My heartbeat skips and I feel light-headed. Am I already so thoroughly gone from myself that a spyglass and a suggestion of a ghost ship are enough to send me nearly plummeting into a storm-tossed sea? Or was I looking for an excuse to do that anyway? How long can a man live with his own mind against him?
Breathe, Adrian. Breathe.
I look over at Monty, his face slick and his eyelids twitching in fitful sleep. Sweat beads along his hairline, and his breath is labored. His greatcoat has slipped onto the floor, and when I pick it up, something crinkles in the pocket. I pull out a weathered piece of paper folded into a triangle. It takes me a moment to realize what it is—the letter from my mother. The one she sent him about the spyglass.
My fingers twitch. I want to rip it open and read it. I want to know what she told him.
But I tuck it back into his pocket and wrap the coat around him again. Then I reach down and take his hand. I feel silly as soon as I do, but I don’t let go. “You can’t die, all right?” I say, to him. To myself. To no one. “Please don’t. You’re a prick, but you can’t die. I need . . . I need you to . . .” I press my forehead against the edge of the bunk, listening to him breathe.
“Here, I’ll give you five reasons why you can’t die.” I start to tick them off, pressing a corresponding finger into his skin. “One, I still have ninety-seven questions on my list to ask you. I lost the list, but I think I can remember at least ninety-six of them. Or come up with new ones. Two, we have to find out what happened to . . . God, I honestly can’t remember if her name is Veronica or Felicity. And three, I know you think it’s daft, but there’s something about this spyglass. We have to find out where it came from and why she . . .” I want to touch it to make certain it’s still in my pocket, but instead I press on. “Four, I want to know if you ever thought about me and wondered what I was doing, and who you thought I was and if who I am is disappointing. And I want to know who your friends were when you were home, and whether I know their sons, and where you liked to drink and play billiards, and whether you know Edward Davies and whether you hate Richard Peele as much as I do, and then I can tell you the story about punching him in the face and maybe you’ll like me a bit more. I want you to meet Louisa. At least she’d have the nerve to tell you off when you’re cruel to me. But also I think you’d like her. And five, you can’t die because I can’t be alone. And I need you here because you’re my family. We’ve both lost our sister, and our mother, and maybe they meant different things to us but without Mum I don’t know if I can . . .” I press my forehead against our linked hands. I swear I can still feel the outline of the stave on the back of mine. “Please, Monty. Something’s wrong with me and I can’t be alone with it anymore.”
There’s a knock on the cabin door, and I look up, dropping Monty’s hand quickly. George is standing on the threshold, door already open, and I feel myself go red. I’m about to ask him how much of that he overheard, but he speaks before I can.
“There’s a ship.” My heart jumps, though George’s tone doesn’t match the thrill of this news. “A vessel from the east. They’ve run up a flag in response—they’re coming to help us.”
“That’s good,” I say. “That’s good—isn’t it? Why don’t you look happy about that?”
He runs a hand over his chin, scratching at the stubble. I can tell he’s trying not to look at Monty. “It’s the commodore’s ship.”
“The commodore, as in the commodore of the Crown and Cleaver?” I ask, and George nods gravely. “I thought we were clear of their routes.”
“We’re far off our original course,” he replies. “And they might have changed theirs when they saw our flares.”
“But if they’re coming,” I say, “it’s to help us.”
“Only they might not know who it is they’ve come to help.”
“Will they . . . ?” I have no idea how to finish. There are a hundred equally ominous endings crowding my brain. I swallow, and try to put a positive spin on a grave query. “They won’t kill us, will they?”
George doesn’t seem to share the same optimism. He also doesn’t answer, which is alarming. He pushes his hair backward, then lets it fall forward into his eyes again. “When they arrive, say as little as possible unless you’re addressed directly. Don’t tell them about Monty. Or mention your sister. Or your name. Or that you don’t have the ink. Or that you were in—just let me handle it.”
“Of course,” I say. I like nothing better than letting someone else handle things.
“And whatever you do,” he says, “don’t speak directly to the commodore.”
The Eleftheria is a small ship made skeleton by the storm, but in comparison to the commodore’s, she looks like a rowboat. Even if our yards hadn’t been hanging in splinters between the masts, they would have bested us in any competition. The name is painted on the prow, the sunlight flashing off the red letters, then, beneath it, in English characters, the Dey. It’s not a word I know the meaning of, and, though it looks it, I’m fairly certain it’s not simply a misspelling. We’re not in England anymore, I remind myself.
Ven, our navigator, drops a ladder down to the longboats approaching from their starboard, and our small crew stands in a line on deck. The first is made up of half a dozen burly dark-skinned pirates, all of them men save for a small woman in loose-fitting duds with her head wrapped in a turquoise scarf. She has enormous eyes and a heart-shaped face, her features so large that she looks like a broadside illustration.
George and the other sailors salute when they see her. I don’t know if I’m meant to as well, so I touch two fingers to my forehead as a precaution. The gesture feels silly and foreign, like I’m an actor in a play. God, what I wouldn’t give for a script to follow right now, some forewarning as to how this next scene is about to play out. My chest is constricting, making it hard to breathe with anything resembling normality. Too heavy, too fast. My pulse is going to pop through my neck.
The woman extends her hand, and George takes it at the wrist. “Good to see you, George,” she says, then moves down the line, addressing each member of the crew by name. She only hesitates when she reaches me. “I . . . can’t remember your name.”
“I don’t think we’ve met,” I reply.
“Are you sure?” She tips her head and studies me, like I’m a painting in a museum and she can’t remember the artist. I wonder if she sees Monty in my face, or my sister, or maybe just another pale European intruding where he is not welcome. “You look familiar.”
I glance at George, and, over the woman’s shoulder, he gives me a tiny shake of the head. I panic, not sure what to say as she stands, waiting for a response, watching me with those huge eyes. I look down at her shoes, black leather boots worn soft around the toes, with wide-leg pants nipped in above them. How long can a person stare at a stranger’s feet before they are required to say something?
Thank God we are interrupted by the next boat’s crew starting up the ladder, these men louder than the first, and more armed—or at least more obvious about it. They have pistols strapped to their backs and a kitchen of knives dangling from their belts. They’re all dressed in red, like the color is a uniform. The woman turns from me to the men climbing aboard, and I whisper to George, “Is she the commodore?”