Novari kept her body very still as the Avourienne sailed out to open water. She could look back at Canale, burning a fiery death, but she chose to keep it behind her forever. Kiera's face, Edward's pistol, the bloodshed.

Instead of thinking of any of that, Novari pressed the balls of her feet into the wood of the deck, rolling her weight, trying to get used to the moving surface again. She glanced at Bardarian, in front of her, subtly gesturing to his first mate, Everson, to hand him a pistol.

Novari rolled her weight onto her toes again, otherwise still. He was looking out at the ocean, rolling his shoulders, pretending to be nonchalant. His hand twisted so he could maneuver the gun more quickly, then let his finger drift to the trigger. Novari watched it carefully, her muscles jumping with anticipation. She couldn't move too soon; she couldn't move too late.

Bardarian whirled around, the pistol low on his body, aimed out at her. He was fast for his size, but speed was her thing. She reached out, flipped the weapon and pressed it to his neck.

The crew all snapped into motion, bringing out their pistols, forming their circle, ready. He held up his hands so no one would move, shaking his head a little in disbelief. "You never lose a round, do you?" he asked, calm beyond Novari's comprehension. He liked his ship, and reuniting with her gave him a knifelike confidence.

"Liar," she whispered, the word barely audible over the gentle wind. His eyes followed her lips as she spoke the words, "We had a deal."

He looked up at her eyes, salty sea spray twirling strands of his hair into his face. He dropped his hands back to his sides. Novari placed the palm of her hand flat against his shoulder, where she'd be able to feel preliminary muscle movements.

"I'll keep the deal," he told her. "Precautions first."

"You promised me a position on this ship," she hissed.

"You'll have it," he replied. "If I decide you're safe to keep."

Novari kept the pistol steady. She dug it into his trachea a little, but he didn't squirm.

"Don't blame me," he told her, his voice stern but kind. "I just witnessed you kill your friends and turn your back on everyone you were once loyal to."

"For you."

"Not for me," he started. Novari had her hand on his dominant shoulder, which should've alerted her to his movements—a trick she used consistently, and one he must've known, because he rolled his opposite shoulder at the same time he twisted his head, tucking the pistol into his jaw and clamping it. He slid the barrel over her shoulder before she had time to duck, to move, to comprehend what had happened. "For yourself," he corrected, keeping a firm hand behind her neck to keep her still. He wasn't pointing the barrel at her, but he could with just the jerk of his fingers.

Novari felt her heart stutter for a second. She didn't get beat. She didn't get pistols taken from her. She didn't even understand what happened.

"It's just experience," he explained. "Everyone does that trick. You'd know that, if you lived out in the real world more often."

Never. Never had she felt so out of control as she did in this instant. Never had she felt like nothing in her life was hers to manipulate and change. If he'd been condescending, rude, insulting just to be insulting—maybe then this would be easier. But it was the kindness and the reasonability that drove her mad.

Her fingers itched, ready to put him back in his place. Experience was an attribute of his, but she could beat him. Easily. Easily. She'd put the barrel of that pistol in his mouth.

As her fingers curled to make her move, his chin moved just a fraction of an inch, and she understood. He wanted to make the crew believe he was better than her, if only for experience, and he was forcing her to help create that image.

His current issue with her was her lack of loyalty. He didn't trust her, and if she should turn this into a fight, she'd be proving just how much he shouldn't trust her. Just how bad she was at taking an order.

She had never been backed into a corner where she had to play someone else's game and now that she was, she discovered how awful it felt. Her emotions very nearly began to spill over her poker face; she could feel it slipping. She resisted the growing urge to grit her teeth.

He curled his fingers behind her head as he tossed the pistol off to Everson. He spoke quietly, "Good girl. Play the game."

He stepped around her, gesturing to someone behind her. "Get me a map, Rusher," he said as he walked away. "Lets figure out where the hell we are."

Everson stepped closer, giving her a little gesture. "Come on," he said, nodding belowdecks.

Swallowing her irritation over the powerlessness she felt, she let Everson guide her down the stairs, into the musty, wet atmosphere of the cells, where the wind howled and her head echoed with hatred.

"Captives get the right to choose," Everson said, gesturing to the cells. He loosened his grip on her arm.

"Which would Bardarian pick?"

Everson grinned. He shook his head and pushed her into the cell on their right, waterlogged and mouldy. "Clever girl," he said. "But now you've lost your privilege."

Novari had never felt her age to be an issue before. But with Bardarian's looming experience insult and Everson calling her a girl, she felt distanced from the crew in age. It was only eight years between her and the leader of this ship, but it felt like a lifetime.

Everson, Novari guessed at twenty-eight, but it was hard to tell. His words felt more used, his actions more calculated. His accent was different too, like a combination of every tongue in the ocean, as though he'd spoken so many words that the letters lost their meaning and he forgot how to form them. Beneath that oddity, she sensed Myria to him. The rest of the crew were so clearly from the Cobalts, exploring and dominating Myria as a pastime. The only exceptions were Bardarian and Everson. Bardarian was from Chorro, almost close enough to Myria to share the ethnicity, and Everson was undoubtedly from Myria. His skin was golden and bronzed from the early heat of the south, and his eyes were narrowed into an almond shape—Myria's classic trait.

Novari spun around as Everson locked the cell. Her gaze slipped to his fingers, and he noticed. He looked up at her with his chin tilted down, then lifted his hand to his face, allowing her a better look at his fingers. As she suspected, there was a band around his pinky—Siliver's band. Myria's most suspicious island.

"I've got a few more tattoos," Everson told her. "I'd love to show you sometime." His voice held no air of shyness, no possibility of anything but steel confidence. Unapologetic and self-proclaimed perfection, insistent on what he wanted.

Novari raised her middle finger, where the band of Canale wrapped just under her nail. "I've got a few as well," she told him.

He laughed, long and light, but his smile didn't stretch to his eyes.

"You've got fight in you," he marvelled, wrapping his fingers around the bars and leaning in close. "But I'm a good person to have on your side. I think you'd want me next to you."

Novari wrapped her fingers around the same bar, their hands touching. "Next to you?" she inquired evenly. "Or under you?"

He grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I don't mind being shameless, doll. Whatever gets us there."

Novari didn't return that eerie smile. Something was off about him—the way his black irises merged with his pupil and the way every wrinkle in his expression looked used. There was something beautiful in the way he held himself, something sinister about his talent. His danger and his violence seemed to be happy to embrace somebody with a similar aura. Novari would go there, probably, but not yet. Not when she could still use him.

"Pass me the key," Novari told him. "It'll get us there faster."

He hummed, dropping his hand and walking backwards down the hall. He threw up the key and caught it. "We both know you don't need a key, doll," he told her. "But a tip of advice—play our game for a bit. It'll work in your favour."

Novari grinned now, and he faltered. Haunting he might be, but he fell for the same tricks they all did. His eyes dipped to her teeth, thoughts wandering. Right when he was just about to draw back to her, Novari turned around, walking deeper into the cell. Nobody walked out on her—no matter if she was a captive.

She heard Everson's footsteps disappear down the hall. She walked in a wide circle. She'd never been in a cell before, never been on the opposite end of fear or confinement. She hadn't even washed the blood off of her neck. So much had changed and occurred in the last few hours, and she hadn't had a chance to reconvene. Perhaps she should've, which was an out-of-place thought; she'd never questioned herself before.

There were footsteps down the stairs, but when she looked, it was just a crew member heading to their room. She spun around slowly. She needed to sit down, but she didn't want to seem weak, so she laid down on the cell floor, her back to the wet wood, and placed her legs against the bars, crossing them at the ankles. She closed her eyes, threading her hands over her stomach. She was hungry, but she wouldn't admit that. She was tired, but she needed to be alert. She felt the ship pull further out to sea, the wind rocking. She looked up at the ceiling. She took a deep breath.

The light dimmed more and more, and she wondered if he would come to talk to her. It made sense that he would, but it'd been hours since they'd boarded. He was making her wait, making her suffer.

Novari was very close to falling asleep when candlelight flickered from the hallway. His footsteps were heavy in theory but surprisingly quiet in action. She didn't stand, just turned her head to the side, face to face with his black boots.

"You look comfortable."

"I'm very good at making myself at home," she told his feet.

He crouched down, placing the candle on the ground beside the bars and draping his wrists over his knees. She glanced up, noting that he'd changed. The clothes he'd been wearing on Canale had been the same ones he'd been in for weeks, muddy and ripped. He'd been drinking with his crew when he was attacked—leisure clothing. Now he wore what she would've imagined him in: dark pants and boots that looked as though they'd never touched combat, a blindingly white cotton shirt buttoned right to his neck, not a speck of dirt on anything, including his coat, a suave, surely expensive one that nearly grazed the ground. Novari lifted her eyes to the captain's hat.

"I see that," he told her.

That was the power of the situation, of attire and circumstance. She was the one who played him, and yet he now became the authority between them.

"Apologies for the circumstances," he said smoothly, because he knew what she was thinking.

"I doubt your sincerity."

He tilted his head slightly. He stood up, turning around to lean against the cell across from her. It was an awkward position, but he made it look comfortable. And from her spot on the ground, he looked far taller. Far bigger.

"I have a tradition, stunner," he began. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette. He spun it in his hands but didn't bring it to his mouth. "On this ship, the crew kills someone they love to prove loyalty. To bind them."

"That'd be a difficult thing for me to do."

He glanced down the hallway. "That's an entertaining idea to maintain for yourself—that you're so callous you've never loved anyone. And although it is rather daunting you didn't shed a tear for your dead mother, I think there was someone for whom you would cry. Some blonde?"

Novari desperately tried not to fidget with her fingers. Fidgeting was a nervous gesture, and she'd conditioned herself to stay still in conversation. But in this instance, it was becoming increasingly hard. Bardarian still held his cigarette, allowing him to fidget with his fingers in a way that didn't at all seem nervous.

"She was a semblance of a friend, who I killed in front of you. I'd say that's a sufficient source of loyalty—murdering everyone I know."

He hummed quietly. He leaned down and took the candle out of its holder, lighting the cigarette. He took his time bringing it to his mouth and breathing in. Making her wait.

"It would be proof of loyalty," he told her, smoke billowing around him, "if you'd done it for me—which you didn't; you did it for yourself, because sailing under a famous captain with a famous ship is a good place for you to be. But what you don't understand is that this is a family. Those people up there would die for me in a heartbeat. Would you?"

"You've given me no reason to die for you."

"Then you've given me no reason to instate you."

Novari glanced up at him, but he wasn't looking at her. On his ship, he was a far better conversationalist.

"We had a deal," Novari said.

"Is that the best you can come up with?" he asked, tilting his chin down and glancing at her fingers, surely watching them struggle not to fidget. "That I'm not being honourable? I'm a pirate, stunner. That's not only my reputation, but it's what's expected from me. I protect and hold loyalty for no one but the crew of this ship."

Novari looked back up at the ceiling. "You act as though you've forgotten how easy it was for me to change your mind."

He brought the cigarette to his mouth again in her peripheral. "I haven't forgotten. Starved and exhausted, toyed with and manipulated—just more indications of your lack of loyalty." He frowned a little. "You toss it around as if it's a weakness, a boyish trait of mine, but I fear it would be far more concerning as a man if I didn't have a thing for you."

He sighed, crossing his ankles. "But allowing you onto this crew for personal reasons is a mistake, one I'm famous for not making. I'll put a bullet through your head if it's the best thing for this ship."

Novari wasn't sure if that was the case, but she wondered if it would be better to stroke his ego, crush his doubts.

"Here's my problem," he said, watching her. "You could be an asset to this crew. You're brilliant, obviously, and you have a talent for combat, but I'm not sure if those things make up for all the reasons you would harm us."

"Such as?"

"For one, you're a liability—you have enemies. Big enemies. The entire Siren race. The King. Those are nasty names for me to publicly go to war with. Not to mention that you do things entirely for your own interest, and I worry about when those interests don't align with the ship's. And lastly, I just witnessed four men upstairs already bloodying their knuckles over dibs on you. You'll tear this crew apart."

"I want Everson. Problem solved."

Bardarian glanced at her. "And my other concerns?"

Novari sat up. She turned to him, paying him full attention now. She grasped one of the bars, taking a deep breath. "My enemies aren't the problem you think they are. Like I told you, Sirennia isn't connected to Canale or the Queen. As far as I know, the Queen has no problem with me and probably appreciates my destruction of a resistance. And my father, Bardarian—you've already gone to war with him."

"Not quite. I've annoyed him, been a slight pain in his ass, but I haven't declared an outright war. If he finds out I have you, that's where we'll be headed."

"Going to war with royalty is how you ensure no one ever forgets your name," she pointed out. "I'm simply the match to a fire you had every intention of starting, except now it can be for loyalty rather than simple boredom."

He watched her, eyes glassy. He let out another slow cloud of smoke before saying, "I worry about your ability to blend into a deckhand role. To take orders from me—or anyone, for that matter."

Novari pursed her lips. Maybe the best way to convince him was to simply tell the truth. She held his gaze, forming her words carefully.

"I don't take orders well," she admitted. "I've never known the bottom of any power ladder, but that doesn't mean I can't play that act to gain opportunity." She felt the side of her mouth tug up a little. "We both know I was born to do this kind of thing. That I do belong here. I may not die for you, but I will pledge my skill to you if you let me stay. I respect you. What you've done for yourself and for the people who work for you. I think it's brilliant."

"How much of that is flattery?"

"If I wanted to flatter you, you wouldn't know it."

He pressed his cigarette to the bar, stifling it. "You make a good speech; I'm just reluctant—"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not—"

"Do not"—his jaw tightened, displaying an unusual amount of outward aggression—"talk over me."

The moment was silent. Novari desperately tried not to snap back at him. So he had a thing against being cut off.

"Here's the deal," he said, calm again. "You're in a highly fickle trial period. You'll be kept out of anything I deem too important to get you involved. You'll be accompanied in port by someone on this crew. You're not allowed to enter the strategy or navigation room unless I say so. You will not manipulate anyone on this crew into giving important information. You will not toy with the men. You will play nice with the women. You will pull niceties with me; you won't cut me off. You won't get physical with me if I upset you. Treat me like your captain. Understood?"

Novari searched his gaze and stifled her stubbornness long enough to nod.

He shifted. "And you won't ever put me in a position like you did before."

"And that means what?"

He spun something in his hand, and Novari glanced down at it. The key to her cell.

"You won't manipulate me into anything. Not with your words and not with your fingers."

Novari couldn't take her eyes off the key. She finally peeled her gaze away and matched his. "I have an honest question."

He waited.

She searched his eyes very methodically. "Is my life here going to be better if I do things for you?" she asked.

He watched her, eyebrows drawn.

"If I do things for you," Novari repeated, attempting to clarify. When he still didn't answer, she blinked. "If I—"

"Yes, thank you, I understood what you meant the first time. You will not gain anything by sleeping with me."

Novari wondered if he would really stick to his word if it came down to it. Perhaps he was professional enough to do so, but probably not. She glanced back down at the key.

"Say it," he said. "It's a formality."

Novari took a deep breath. "I, Novari Silta, pledge my ability, skill and mind to you, Captain Vallin Bardarian, and your ship. I swear to adhere to your rules."

He nodded, inserting the key and twisting it. "Welcome aboard the Avourienne."