Being foreign means being a loner. The locals assume they know everything there is to know about you from reputation, and they don't ask questions beyond confirming what they already believe. Does it really take a full day to walk from one end of Char-Kermen to another? You don't say! Are there obelisks made of a single crystal in the Far South? Do cedars grow twice as tall in the Safic Isles as they do on the mainland? Truly?

Since I knew what everyone else in Palmyr knew about people from the Safic Isles—pirates, traders, mercenaries and wanderers by turns, depending on the shadowy internal affairs of their fog-cloaked archipelago—I knew how to pass for one.

I also looked the part after plucking all my hair. The clothes Kozima gave me were simpler than my former acolyte's garb. My bald head shone like the Lodestar. My compact, muscular physique would easily pass for that of a sailor used to climbing ropes and pulling oars all day.

I should have sounded more confident when I accosted the first fisher I met in the docks.

"I heard that Lydia's captain is looking for help—"

"What's the ship's name?"

"Ah. Just heard Lydia—"

He ignored me and hurried away. Same with the second fisherman. And the third... My heart caught when an old woman nodded towards a boat without lifting her eyes from the nets she was menting. "There it is, the Naiad."

"Thank you kindly, Mistress!" Now I just needed Divine Mansoora to grant me a little more luck. If Naiad's captain was willing to hire, then I'd be killing two birds with one stone. I would earn my livelihood and get closer to the woman courting my Kozima.

"You must be desperate, Safic, to go work for Lydia and Sharim. Bad luck innit. Cursed luck." After this encouraging send off, my interlocutor bent her head a fraction lower over her work.

She wasn't wrong about my current condition and she took me for a Safic. that's how I wanted to appear at the docks. Just another foreigner down on her luck. So, I ran out of reasons to provide her with shade from the rising sun. I murmured my thanks and headed for the Naiad.

It didn't look any different from the rest of the haphazard flotilla. Not run down or anything. Maybe on the smaller side, and with only a single triangular sail. But so what? To Divine Mansoora, all ships in Palmyr's harbor from the proud ladies-of-war with the rows of oars and many sails to the coconut shells bobbing on the waves of Their waters were the same.

I took my cue from Them, not from the grumpy old woman. The Naiad was a boat like any other. Made of wood with the help of nails and tarred till its body was slick and black. Being Lydia's boat, the crew of five visible on the Naiad's deck must have been the pearl divers rather than fishers.

There my expertise ran out. Not much for someone who pretended to be born on the high seas, but I was confident I could wing it.

I pulled in a chest-full of air and shouted, "Ahoy! On the Naiad!"

A woman in a faded leather vest, canvas pants and a blue bandana holding back a mop of corkscrew curls frowned. "Get lost! I sail wherever I want. If the chicken-shits can't watch their backsides, it ain't my fault."

"Don't let me stop you, Captain Sharim." I stuck my thumbs behind my belt. "I heard there's a job on your Naiad."

Sharim—who else would be yelling with so much authority aboard a boat but the Captain?— looked me up and down. "You're Safic?"

"Yup. Got into a fight over a man, was put off the ship for it. I'm now waiting for another Safic merchant to turn into the port. But a woman has to eat..."

That last bit of my almost-true tale came out more plaintively than I intended. Kozima had found a coil of rope to lower me down the sea-facing section of the wall (and promised to pull me up at sundown), so I had to leave before we could steal a single crumb from the refectory. While kissing him on the top of the wall with his back pressed against the marvelous stone monster, I thought of the mantis. How they break fast on the mate after a night of passion... and my belly rumbled with hunger.

Sharim squinted at me. "You're too old to teach you a diver's trade."

My brows nearly flew off my face and into the azure sky. Where were you all my life, lovely woman? And why weren't you with the Deadheads in place of Miccola?

"I'm too old? That's the first!"

"I can see how that comes as a pleasant surprise." She made a deprecative gesture referring to my height. "But to hold their breath for as long as they need to and work while at it, my divers learn to swim before they walk."

It didn't sound like an obstacle someone strong of spirit couldn't overcome. I felt my jaw jutting forward. "Look, Captain, I'm a natural. Try me out for a day, and you'll see my worth. I swim like a shark."

Ah, I shouldn't have interrupted. Her chapped lips pinched into a tight line. She didn't keep them sealed for long though. "Don't take me for an idiot, Safic! As the sky is blue, all the islanders know their way in Mansoora's waters."

Out of the two of us, I was the bigger idiot. Safic, I am Safic, by Gala's... no, by Mansoora's life-giving breath! "Sorry, Captain."

Still not good enough—she dismissed my blurted words with a wave of her hand. "One can't sew sails out of a sorry."

The four divers on board twisted away to hide their grins. I wagered they had been on the receiving end of Sharim's temperament and talkative nature dozens of times per day.

So, I said nothing and waited her out.

Sharim couldn't stay silent for long. "We've established that you're of no use to me as a diver, Safic. But did they teach you to fight? Did they—"

"Yes." Again, I shouldn't have cut her off, but the excitement seized me. I thought I'd be suffering through boring chores on a fishing boat, but at the talk of fighting my ears pricked and my spine snapped straight. Were I a horse, I'd pawed the ground with my hoof.

Upon flashing me an irritated glance, she went on, this time shortening the breath intake pauses.

"I'm of a mind to harvest a reef patrolled by an ancient barracuda. Other captains think she's Mansoora's pet, but I shot arrows at her. She's just a vicious fish, like any other. Told so to others, but they're pissing themselves like craven men. They curse me, tell tales how I'm luring the monster out of her lair. I want to keep the bloody barracuda at bay, and I need help with that. Want the job, Safic?"

"Even if I can't dive?" Sort of. I dove into the sea of her speech with my objection after all.

"Simple enough. The divers dive. We, on deck, watch for their distress floats and the black shadows in the water. You see a shadow, you toss a spear. Or you dive in, shallow-like, and hit the barracuda with a spear. Any Safic should be able to dive this much."

I nodded to uphold the honor of my pretend motherland, but she was on the roll.

"While you fight, I'll keep the ship level and shoot arrows. The bad fish runs, you come back up. Want the job?"

Fighting! The glint in my eyes must have been a sufficient answer, because she chuckled before going on.

"Don't think it's an easy gig. The barracuda took a bite out of my previous spotter. She also chewed a leg at the knee from a diver on another ship. That's why the position is vacant. Still want it?"

Nobody was holding a mirror up to me at that moment, but something told me that I was grinning from ear to ear. "You bet! And my stomach is so empty, that your barracuda should fear me taking a bite out of her, not the other way around."

"You're hired," Sharim said.

My heart rejoiced not only because I found a job without groveling, but because her propensity to talk, plus my job description meant I'd be listening to her for hours each day. Probably the owner of the boat would be the prime topic aside from the barracuda. I would know everything there was to know about Lydia before the week was out.

Divines favored my plan, it was plain as the noon sun to see.

Not the woman to squander away Divines' favor, I poured all my attention into learning as soon as possible how to fake my credentials as a seafarer.

I pointed at things and asked what they called them in Palmyr and said things like, "Please, show me how you do this in Palmyr." Who wouldn't love to teach a humble foreigner how to do things the right way, which, of course, was the Palmyran way?

To be honest, the rules on the seas were few. If someone rushes at you, looking purposeful, keep clear, because the boat is small. Shoot everything living that steals your catch. Tie down whatever came loose. Easy as eating flatbread.

Oh, I forgot one more rule! Cuss everything that gets in your way or might.

So, I shipped with Sharim and her divers, while the gulf and the sky competed for the title of the bluest thing in the Knowable World.

Over the first day on the boat and the next morning, the subject of Lydia didn't come up, so I decided to push my luck a little. "So, Lydia, our owner, how's she? Fair?"

Sharim cuffed me, but I dodged the slap. She clicked her tongue in approval of my reflexes, but jerked her thumb toward the water.

"Mansoora kills anyone who doesn't pay attention to Them. Stop flapping your tongue and work."

Between the two of us, we had already killed two small sharks and chased away a large one. Pulled up and stacked the baskets with the oysters. Helped the divers oil themselves before the dives. I pulled up one of the crew who got a bad cramp out of the water. And the weather was perfect for sailing.

In short, Sharim had no cause to complain. She just didn't want to talk about Lydia.

I gripped my spear tighter and stared overboard, scouting the water for the sea monsters. To be honest, I believed that Sharim invented her giant barracuda to scare the competition away from the reef rich in oysters. If it goes like it went so far, no way she'd keep her mouth shut for the rest of the day. No way... it wasn't in her nature to stay silent.

"Lydia's fair," she said at last. Not much to go on, except Sharim's voice was unusually dull.

I licked my lips, tasting salt. The only follow up question I could think of was a stupid one. "Does she mind you harvesting here? Near the monster barracuda?"

Sharim scoffed. "No. She doesn't care."

And she wasted an arrow shooting at the passing gull, where normally a strong cuss had sufficed.

I resolved to watch the two women together when we would unload the day's catch. There was a story there, and my every instinct screamed that Sharim held the key to my secret task of breaking Lydia's courtship.