,” Cooper said finally. Jill did so.

During the evening meal, Captain Cooper called for order and addressed the crew.

“Blane’s headed east, that’s all I know,” she said, her voice carrying.

“It’s what a bit of rotten steel told you,” Jenks said, a thought echoed by noises of agreement. The soiled bandage over his eye made him seem even more surly.

“Aye, and we all have reason enough to curse the man and do what we can to keep him off these waters. He’s never done a one of us any favors.”

“None’s arguing with you there, Captain. But we haven’t taken a real prize in weeks. We signed on for the loot, not a bloody foxhunt.”

“We take Blane, we take his loot,” Cooper said.

“If he don’t sink us first,” another man said—John, one of Jenks’s mates. More grumbling followed.

The captain went on. “Here’s my notion: We sail to Nassau. Refit what we need, unload what we have to unload—drink us a bit of ale while we’re there.” Murmurs of agreement met this idea. “And we can also get word about Blane and where he’s gone to, and what he’s planning.”

Jenks was still frowning when he stood and said, “I call for a vote.”

“Where else do you suggest we go?” Cooper said.