Steel

Read leaned close, and the conversation turned hushed. “You really want to see Edmund Blane? You know what you’re doing?”

“Yes, I do,” Jill said, earnest, bluffing. She wasn’t sure Read really believed her.

“I’ll tell you what we told Marjory. Blane’s up to something. Well, he’s always up to something, but this is more than usual. He’s not like the rest of us. Most of us who go on the account do it ’cause we’re sick of taking orders from wicked captains who get rich off our labor. Out here, we have our code and our articles because that’s what’s fair. We’re not so lawless, we have some honor, and most of all that means treating each other right. Blane’s different, and if you want dealings with him you should know that. That rotten dog would be the king of all pirates if he could. Turn the Caribbean into his own empire. He ain’t out here to live his life, he’s in it for power.”

And Jill knew: the power of a sword that called out to a broken piece of itself across the whole ocean. That drove Captain Cooper to such a rage.

“That’s why Captain Cooper hates him so much?”

“For her it’s personal,” Read said.

“Why doesn’t anyone else stop him?”

“Because a lot of men think like Blane, and they’ll join up with him, happy for just a scrap of the power he promises. He’s building an army that way. That lots of men are willing to sell themselves for a scrap of power is why the world’s in the state it’s in, isn’t it?”

“Where can I find him?” Jill said

“Let me ask you something first. Cooper says you had a piece of his old rapier—how did you get it?”

“I told her—I just found it. Washed up in the sand.”

Read studied her in earnest, as if trying to decide if she was lying. Jill glared, because she could tell the truth all she wanted, but what good did it do if no one believed her?

“He’ll be wanting it back,” the pirate said. “If he thinks you have it, he’ll come looking for you.”

“Maybe I should find him first then, right?” That was always a good fencing strategy—take the offensive.

“He’s got a camp,” Read said, lowering her voice even more. “Somewhere on the coast, no one really knows where. He doesn’t even come into town for supplies. But walk straight east of here until you find the shore again. Then go south. But chances are you won’t find anything at all.”

“Thank you,” Jill said, though when Read scowled she wished she hadn’t.

“If I see Marjory, I’m telling her where you’ve gone.”

Jill turned and slipped out of the tavern quickly. Heads turned, following her progress. So much for being secretive.

Outside, away from the lights and noise, she looked into the trees behind the tavern, and up at the sky. She may not have had the stars worked out after spending weeks on a sailing ship at sea, but she could judge direction by the position of the waning moon overhead. She knew which way east was, and started heading that way.

She held her rapier close to her leg to keep it from knocking and getting tangled up in vegetation. Progress was slow—without a path, she had to pick her way around tangled shru

bs and crawling vines.

She couldn’t get lost, she told herself. This was an island—if she walked long enough she’d simply reach ocean again. But she felt like she was walking far too long, past when she should have reached Blane’s camp. Read hadn’t said how far away it was.

All this assumed she continued walking in a straight line. She couldn’t navigate by the moon and stars anymore—the sky was hidden by the tall, reaching canopy of the forest. After what felt like an hour of thinking the trees all looked the same, she wondered. She studied a grove where three trunks grew close together, surrounded by a dense thicket, tiny white flowers growing over it on vines. When she set off again, she made sure to walk in a straight line—how hard could it be? She fenced, which meant training on straight lines, fighting on straight lines. If nothing else, she knew how to walk in a straight line.

Except there was the grove again, and she was sure now it was the third or fourth time she’d seen it, the trees, thicket, and flowers together.

Nothing seemed fantastic to her anymore, and a horrible idea occurred to her. She’d stepped out of one strange time loop, the one that had brought her to the historical Bahamas and the land of pirates, and into another—a loop of endless wandering in this cool nighttime forest.

Instead of continuing forward this time, she turned around and started walking back the way she’d come—the way she thought she’d come. She could get back to Nassau, back to the pirate tavern, ask Mary Read what she’d done wrong or find someone who could really help her and not lead her astray. If anyone in this world could really help her, and that was the trouble, wasn’t it? How did you trust a pack of pirates? Henry wasn’t around to ask—and he’d always been happy to answer her questions. She missed having someone to trust. And yes, she realized. She trusted him. Maybe she should have asked him to come along.

She walked faster, determined to get out of the trap.

However focused she was on the way ahead, she saw it when a man stepped out of the undergrowth to her left. He loomed forward, arms outstretched as he lunged for her, and she skittered away, putting her hand on the hilt of her sword.

A pair of men appeared behind her, another pair in front of her, and she was surrounded. They leered at her as if this was a game, as if she was an animal they had hunted down and cornered, and now the real fun began. She could try to dart away, try to run and duck out of their reach, but they had placed themselves with just enough space for her to think she could escape. To encourage her to escape so they could have the pleasure of capturing her. It was a feint to try to draw her into a stupid move, like she’d done in fencing a hundred times. She didn’t fall for it, but kept her place, circling, trying to keep the half dozen of them in view at the same time. She was too tense to be frightened, too ready to fight her way out. Time enough to be scared later.

Then they looked away from her, and that made her even more nervous, because they’d turned their attention to a new figure who’d stopped outside their circle.