Steel

At some point near dawn, Jill stumbled down off the mainmast, clinging to ropes while half asleep and nearly missing a couple of her grips. She was too tired and angry to be frightened by her near misses. She made it belowdecks and into a hammock and must have slept for an hour or so. Noises above deck and sunlight coming in through the hatch awakened her.

Startled, she swung out of the hammock, half falling, and looked for a sword or pistol, sure that the battle had started. But no, there hadn’t been any cannon fire. No one shouted in a panic. The deck above echoed with the sound of something being hauled across it, and of Captain Cooper calling out orders.

Jill climbed up on deck and blinked in the sunlight.

In a clear space in the middle of the deck, a large crate had been set, and cannonballs stacked in the crate. Nearby, members of the crew were breaking up other crates, building a pile of splintered wood.

“What’s going on?” Jill said. Of all the strangeness she’d seen and learned since arriving on the Diana, this made the least sense.

Abe, who had been walking along the deck, smiled at her. “We’re going to build a fire without burning down the ship. What do you think?”

Jill shook her head. “Why?”

“You’ll see. You’ll like it.”

She could only stare, baffled.

Then Captain Cooper joined them. “Tadpole, you’ll need to get Blane’s sword from the chest. We’re going to see about mending it.”

FORTE

The crew had a former blacksmith among them—Tennant, it turned out. But before they could mend the sword, they had to see about building a makeshift forge on the deck of the Diana—without damaging the ship. They didn’t dare put into land on one of the scattered islands. Blane would reach them before they’d even brought the equipment to shore. They had to keep moving.

They managed to build a forge using the stove from the galley and cannonballs to protect the deck. Tennant lit the fire and put crew to work keeping it stoked.

Hands trembling, Jill fetched the sword from the captain’s strongbox. As the weapon came into the light, the steel seemed to gleam more brightly, light singing off the edge. She ran a finger along the flat of the blade, then along the curve of the hilt. Trying to feel any power coming off it, listening for some message. It may have been her imagination that the metal had a reddish tinge. She couldn’t help but think of the story behind the sword, and she almost dropped it back into the trunk. Maybe Cooper was right, and they should just get rid of it.

But what if it really was the key?

On deck, Captain Cooper met her near the forge, now blazing with heat, and produced the broken tip of the blade.

“I’m still not sure this is the right thing to do,” Cooper said.

Jill glanced at the sword and her heart ached. This was all she could think of. The alternative was running away, farther and farther from where she belonged with every mile.

“I’m not su

re, either,” she admitted. “But we have to try.”

“Aye,” the captain said. Then her lips turned in the smile she donned before battle. “We’ll finish the ruddy bastard off once and for all. What say you, ready to give Blane’s sword back to him point first?”

The crew cheered. Jill raised the broken sword and shouted with them.

They gave the two pieces to Tennant, who seemed daunted, his lips pursed and grim. The gunnery mate used a tong to set the lengths of steel into the stove, then stripped off his shirt and tied it around his waist.

A barrel of water waited nearby, secured to the mast to keep it steady, in case a fire broke out.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew worked to keep the ship away from Blane and the Heart’s Revenge for as long as it took to repair the sword.

Captain Cooper steered them into a network of islands, part of some ancient mountain range where only the peaks emerged from the water. Navigating around the verdant, jutting islands and reefs slowed their progress, but Blane would have a harder time following them. So Cooper hoped, and for a time the Heart’s Revenge fell behind. They hid behind islands, then changed their course, hoping to be well ahead by the time Blane realized he was going the wrong way.

“He’ll loop around the whole mess, I’ll wager, catch us as we come out of this,” Abe said, his hands tight on the wheel at the helm, watching the path carefully. Several of the crew kept watch, shouting out directions and noting obstacles, reefs and sandbars.

“Perhaps. But to do that he’s got to guess where we’ll come out,” Cooper said.

Jill wondered if Blane could sense his sword. He wouldn’t have to guess, he’d just know where it was and feel it traveling toward him.

Over a dinner of boiled stew and hard bread, sitting near the bowsprit, Jill told Henry her fears.