When I don’t speak, Saad runs a hand over his shaved head. The gold knobs of his rings glitter in the streetlights. He must think me possessed, or dying, or insane. He might be right on any of those counts. If he had any sense, he’d get up, walk straight back to the harbor, board the Dey, and leave me to my insanity.
But instead, he shifts his weight, so he’s not crouched but sitting beside me.
“It just has to pass,” he says, partly a question, partly an instruction. He reaches into his coat, then takes my hand and presses the spyglass into it. I close my fist around the cracked edge until it cuts me. Saad sits with me and we wait together, beneath the black sky, a painted ship crowning us as the world around me fills with water. “Just let it pass.”
I’m not sure how steady I’ll be on my feet, but considering the hour and the number of taverns, my wobbling gait doesn’t stand out overmuch as Saad and I walk to the harbor. The Dey is one of the largest ships moored there, imposing and sturdy among the skeletal fishing boats and schooners. The spikes of cannons and swivel guns poke out from its hull. Even at rest, it’s ready for a fight.
As we climb the gangplank, a shadow stretches suddenly in front of us, and when I look up, Sim is standing there, blocking our path. “Adrian?” she calls, pulling back the shade on the brass lantern hanging from the lines. It’s hardly more than a flicker, but I feel as though I’ve stepped from darkness into midday summer sun, and I flinch. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s not your concern.” Saad tries to push by her, but Sim blocks his path, her small body planted like a boulder. “Adrian,” she says again, looking past her brother to where I’m still standing. “Why are you here? Where’s Felicity?”
“Adrian is coming with us,” Saad says. “That’s all you need to know.”
She still doesn’t move. On deck, several of the crew have stopped their work and are watching, dark shapes against the navy sky.
Saad pushes himself against her, nose to nose, his chest puffed out. “You do as I say,” he growls. “When I tell you we have a heading, you set the course. When I tell you Adrian’s coming, you don’t ask why.”
Sim stares at him for a moment, then steps back. I think she’s retreating, deferring yet again to her brother, but then she shakes her head and says, “I’m done, Saad.”
Saad raises his chin. “What did you say to me?”
“I’m not doing this. I’m not playing along with your whims anymore.”
“You were dismissed—” Saad starts, but Sim interrupts him.
“I made a mistake,” she says. “I won’t deny that. But I am only a liability if I continue to sit by and let you run this fleet into the ground.”
“Things will change,” Saad says. “Everything will change after this heading. Please, Sim.” His voice cracks, and I remember, he’s just a boy, and Sim is his sister. He probably grew up idolizing her, watching her study and fight and learn at their father’s right hand, never expecting he’d have to take her place. “Trust me,” he says, so quiet only she and I can hear. “Please.”
“I have trusted you for far too long,” she says. “And I trusted our father for far too long before that. You know and I know and all of these men”—she casts a hand behind her at the crew assembled on the deck, none of them even pretending not to listen anymore—“know you should not be at the head of this fleet. I trained and studied and prepared my whole life for a role that was taken from me unfairly because our father was old and out of his mind and hated women. I have watched you make mistake after mistake after mistake and never face consequences, whereas a single wrong decision defined my entire life.” She raises her hands and takes another step back from him, onto the deck. “I’m done. I’m not going to let you destroy this fleet because this is my home and my family and I care for every man and woman who sails beneath our banner.”
“So this is a mutiny?” Saad demands. He has his arms crossed, hands balled into fists and pressed into his sides.
“Only if you want it to be,” Sim says.
Saad glares at her, then stalks to the top of the gangplank to address the men standing behind her. The lamplight polishes his bald head, a sheen of sweat starting to break out along it. “Who agrees with her?” he demands. “Will any of you stand against me on the side of a mutineer?”
There’s a pause. The silence pulls as tight as the string of a violin. Then one of the men steps forward. “I am with Sim,” he says.
And the first tree falls.
The rest of the crew assemble behind her, shoulder to shoulder.
Sim extends a hand to me, offering a place among them. “Come on, Adrian,” she says. “Let’s get you home. I’ll help you find Felicity.”
But I can’t. I can’t. I still can’t breathe and I can’t think about that letter and I can’t leave Saad—I cannot leave behind the only ally I have left. The only person who believes in the Flying Dutchman the way I do. The only other person who needs it to be true.
“I’m going with Saad,” I say. Sim gapes at me, and I half expect her to tell me I don’t know what I’m saying. In her defense, my words come out so cluttered and strained and barely understandable that I certainly don’t sound as if I do.
“Adrian,” she says again, with more emphasis this time, like maybe I just didn’t hear her before. “Come on.”
“He can choose for himself,” Saad says.
Sim snaps her fingers, then points to the ground, like she’s calling a dog. “Come here, both of you.” She looks meaningfully at her brother. “This isn’t your ship anymore, Saad, but you still have a place on it, and in the fleet. I’ll take you home.”
“I would rather die,” Saad spits.
“No you wouldn’t,” Sim says. “Come on, Saad, it’s not too late.”
But Saad has already turned his back on her, stomping down the gangplank. “Too late for you, Sim,” he shouts. “This is treason!”
Sim’s shoulders sink, and she looks to me one final time. “Adrian . . .”
But I turn and follow Saad.
28
One of the yawls from the Dey is moored in the harbor, having been sent ahead before the warship itself squeezed into port. It has a single mast, with the mainsail low to the deck running parallel to the prow.
It is in this doll-sized boat that Saad and I will sail to Iceland to meet the Dutchman.
I fall asleep on the deck soon after we depart, but don’t sleep long. When I wake, my whole body aches like I spent the day before scrambling up boulders. My muscles are wobbly, and I still can’t draw a proper deep breath. My head is pounding, and the skin of my face feels tight. I stretch my fingers and my jaw, astonished by how much they hurt. The lines of my palm are scabbed with dried blood from where I rubbed the skin off without realizing it.
“Are you all right?”
I sit up. Saad is standing at the helm of the yawl, one arm looped over the wheel like it’s an old friend. Amsterdam is behind us, close enough that it’s still a soot smudge on the horizon.