Steel

Jill resisted an urge to pull the sword away from them. “What about me? What if it could send me home?”

After a long, silent moment, Cooper met Jill’s gaze, as intent as Jill had ever seen her. “If it can be done, we will learn how and do it. And if it can’t—you’ll have a place among us here until the end of all our days.”

“Pirates don’t tend to live all that long, do they?” Jill said. Cooper turned away.

Tennant leaned in through the doorway. “Boat ahoy, sir.”

“There it is, then. When everyone’s on board, we run. And keep it quiet.” Cooper looked at her. “Jill, lass, will you let me lock the sword up? Blane can’t ever find it. If he got hold of it and the shard together, he’d have all the power he wants.”

“You won’t get rid of it without telling me?” Jill said.

“You have my word.”

Pirate honor. Jill believed her, and set the rapier in the trunk. The captain locked it and gave Jill the key. “Blane will never have this, will he?”

“No, sir,” Jill said. Cooper returned the broken tip to her belt pouch. “Not like I need it to find Blane now, when he’ll come find us.”

The flight began.

As soon as the other rowboat appeared, the crew on board the schooner began setting sails. Jill climbed into the rigging with them to unfurl sails and secure lines, while others began raising anchor. By the time the last rowboat was secured, the ship was underway.

Jill wouldn’t have guessed it was possible, but the Diana sailed away from Nassau unnoticed, with all her crew aboard. Abe hissed his commands, the crew scrambled to their positions, and sails unfolded like petals on a flower at dawn. Water splashed, wood creaked, lines and canvas snapped, but all the ships at anchor shifted, creaked, and moaned, restless murmurs on an ever-moving sea. The tide and a cool night breeze were with them. The current flowed out to sea, tugging the schooner with it, and the wind pushed them along. By lantern light and hushed voices, they left the town with its boisterous parties and blazing taverns—and Edmund Blane’s plots—behind.

The wind was with them, and the seas were calm. They couldn’t have asked for a better escape. It seemed a good omen. Jill imagined Blane still onshore, his men hunting through the forest for her; or maybe he stood on the shore at Nassau, watching his rapier and his enemies sailing away.

Or maybe, and this was probably most likely, he was hoisting sails on his own ship to give chase.

STOP THRUST

It must have been close to midnight; the moon was sinking toward the west, and Jill was too nervous to sleep. Her eyes ached with exhaustion, but when she lay down in a hammock belowdecks, her head rang with imagined noises—the flick of steel against steel, distant cannon fire. If she slept, Blane would slit her throat. If he was going to kill her, she would be on her feet, giving him a run for his money when he did.

Maybe she was getting used to being a pirate after all.

She went up on deck to watch the waves, hoping the view would help her relax and make her headache go away. At the prow, she felt the full breeze of their passage, away from the shelter of the sails. Leaning on the edge, she felt like she was flying. It was almost a perfect moment, sitting near the bowsprit of a schooner under full sail, plowing through the waves of an open sea. She licked her lips to taste the salt spray and tipped her head back to let the wind tangle her hair. Above, sails framed a diamond-studded sky. She could forget why she was here, and that she didn’t belong. She’d forget it all for the moment.

Henry cleared his throat, startling her. The noise was a warning, to let her know that he approached, inching along the gunwales, asking by gesture—slouched shoulders and a sheepish expression—if he could join her. She didn’t say anything, trying not to let on that he’d surprised her, and her muscles had tensed back to fighting readiness. He settled himself near her, close enough to reach out to her, but far enough to let her scramble out of the way if he tried. She’d never seen him so skittish.

“Hi,” she said to break the tension. His anxiety was making her more nervous.

“Hullo,” he said. A few more moments passed; Jill listened to the waves slapping against the hull and felt the familiar rolling of the ship.

“You all right, then?” Henry said.

“Did you know?” she asked. “About Captain Cooper, and what Blane did to her.” And their child, their little girl…That sword was haunted, Jill knew now.

Henry shook his head. “No, none of us knew, not even Abe, and they’ve been sailing together forever. We didn’t know why she hated Blane, only that she did.”

“It’s awful,” she said. The words seemed so inadequate.

“Aye,” he said. “It’s an awful thing.”

“If I’d known before, when I challenged him—I’d have been too scared.”

“And if you face him again?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“How are you, then?”