She hadn't planned on returning to Fox. 

Then the screaming had come, a scream she had heard a dozen times over in her dreams and told herself she would never ignore again.

As the Silvermark soldiers were rushing towards Fox, following wherever the ends of their iron chains led them, her feet decided to run as well. 

Why she could not explain. Fox was but a dark shadow of the boy who had left Laneby, tied to the back of the horse belonging to the man he now adored. His crying fits replaced by emotional outbursts of wind and fire that had reduced to the Kraken's Kiss from a mighty three-master to a smouldering wreck bubbling up air as it slipped deeper and deeper into the bay. His powers were off the world, fuelled by the Gods of Sin. Her crewmates had jumped off the burning ship into the water, some of their bodies now floating face down.

Given the right weapon, she too might have fired.

But she hadn't. Pan had.

The crossbow confiscated, the white-haired Muttonhead of a pirate stood there, content, grinning. 

She halted, shivered as the cold northern wind cut through her already frozen clothes. 

One of the soldiers threw himself to the ground, catching Fox before he smacked down, breaking the fall.

A heartbeat later, the man's comrades flew onto him, six adults against one boy. Without removing the arrow from his bleeding hand, they bound Fox's arms behind his back. Muzzled him. Restrained him, shackles and fetters included.

Now he looked even more like Katla. Master and apprentice. Two monsters confined, alive only because of someone more powerful wanting them to suffer and die at their hands. The new King of Silvermark. Fox had killed Ariel, she reminded herself. One good deed for the many sins he had committed.

Her fear and hatred for what he had become shifted to pity, to a longing to simpler times when Fox had been her little brother, not by blood but by friendship; someone who looked up to her, wanted to be like her. 

She walked up to him. The boy who built fires while daydreaming about being the best warrior in all of Laneby. He couldn't even enter a stable without getting hurt or walk down a path without falling flat on his face. 

What would Seb think if they—by the grace of the Gods—ever met again?

The troops rejoined. Katla and Fox both given the choice to walk along or be dragged to Moonstone Castle. Whatever Fox's muffled reply was, the soldier controlling the chain around his neck yanked him right back.

"And our money?" Pan asked the retreating army. When none of the blonde-haired men replied, he raised his voice, grabbing the poster of Fox and Katla he had stolen. "It's thanks to me you have captured them. You owe me. A thousand silverlings."

A tall man with sunken cheeks let the others pass. He planted his hands on his hips. "Do we look like we have a thousand silverlings at our disposal?"

"Then tell me where I have to be. We did you lot a favour."

"A favour?" The man huffed. "You almost killed the lad, with a crossbow you stole. Perhaps he was right about you after all... Bloody pirates... Real merchants would know folk 'round here don't care about  no spices or fancy bracelets when they can't even afford bread and coal."

"Life has been hard for us too. A man not trying is a man who has already failed." Pan crossed his arms. "But we'll be sure to pass on the message... Silvermarkers have no honour. They promise you a good deal but don't hold their end of the bargain."

The Silvermarker flinched, his fingers inches from his sword. "I could have you arrested, dragged by your feet all the way to Moondale. This is your final warning, Islander."

"The name's Panu," Pan said, unmoved by the threat. "My family's ship is sinking to the bottom of the bay, along with most of our goods and money. My crew lost friends, valuable men and women we've lived with all our lives—they're family. And you're threatening me, accusing me of being a pirate? After I handed you the thugs responsible for the death of your King. You're not being fair, sir."

The man gritted his teeth, then looked at Liene, back at Pan, and a quick glance at her.  As his he won his battle with the God of Wrath, she edged closer to hear more of the conversation. "There's perhaps one thing," he admitted. "It'll be worth more to you than to us."

"I'm all ears," Pan said.

"The Fire Magician, the one of your kind—He had this document." The soldier reached into one of his back pockets and showed them the scrunched, rolled-up paper. "It's yours, if you leave now and never return."

"Take it," Alex said. She had seen the look on Ilona's face when Katla had shown her the promise paper. It was more than the thousand silverlings, way more. 

"Your opinion doesn't count, Greenie." Pan pointed his finger at her, his eyes as cold as his voice. "Without you, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"You're the one who fired," Alex shot right back.

"Because that magician sank the Kraken, killed Endrik and Dag... who knows who else... almost killed Mum. Those two—your friends—is that why you were so keen on getting us to Whitecliff bay, Alex?"

"They're not my friends. Fox was... a long time ago... I had no idea. I thought he was dead."

"You thought... you thought... Your thoughts have really improved our situation, haven't they? I wish we would have never picked you up. You're as cursed as the magicians," Pan spat.

"If you rather bicker then I'm out of here," the Silvermark said. "The deal is off."

"We'll take it," Liene said quickly, snatching the paper from the man's hands. "We won't be any bother."

"Liene, no!" Pan jumped in front of her.

"It's the best we're gonna get," she argued. "Unless you wanna walk all the way to Moondale, we won't see our money anyway."

"She's right," Alex added.

"Bottle up, Greenie! Nobody asked you," Pan snapped at her.

"I understand you're upset, but—"

"But what? You're gonna confess what that little speech you gave was all about? The Greenlander Prince uniting with his uncle after galloping through a burning forest—who are you? Where do you come from? How you come to be friends with magicians and royals alike?"

"I'm not friends with them!" Alex yelled. "I am with Seb but not with... I..."

She couldn't find the right words to explain herself without revealing why she had sailed to the Jade Islands in the first place. They couldn't find out about her mission. Yet one tiny slip, the wrong reply to a sticky question, and she might as well have drowned in the Jade Sea along with the crew of the Acedia's Revenge. Len's death in vain.

Violently, Pan twisted her arm, jerking it behind her back. "I don't need to hear your excuses. Tell them to Mum—let her be the judge of you."

She neither resisted nor protested. Running wouldn't be an option—she had nowhere to go, and Pan was quicker than her. Besides, the walk to the cliff where the crew of the Kraken's Kiss had flocked together to lick their wounds gave her time to think of what she was going to say, and more importantly, what she should keep to herself to avoid getting lynched by a dozen angry pirates.

Her heart suddenly ached for Nick; her favourite bookworm with a tongue of pure silver, master of dead-panned expressions and believable lies. The boy who won complicated arguments with George, left both King Thomas and Queen Crystal shaking their heads while Lana stifled a giggle in her hand and failed. Life in Sunstone Castle hadn't always been bad or boring. Only, like, most of the time.

When she rejoined the crew, the ache turned into a hard knot that moved to her stomach and climbed her throat where it settled, gathering bile. Captain llona closed Kokki's eyes—the cook had wounds that reminded her of the Lanebyers. Part of his face gone. Clothes reduced to rags, the skin beneath red at best and black at worst. He wasn't the only one who had climbed out of the water high on panic's rush only to fall down where they had come ashore.

"She's all yours, Mum." Pan pushed her into the Captain's direction.

"And what am I to do?" She sighed. The bruises and dried-up blood made Ilona look ten years older than when she had been standing proudly on the Kraken's deck.

"Haven't you heard her—she's a Greenlander traitor. She wanted us to come here, lead us to this trap."

"A Greenlander in league with magicians." Ilona shook her head. "No, Pan, you're not thinking straight."

"Maybe she's a magician too, and she had us all fooled, bewitched—I don't know. We lost everything. The Krakens are dead."

"A Kraken without a ship is still a Kraken. And I'm still your Captain. Any decision taken was on my watch, both the right and wrong ones."

"So you don't blame her at all?"

Ilona looked at Alex, who lowered her gaze.

"No," Ilona said. "I took her in, presented her as a candidate in the Cove of Elo, followed her plan that led us down here. I did what I thought was best for the Krakens. I admit I was wrong."

"Then perhaps you shouldn't be Captain anymore." Pan fixed his gaze on her.

Liene touched his arm. "Pan, don't be rash."

"What? Captains either sink with their ships or get replaced!"

"She's your mother, in Humility's name." Liene gave him a smack on the head. "We may not have the silverlings that were promised but we have the magician's paper. He owned a fortune. We could buy a new ship and still have enough copecks to lie low for a season—all of us."

"Don't trust a magician—the paper's a lie."

"It's real," Ilona said. More people were rallying around her, even those that had trouble walking. "But not valid unless presented to a Jade Islandic bank."

Alex bit her lip. That explained why Katla wanted to go to the bank with Ilona, why Fox was so desperate for her to vouch for them. They had money, but it was worthless in Silvermark.

"Oh," was all Liene said.

"So we still have nothing." Pan pressed his lips together. "And we can't stay here." He looked around. "How many are missing, Mum? Have you counted them?"

As the Captain broke down into tears, Nagi stepped in between Ilona and her son. "Give your mother a breather. She just watched Kokki die."

"How many like Kokki, Nagi? If Mum can't handle it, then I will."

"You're not the Captain, boy. Not yet. You can scream and yell all you want, but in times like these we need to stick together," the Scorian helmsman said calmly.

"So you're gonna stand here and do nothing? Let her..." He was pointing at Alex again. "... burry our friends with us while she was the one who started it all. Have you all gone deaf, blind, and stupid? She's a traitor."

"Why don't you let her talk?" Nagi suggested.

"I don't wanna listen to anything she has to say."

"Then you are the one who's deaf and stupid."

Alex looked up. A dozen either grieving or hostile eyes staring at her. She flexed her fingers behind her back, curling and uncurling, her lips stuck between apologising and defending herself. Her teeth clattered—not just because her soaking wet clothes froze her bones.  Whatever road her words would take, they all led back to a dagger stabbed in her heart or her head held underwater until water filled her burning lungs. She was trapped like a deer meeting the arrow that would mean its end.

"Greenie?" Nagi asked.

"I lived in Laneby, the daughter of a Greenlander herbalist and a Jade Islandic merchant—pirate. My father raised me an archer. My Lord, the banished Prince Brandon of The Greenlands, allowed me to join his band of warriors. I was the first girl in my village to do so. Though my family was poor, especially after my father passed away, I was happy there, together with my three best friends. Nick, Fox, and Sebastian." The more she talked, the more her thoughts flowed. "At the end of last summer, the Fire Magician destroyed everything, killed my mother and brothers, separated me from Fox. We fled to the capital. Seb was no longer just my friend, but Prince Sebastian, heir to the Greenlander throne. The attack had been an act of war orchestrated by the King of Silvermark. The King and his family took me and Nick in, but I hated life at court. It contrasted with everything I was and had in Laneby." She took a deep breath, preparing herself for a twist on what had really happened. "The King arranged passage for me to the Islands, to find my family. The Gods brought me to you."

"That's the truth—the whole truth?" Nagi asked.

"Yes," Alex said, swallowing past the knot in her throat.

"And the boy? Fox—anything you want to add about him?"

"Haven't seen him since Katla took him in Laneby. I always figured he would serve as proof to King Ariel that he had completed his mission, to get his silverlings. I really didn't know they would be here. I'm as surprised as you are. And I mean it—we used to be friends, but I'm not friends with a monster like him."

"But you are with Prince Sebastian?" Ilona asked through her tears.

"Yes," she replied, unsure of where the Captain was going with this.

"And the Greenlander King—would he want to talk to you if you knocked on his gate?"

Alex nodded. "We parted amicably. Though he's keen on marrying me off to the son of one of his political allies."

"Nagi," Ilona addressed her helmsman. "How many leagues are there between Whitecliff and Sundale?"

The Scorian pursed his lips in thought, blinking. "Sea and river roads, or the crow's way?"

"Sea and river roads. There's a mountain range that I will not let my people cross on foot. We'll steal those—a final farewell to the hospitality of the Silvermarkers." She gesticulated at the dodgy, half-rotten fisherboats that bobbed up and down in the water.

"Hard to say without a map, but with this wind, it'll take two days back to Burnfirth, another couple of days until we find the mouth of the River Faith. From there, we go upstream, so it'll depend on how fast we can row. Three weeks, perhaps four."

"And then what?" Pan asked, intrigued.

"We have the Pirate Boyar in her midst," Ilona said. "Let her strike us a deal with His Majesty the King himself."

Alex's mouth fell open. "But... it doesn't mean anything... I have no power whatsoever. The title is a sham, a trick to stop Captains from squabbling over who gets to raid which town."

"You know that, Greenie. We know that, but your dearly beloved King doesn't." Ilona snorted up her tears, nodding. "All we need a ship full of goods we can sell. Tell him whatever he needs to hear to give us that. Can you do that?"

"I dunno... King Thomas is a busy man." She cursed her own foolishness. Why was she even arguing? 

"Then go through the Prince. You said you're friends. Use that charm... Hmmm. What do you say?"

That it was madness on their behalf. Perfection on hers. Taking the pirates to Sundale was a better outcome than she ever could have hoped for. She could tell King Thomas all she had learnt, bring the pirates to their knees, once and for all. She would see Seb, Nick, and Lana again.

And get married, she realised. Gods, she still wasn't ready for that. Nor did she look forward to confessing to Nick what had happened to Billy.

But if that was the price she had to pay, she had no other choice.

"Alright," Alex said. "I'll do it. I'll take you to King Thomas."