With the mop and bucket locked away with Simon, I have free time on my hands. I can't very well mop the deck without a mop, can I? So, what am I to do now, but to take Simon's advice. Mr. Tussock, a scrawny swine of a man, sleeps on the deck, under the shade of the stairs to the bow. Asleep would be a kind word. Mr. Roofus Tussock is perhaps the most notorious drunkard aboard, and it's a wonder that he hasn't fallen overboard yet.

His bottle sits beside him and I snatch it. This man has caused me plenty of humiliation over my six days on this ship. I'm not extremely creative, myself. I never have been. So, I take Simon's suggestion, despite the nagging sense that 'revenge' instead of 'confrontation' may not have been what the professor had been getting at, and pick up the spare bucket with the long rope that resides beneath the stairs. I bring it, with the bottle, to the rail. I pour the rum into the rushing whitecaps below, and the liquid disappears. Then, I throw the bucket over, holding tightly onto the rope, and pull it back up when it fills with seawater. I've become quite skillful at hauling up buckets of seawater, I must say.

Kneeling on the deck, I place the bucket in front of me and dive the bottle into it. It barely fits, but it submerges enough to fill almost to halfway with the saltwater. Content, I lift it with me as I stand, and start to dry the outside with my shirt. I stop when a shadow falls over me. A tall, thin shadow.

Oh, dear.

I turn, and drop my bottle, thanks to my nerves, which seem to have quite an issue with the Sailing Master. I'd had a feeling it was him. Still, I shudder at the sight of his white, sightless eye. Up close, I can see the chunk carved out of it by whatever foul beast had scarred him. I swallow and stop the bottle from rolling away with my foot.

He regards me silently for a hair-raising period. His shoulder-length black hair and one-shouldered cloak flow in the wind. They don't flutter. They flow. As if he has some power over the wind. As if he's too smooth to be affected by its anarchy.

He blinks in that slow, lethargic way. Despite how long he takes to speak, I don't feel like my time is being wasted. I feel as if his pace is just right, as if it is safe. Were he to speak or move any faster, I fear I may feel it like a whip.

"The captain," he drones at last, raising his eyes over my head, "requests your company in his quarters."

I stare. Like the idiot I am, I just stare, until he narrows his eyes at me, and curls his lip.

"Now."

"Y-yes, sir!" And my legs are moving before I even tell them to. I hear him pick up my bottle, but I don't look to see what he does with it. I half-scamper for the door at the stern that leads to the captain's quarters and make way for a long overdue appointment. I knock on it twice, and burst in, closing it behind me.

The captain frowns at me from behind his desk and I get the feeling that he wasn't expecting me at all. I gulp and anxiously feel behind me. Gullible, Walter Avery. You are gullible.

He waves his hands.

"No, no. Come here."

I hesitate, then obey, lugging my feet towards him. I hover in front of the desk and sit when he gestures for me to do so.

"You look flighty. Did Increas scare you?"

Awkwardly, I lower my eyes. "No, sir." Yes, sir.

He chuckles, because he probably can see right through me. I feel the pink come to my cheeks. He prods a bottle of alcohol towards me. "He's a charmer, Increas is."

I glance at the bottle, but only because I'm surprised. For a couple of reasons. Like, for instance, how it's half-emptied, and he's supposed to be our sober captain. And, on another point, how he's offering to share with me. My cheeks get a little pinker, and I turtle into my bandana. It doesn't hide much, but it's some sort of comfort.

"You've been watching me," I say.

"I've been watching you," he agrees, eyes twinkling knowingly. He leaves the bottle by me and clasps his hands on the desk.

"Why?" I ask.

"Well, you see, Walter..." He shifts in his chair and leans forward. "I have a couple of questions."

"Okay?"

"I want you to answer honestly, and without pause. One or two-word answers. Quick-fire like. Can you do that for me?"

My brows pinch in my confusion. "Yes, sir?"

"Excellent," he praises, gracing me with his most pleasing smile.

I wait. My eyes flick to his trophy cabinet, then back.

"Where did you find the map?" he begins.

"My mother locked me in..."

"Quick-fire like."

"Sorry, sir. It was a basement. Under my house."

He nods. "Where was your house?"

"Amity."

He considers this, and the calculating look takes over his features. "Your mother was killed. What was her name?"

"Lisa Avery."

"Maiden name?"

"Beauchamp."

"Yes... I remember." Remember? "What else was in the basement?"

"Glowing rocks."

"Anything else?"

"Chains. Like, chains for..."

"I don't care. Did you take the rocks?"

"Yes."

"Where are you keeping them?"

"Simon has some in his cabin, and my piece is here." I point to the knot of my bandana.

He nods some more, and mutters some thoughts to himself. I chew my lip.

"Did you see the woman that killed your mother?" he asks.

"Men," I correct. "Four men."

"Oh. I see." He drops his gaze. "What did they look like?"

"I didn't see them."

"Ah." He inhales a long breath, and slowly lets it out. Then, he continues, "How did they find you?"

This question stuns me, because I'd thought about it many times myself. I've mulled over answers, answers that never made real sense to me. My eyes widen, and quiver. "I..." I look to my open hands. The axe in the forest. The axe chopping wood by itself. "I don't know."

"Walter..." he presses, endearing. He's playing a friend, and I'm not sure that I like it. He touches my wrist with his fox-bitten right hand and lowers my hand gently. "Think, please."

I pull my hands away and shake my head. I glare at him. "Why are you only asking me these questions now? And, you're not supposed to be drinking! And furthermore, there is no order in your crew, and you are—you are a terrible captain!" Just saying.

Captain Clarke raises his brows and sits back. He doesn't snap at me, or raise his voice, or pound his fist on the desk. He leans back, stretches out his legs so that his boots appear beneath me, and places his hands behind his head, elbows out. He yawns.

"Do I bore you?" I growl.

"Snippy, aren't we?" he muses. He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. "I've been uncertain about approaching you. Not out of nerves, no. Just uncertainty. But, I'm sure of it all, now, Walter."

"Sure of what?"

"That we're the same," he smiles. "Albeit, you are younger, weaker, and very naïve. But, still, we are very much the same."

I stand abruptly up. This knave! "I think not!"

"Ah, but Walter, we are," he insists, sitting forward again. His eyes still have that twinkle, and it's only gotten brighter. Bright, twinkling, madman eyes. He knows something that I don't, and he's toying with me about it.

I understand.

He's just toying with me. I scrunch up my nose and slowly lower myself back to my seat.

"You've inherited my Gift, haven't you?" he coos, excited. Any understanding I thought I had flees, and my mind goes blank as slate. My face falls. He leans towards me, his pointy nose an inch from mine. "That's how they found you." He holds up his hands, as I had done before. "You inherited my Gift."

The Gift. That's what she had called it.

You have your father's Gift, Walt.

It's suddenly very hot, and my mind can't conjure up anything beyond those words, beyond that memory, because what else is there? Because I don't know if I really want to understand this man. I don't know if I like what he's implying. I don't know if this is good, or awful, or lucky or cursed. I don't know if it's real, or if I'd even heard him right.

"Your Gift?" I choke.

He smugly settles back again, rubbing his palms together. "Let's just let that sink in."

My nose burns. My eyes burn. Everything just burns and burns. Jaw hanging meekly, I stare at his whiskered jaw, his sly eyes, and his cheeky, taunting grin.

No.

No, no.

Not this drunkard. My head is shaking, my eyes are blinking.

"Oh, come now, lad!" He rises and sweeps swiftly around the desk, his coattails flaring out behind him theatrically, and he swings his arm around my shoulders. His whiskered cheek presses to my own, and I can smell the alcohol on his breath, though there isn't a thing about him that would tell me that he's drunk. Drunk and making up fantasies. He throws his arm out in front of us, gesturing to some grand picture that I can't see. "It's not so bad to be an Avery!"

"Deserter," I whisper, because that's what he is. Deserter of the navy, deserter of what could have been a family.

"Ohh," he clucks, feigning hurt. "We all have our reasons, eh?"

He releases me, and ambles back to his side of the desk. He waves a dismissive hand at me and my trembling, pathetic, shaken self.

"But, blood isn't what makes us alike. Blood is nothing. Dorian shares none of my blood, but we're two salts of the same grain. You and I? You and I? We share motive, Walter." He faces me, madman eyes alight, and presses the balls of his palms to the edge of the desk. "Motive."

I pick up the rum bottle and nurse it to my chest. Something to hold on to. Something for him not to further indulge in. I watch the liquid through the grubby brown glass, my lips tight and my jaw aching from the clenching of my teeth.

"Walter!" he cries, standing straight again. I jump. He clicks his tongue, chiding. "Walter, Walter, Walter. Come, now. We both know what you want out of this voyage. We both know why you brought that map to me."

"But, you didn't need the map, did you..." This was the man that had written it. Seen Riven Isles, found its mysterious treasures, and... run from it. I guess he'd run from it. Changed his name from Avery to Clarke and hidden in a hole under a grove of mangroves for over a decade.

He shrugs apathetically. "No, perhaps not. But, I did need a ship," he says. "And a sign that fate had spun in my direction." He chuckles. "Well, when a couple of wealthy savants appeared at my doorstep with my map, offering generous sums, and claiming that their Aquian Seer was telling them that I could get them to Riven... it was just the opportunity I'd been awaiting. Better than." He pauses for thought. "What's funny to me, though, is that you wouldn't have been able to use the map to find the treasure, anyways. You don't have the key. You don't have the painting."

My gaze follows the floor to the wall, to the banjo in the pillows, to the two paintings above. One depicts the full moon looming over a landscape of rock and forest. The other depicts the very same, but at a different angle, an angle looking out to calm waters a distance away, over the tops of trees and a black sand shore. The large rock formation and the moon ties them together.

"Yes, Increas has quite the talent with a brush," Captain Clarke purrs.

"Painting number two?" I ask, and my voice is faint. Vacant-like.

"Oh, I won't be telling you which is which, yet. If the Witch comes to pillage this ship, by fluke or by purpose, I don't want anyone to give away my map or its key. I don't want her to have the... the treasure."

He'd assumed that a woman had killed my mother, and I can't help but make a connection.

"What's the treasure? Who is the Witch?"

He shakes his head many times, and bares his palms to me. One scarred, one healed. "Enough of that. It's our motive that I want to discuss, Walter. Our motive."

"I don't understand."

He sighs, and sinks into his padded, velvety wooden chair. "Why are you coming on this voyage?"

"I found the map. I want to see what's so important about it, because my mother was killed for it."

"Does that make you angry, Walter?"

He keeps saying my name, and I'm starting to notice the repetitions. The calm, patient voice. Because he's certain of what he's saying, and only waiting for me to confirm him. It's Walter, Walter, Walter, slow and steady and unnerving. Walter, what's your motive? He's confident that he knows it better than I do. He's confident there's more to what I told him, but I really don't think there is. That makes me angry.

The fact that he, Henry Avery, got wound up with the wrong people and those wrong people murdered my mother for his map, for protecting his name... that makes me angry. Because if there is anyone to blame, and, trust me, there always is, it is this man with his fake name and his fake smile and his fake interest in me.

"Yeah," I whisper, and my breath is hot and shaking. "It does."

"At who?"

"You." Quick-fire like.

He sits back, mocking injury. His hand goes to his heart. "Me? But, Walter, I did not kill your mother. I've been in hiding for eighteen years, running from those very same killers. Do you want to know who I'm angry with?" I don't particularly care, but he carries on without my input, either way. "Darling. The Witch. The pirate that betrayed me, and took my islands, and forced me into hiding. Into taking a pardon. A pardon is a shameful thing, Walter. Shameful. I cannot be accepted as either a gentleman of fortune or a Kingsman, no matter what I choose to be. And, what really makes me angry, is that she sunk my ship and killed my crew. Forty-six good men, Walter. Forty-six. It was massacre." His voice lowers in emphasis, a dramatic, haunted whisper.

I can see the spirits in his eyes, the memories of the crew that he'd lost. I can imagine them, because I can understand him, what he's telling me. I understand the loss, and the anger, and the dedication that he must feel at being alive while the others are not. I understand it on a scale of one, because I feel it all for Lisa Avery, for Ma. And he lives it on a scale of forty-six. That, I can't imagine.

He lowers his tormented gaze. "Leslie, Increas and I were the only ones to get out, and we've sworn our course. Revenge, Walter." He meets my eyes, and there's a fierceness to him. The commanding, no-nonsense captain returns. "We want revenge. Don't we."

It isn't a question, and it doesn't have to be. He's right. He is right. The 'we' includes me, because it's this purposeful rage that has been driving me, deep down in my (in Simon's words) complacent soul, and I haven't known it. It's what kept me from crying, I'm sure. Because there is no use for tears until my mother is peacefully at rest. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that she will never be so until her killers are six feet under with her.

"We do," I agree. I place the bottle on the table, and he holds my hand around the neck. He smiles at me, but it isn't a charming smile. It's a proud, thrilled, 'I'm-glad-you're-on-my-team' sort of grin that makes me feel like I've made the best goddamned decision in my entire life.