"What'd you say to him?"

Archer startled, spilling his bottle of something strong over his wrist. He glanced at Silta as he held out his hand, letting the liquid drip onto the floor instead of further down his forearm. "They should put a bell on you or something," he said.

"I'll wear a bell if you tell me what you said to him."

Archer rolled his eyes. That morning, the movement of the ship had been all the gossip. The Avourienne's crimson sails were turned little by little, until her nose was pointed due north. Apparently nobody knew why, not even the navigator, Rusher, who had just retired from the common room a few minutes ago. Denver had gone to get another bottle, but when he saw Silta had cornered Archer, he quickly spun around and wandered somewhere else.

"Say what to who?" Archer asked. He wiped his hand on the couch.

Silta watched him for a moment, then sat down beside him. She stretched her legs onto the coffee table in front of them, crossing her arms. She scanned the room.

"We're going to the Kingsland," she noted. "Came down this morning."

"Oh? Why?"

She tossed a look over at him. "I figured you would know."

"Why?"

She sighed, slouching further. "I heard you on deck with Tailsley. When you were done siphoning information about me, you asked when we were headed to the Kingsland."

"How do you get anything done with all that eavesdropping?"

She ignored him. "You want to go to the Kingsland, for whatever reason, and then you have an impromptu talk with our captain and suddenly, we're headed right there."

Archer took a sip from the bottle. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Her eyes flickered with annoyance. She was silent for a long moment, and then she muttered, "I hate being out of the loop."

Archer raised his brows as he watched her return her gaze to the rest of the room. For once, it wasn't such a calculated thing to say, and it forced him to wonder who she became away from all this back-and-forth. Who she was when nothing threatening was afoot—when she relaxed on her knifelike replies and Bardarian put away his hat for the night. He wondered if she'd ever known a lack of surety or indecisiveness in those moments.

"Seems like that's a regular occurrence for you," he noted.

"Although," she started, "it's wildly impressive how quickly you turned him around."

Archer pulled his guard back up immediately. Perhaps her dip in pointedness was as planned as ever.

"Look, Minnow," she said, turning to face him. "Every time you think you're better than us"—she gestured out to the room—"because you hold mercy and morals so close to your heart, remember how you manipulated someone for your best interest. You're no different from the villain you see me as."

He sighed. Back to the game. "I never called you a villain."

"You didn't have to, love. How many times do you wake up at night because of what you saw me do in Port Marcel? You keep looking at my hands, and I know why." She titled her head towards him. "You can't get over how much blood I have on them. Am I right, Kingsley? Those murders feel like they're on you?"

She could've been wrong. Archer wasn't sure if he'd even glanced at her hands at all, but she spoke so vividly that he believed her, if only for a moment.

He said nothing in response, realizing it was much better to take that approach. She was baiting him, trying to get a reaction. An older sibling bullying the younger but in a much more subtle, intelligent way.

"I used to be the same way"—he barely registered the words until—"Archer."

He glanced over at her, at the shimmering colour of her eyes. An intentional use of his first name, of course, to control the narrative and recapture his attention. He still fell for it, because the last person who'd used his first name was Jeanne.

"I was never quite as soft as you," she offered, "but I was softer. Life hardens you."

"You talk like you're twice my age," he said.

"I might as well be," she replied. "You're just a kid, with all you've been through."

He didn't like being referred to as a child, even though he felt a lot younger than he was in her proximity. Four years between her ocean-wide, champion status and his lowly orphan reputation. Perhaps he didn't like being called a kid by anyone, but especially her. Why's that, Kingsley? he could imagine her asking. She was the admired, the talented, the one from which to seek praise, and she knew that.

"People are conflicting by nature," she said. "We're is branded weak if we show mercy and a killer if we protect ourselves. I'm a heartless whore, and Bardarian is nothing but a charming man. There's no grey area that satisfies people; in fact, picking an extreme ensures at least a good chunk will side with you. And in this line of work, you either get shaped into a villain or killed off. On and on, until every person in the ocean has millions of shiny, expensive reasons to execute you."

Archer tried to find spite and anger in her voice, but it wasn't there. She was forced to live by an entirely different set of rules than men, and her father had sent the ocean after her head, but she radiated nothing but breezy confidence.

"It's you or them, Minnow," she said with a shrug. "It boils down to the same choice: Kill or be killed. Pretend you're a good person or accept you're a bad one."

Archer shook his head, sitting up a little as his agitation started to build. Perhaps that was the truth in a few scenarios, but it was not the rule; he had to believe it wasn't. He wanted to argue and tell her that the world wasn't so black and white, but as he struggled to form an argument concise enough to voice, she went on.

"I suppose you could be an ethically solid person," she said thoughtfully. Push further and further, bully harder and harder.

She smiled, artfully concocting. "But what good is such a thing if you're dead?" She gave him a sidelong glance, and he guessed her angle before she revealed it, "Do you think your parents were that kind of people, Archer? Do you think that's where you get it from?"

He kept his eyes forward, pushing her out of his head.

"I'd bet good money that they were," she went on. "And I'd bet that for all their moral superiority, they spent their last moments begging on their knees for mercy from someone like me, not an ounce of dignity or modesty left."

He whirled to face her, every muscle in his body tense and ready to fight. Twenty years, and he'd never hit a person out of anger. Now, though? He was just a millisecond short of doing exactly that. It was one thing to brush off a teasing bully, a mindless annoyer. It was a whole other thing to ignore somebody who knew exactly where to emotionally wound someone. It was sick, her games.

She lifted her chin, eyes on his arm raised a little above his knee, right before he stopped himself from going through with it.

"Do it," she said, leaning closer. Her canines gleamed as she hissed, "Let me show you how I'd kill a man like you with my hands, Kingsley. How someone like me killed someone like your parents."

Archer curled his fingers into his palms. She wanted that, his reaction. She was baiting him, and he wouldn't take it, no matter what part of his life she dug up. Her words were just that.

She let out a long, irritated breath as he leaned back. "Fine," she said. "Let me have another go. I can do better than your parents. You want to talk about the blonde you put a bullet through to get here? I know your thoughts, Kingsley, and you're just a man in the end. Should we talk about where your mind went first when you saw me—while your marked-for-dead lover was still holding your hand?"

Archer glanced at her. "Do you think you'd still have a personality if you weren't pretty?" he asked, taking a sip from his bottle. "Because it's all you talk about."

She drew her brows, searching his face. She wasn't used to someone so controlled, so difficult to rile up. His satisfaction built up his wall even stronger. She opened her mouth again—to dig deeper, pull something out from his head that might actually cause him to throw a punch—but the common room doors slammed open, commotion piling into the already busy place.

"Ship ahoy!" Nelson shouted. "Due north!"

Silta eagerly leaned forward, placing her long fingers on Archer's shoulder to turn and hear better. "Don't touch me," he said, rolling his shoulder.

But she wasn't listening; she was muttering something under her breath as the pirates around them stirred and quieted. He frowned as he strained to understand what she was saying.

"Navy," she whispered. "Please let it be navy."

Archer shifted to see Nelson, striding into the center of the room as everyone waited in thick anticipation to hear confirmation.

"Navy," he said finally.

Silta was pulling at Archer's shoulder before the scout finished talking. "Come."

"Come where?" he argued, trying not to spill rum again as he got to his feet. "Don't you have something better to do than obsess over me?"

"It's navy, Kingsley," she said pushing him along the crowd as the sailors got ready for something. "You've never heard anything about us and the navy?"

"I know you don't like each other, but—"

"Hush." She was the first one out the doors, jogging onto the deck. It was deep into the night already, with a calm breeze listing the Avourienne as a few of the deckhands started bringing in the sails.

Glancing around, he realized the orders were being given silently; everyone had slipped into a pre-determined routine to slow the ship and bring her in alongside a swath of black on the open water—the navy ship.

Archer turned, watching the navy ship sail along quietly, unsuspecting. When night falls, the Avourienne is damn hard to find. The other ship rang no warning bell, nor were there any indication they'd spotted the pirates at all. Could it really be that the Devil's ship turned truly and utterly...invisible with the setting sun?

Steadying his hands on the rail, Archer searched the approaching ship. A scout was perched high in the crow's nest, head on a swivel. "Why can't he see us?" he asked the pirate to his left, who happened to be Rusher.

The navigator didn't spare him a glance. "Devil's handiwork," he said.

Archer swallowed. Hardly a fair fight, in his mind.

A group slunk across the deck, led by Nelson. As the Avourienne cut her speed, agile and deadly in the silent night, the young boy hoisted himself onto the rail.

"Catchers," Silta whispered, breath hot on Archer's ear. He flinched again. "They control the ropes, make sure we stay secured." She touched his shoulder to move his focus to where Lyra was standing with the rest of the scouts, a bow slung over her shoulder. "Once we're linked, it's scouts for scouts. An arrow will take out the crow's scout, and the rest will handle any other eyes that'll see us once we board." Bows, not pistols. Silence was a key factor here.

Britter pushed by them, readying the gangplank. He handed out a few knives to an assortment of sailors Archer didn't know the names of yet. As they donned their weapons, they were completely silent.

"Jackson will lead the looting team, and Britter will lead our best combatants belowdecks to take care of the sleeping crew," Silta murmured, nodding to her fellow strategist. "You can go with him."

You can go with him. Take care of the sleeping crew. Bile rose in his throat as he squinted into the darkness at the navy ship, still impossibly naïve to their situation. Why would Britter be leading combatants anyway—wasn't that her job? He glanced over, his eyes adjusting to the darkness just enough to catch a deep crease form between her brows. "And you?" he asked.

Her gaze shifted rhythmically across the navy deck, now in full view. She was the epitome of calm calculation now, no longer a thoughtless bully full of the driest humour. She didn't answer, didn't even seem to hear his question.

Britter let out a soft snort as he secured his knuckles with a wrap, prepared to kill. How methodical a thought to protect your skin on a night like this. The strategist leaned over to Archer and whispered, "It's her fight, Minnow. She goes for the Cap."

Archer struggled not to swallow. If he went with Britter, he'd have to go belowdecks and kill all those sleeping crew members. If he went with those combatants, his kill count would be in the double digits by the time the sun rose—or he'd be found out as a liar. He wanted that list to forever only have one name on it: Jeanne.

Archer only had seconds to decide. Palms already sweaty at the thought of playing any part in this, he jogged after Silta, reaching for her arm to get her attention. "I want to go with you," he insisted when she turned around. "I want to see how it's done."

Did she catch the lie? Probably. She knew he'd rather witness her destruction of one man than be responsible for the massacre of an entire crew, but she didn't berate him into admitting it. She just spun back around, heading up to the topdeck, where the bow of the Avourienne was now linked to the stern of the navy ship.

With a defeated loosening of his breath, Archer trailed her.

She reached for a tightly wound lock of rope by the wheel and unspooled it, then knotted it to the rail quickly, letting it fall down to the water. She lifted herself onto the rail, slow and steady, then lowered her body onto the lip of outside wood.

The shrill sound of a warning bell cut the silence. Archer stilled, and so did Silta. He glanced up at the navy ship's crow's nest, but the scout was already dead, the fletching of an arrow sticking out behind the bell. It was loud, but it was only a fraction of a second. Moving quickly, Archer followed Silta over the rail, watching as she slid down a little, then kicked off the hull of the Avourienne.

She let go of the rope and caught herself on the mere inch protrusion of wood on the navy ship bow, the soft cloth of her boots soundless as she held her balance.

Archer closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He really needed to stop following her into acrobatic situations because he preferred it to the immoral alternative. It had been a few days since his hand had been cut, there was still a sting of pain as he slid down the frayed rope and kicked off.

The roiling water was black below him, so he didn't bother to look. Both ships were still listing in the near-windless night, but their lack of speed didn't make the whole thing any easier. Moving was moving.

He missed the chance to jump and slammed back into the hull of the Avourienne, still holding tight to the rope. Thankfully, Silta was already climbing up to the navy ship's rail, not bothering to check if he'd made it. He had to jump before she had more ammunition against his hesitancy.

One more deep breath. Why did this feel so different from Port Marcel, where he hadn't even thought before making the leap? Maybe it was because this time, he was the hunter, not the prey, and danger was in front, not behind. Gritting his teeth, he kicked off the Avourienne's hull with just enough force to cross the gap and not get pushed back. His let go of the rope as his feet landed on the protrusion, but he started falling backward within the second. Heart hammering, he slid his knife from the sheath in his thigh and drove it into the wood, holding fast.

Heaving in breaths, Archer looked up to where Silta was now nearly at the rail of the navy ship. He gave himself one more moment to steady himself, then reached to climb after her.

He was almost at her shoulders when someone came sprinting from the deck of the navy ship. It was too dark to see any real features, but Archer could sense his franticness, realizing the navy man wasn't trying to get the pirates off the ship; he was trying to jump. He was trying to get over the rail, into the safety of the water below.

As the man lunged for the rail, Silta reached up and slung her arm around his neck, then drove his head down into the metal-lined rail with the full weight of her body. There was a splitting crack, and then the man slumped to the deck, dead.

Archer found himself grinding his teeth tight enough to risk crumbling them into bits of calcium. Had the man raised a family? Did he have a wife, children, loyal friends? Had he been honourable himself—had he mused of a better life away from the crushing weight of royalty?

As he placed his feet on the rail, bent down with his hands gripping the metal to control his balance, Archer looked at the man's body, blood pooling in his hair. It was the first of many tragedies tonight, he knew, one of many stories he'd never know.

Silta was moving on. The navy ship wasn't structured like the Avourienne; the captain's quarters was raised above the aft deck, and the balcony hung out over the water and past the rail at least a few feet. Silta raised her chin, moonlight glinting silver in her hair. Her eyes flickered as she planned her attack, making calculations, comparing pros to cons. They could step down onto the deck and head for the stern deck, but Archer guessed she wanted to make it to the captain's quarters a more unconventional way. She glanced at the captain's balcony, silent. She raised herself from a crouch.

"You're kidding," he muttered, watching her steady herself. The balcony was at least three feet past the rail they were perched on—and therefore three feet out over the open, roiling water. Concentration firm on her face, she leaned out over the water, long fingers grazing the balcony. Not tall enough.

Archer waited for her to ask. He wasn't as tall as Bardarian, but he did have the extra two inches she needed to reach that balcony. Surely she would turn around and ask for him to boost her up. Surely.

She regained her balance on the rail, every perfected, tiny muscle in her ankles and legs working overtime to stabilize her weight. Instead of asking for his help, she bent her knees a little, then leapt for the balcony rail.

"Silta," Archer snapped. She was dangling out over the open water, just one hand having managed to catch the lip of the rail. Without looking back at him, she gritted her teeth and pulled her body up, disappearing from his view.

Archer pursed his lips, glancing at the aft deck behind him. He could just go back to the main deck. Britter would snap at him and ask him where he went, of course, but he could deal with that. Without Silta's confirmation that Archer had gone to take care of the navy captain, he'd be branded a coward—but a murderer would be a far worse thing to call himself.

From the low thumps vibrating through the rail, though, he guessed the slaughter wasn't over yet. He looked to the balcony, jutted out over the water. He could reach it without jumping.

The breeze ruffled his hair as he stood slowly, controlling his balance. Every bone and tendon of his were tense, relying on a million little fibers to ensure he stayed steady as he leaned out over the water. He reached up with his hand, the tips of his fingers just able to reach the lowest bar of the balcony rail. He got a firm grip on it before letting his feet off the ship rail, swinging out over the choppy water so far below.

Archer lifted himself, silently thanking Farley for training him well enough to do any of this. When he was finally on the balcony, he tried the door to the quarters, but it was locked.

A thin creaking sound caught his attention. Silta perched on the rail, fingers outstretched as she pulled the window open without any lock-picking or breaking. He went over to her, brow furrowing.

"Legend says," she murmured softly, eyes raised to the open window, "that keeping your window open at night allows the ocean to protect you from harm."

Archer raised his brows as he peered in the window. Some legend. He pushed at the glass, wanting out of their current exposed position. Without waiting for her word, he stepped onto the windowsill, trying to find a good place to plant his foot on the inside. His boot found purchase, so he finally put his weight over.

He turned and offered Silta a hand to help her over the sill. It was a mindless thing, a harmless gesture he'd always done out of politeness, but as soon as her fingers curled around his, he had the urge to shake her off, regardless of if it sent her falling into the water. He didn't want to assist with this in any way, even if it was nothing more than giving a hand to a killer that would kill anyway.

She stepped by him, unaware of his internal argument. He turned, trying to get his bearings and adjust to less moonlight. The wood creaked as she stalked around the edge of a king-sized bed, where a heap of a man was curled, asleep.

As she crouched near the man's head, Archer wondered if she'd bring out some hidden knife and kill the navy captain in his sleep. She probably wasn't above such a thing—and despite having gotten this far, Archer didn't think he could watch her do it. The man at least deserved to fight, to stand a chance. Perhaps he was smart enough to keep a pistol under his pillow, and if he shot her, Archer wouldn't call for help until it was far too late. Maybe he could make some sort of noise that would wake the man up before she could launch an attack.

But then she reached out to the captain's sleeping face, no weapon in sight beyond the sharp ends of her nails. The moonlight caught her fingers as she ran them over the man's chin, then down his neck. For a fleeting moment, Archer let his mind wonder what that kind of touch felt like—if it were romantic or unnerving. If there was any separation to those things at all.

The man stirred awake, taking in a long, deep breath. His eyes fluttered open as he took in the scene before him. He quickly sat up, lips parting as he scrambled back from Silta.

"Good evening, love," she whispered. There was nothing in her hands, no knife or pistol, and yet still the man kept shuffling back, right until he pitched over the side of the bed, tumbling to Archer's feet.

Stepping back, Archer fought with himself not to speak. The man tried to untangle the blankets wrapped around his waist, struggling to his feet.

"We have money," he said, his voice wavering. "Money and cannons and—"

"Captain," Silta said, soft and gentle, like she was his equal, his way out of this mess.

"—crew," the man finished, head snapping between Archer and her. "You can have any choice of crew you want, we have some good shots and—"

"Love," she said again, firmer this time.

Archer knew this all of this wasn't right regardless, but the man's quick offering of his innocent people was at least some semblance of a sign that he was a drop of water in an immoral wave, a man who worked for a tyrant.

"You have options," Silta said, coming around the side of the bed. What had she done in her life to earn such a reputation—to be so feared that even weaponless and half his size, this man cowered from her? "You can live, still."

Archer glanced at her, then at the man still backing away from her. He knew the Avourienne and the navy had issues, mostly due to Silta and her father, but never had he heard of the Devil's ship letting anything go once they had it cornered.

The navy captain closed his eyes, clearly more knowledgeable on these options than Archer. He waited for Silta to speak.

"Denounce your king," she said. "Remove his flag from your ship."

The navy captain kept his eyes closed, and Archer felt the urge to do the same, to curl up in the smallest ball he could and hide from all these people all their horrors. The King's notorious punishment for denouncement? The murder of every family member and dependent in contact with the traitor. This man's wife and children—and sisters and brothers and cousins—would be dead before he hit port if he chose that option.

The man did not open his eyes, and Archer realized he was considering. He was considering allowing the people on this ship to live at the expense of every person any of them loved. He was thinking of putting his own life above those of all those innocent families, their young children.

When the man opened his eyes, Silta beckoned him forward. She was so convincing in her role, so hateful in the calm breezy night. The man took a few tentative steps until he was almost at the door. "I choose—"

"Stand tall, love," she said sharply, turning him to face the door. She put a hand on his back. "You're dying a hero tonight."

Archer looked at her. The man was ready to denounce the King. He'd been on the verge, ready to save himself.

But the time to object had passed. Silta reached for the door, kicked it open with her foot, then took a step back and shoved the man over the sill.

Smoke billowed into the room, and Bardarian's shape materialized through the haze. He leaned against the balcony rail on the other side, calm and effortless as the face of all this evil.

The navy captain let out a soft sob and whispered, "Captain Bardarian."

"Good man," Bardarian replied. He shifted his gaze and said, "Silta."

"Sir."

Bardarian gave her a wicked smile, bringing a cigar to his mouth. He wasn't a smoker—Farley had been, and the stench followed him everywhere—and Silta never stood so tall in his presence nor called him anything formal. There was a pre-determined agreement here, a rule to feign order and respect for the purpose of a good image. The Avourienne, an organized, picture-perfect operation of pristine attacks where the Captain was not raging a war with his strategist and no rogue deckhands were scheming.

"What's his choice?" Bardarian asked her, studying how rigid she was, liking her momentary complacency.

"To stand by his king, sir," she answered. A fleeting performance for the sake of whoever would survive tonight to tell the tale.

"Honourable man," Bardarian answered, as if he could speak to such a trait. He took a step back, letting them by. "I'll leave you to your fate, Captain."

When he stepped to the side, Archer's gaze caught on something over his shoulder. Behind the smoke curling from the cigar was a pile of something on the navy deck. An arm, a leg.

Bodies of the navy men, piled up like trash. And standing around them was the pirate crew, dark figures in the moonlight. When bile rose in his throat, Archer pushed it down. Fear would not win tonight. It would not.

He kept his head down as he followed Silta to the balcony steps, refusing to watch. Britter stepped out of formation to hand her a rope as they passed, and she secured it to the navy captain's abdomen as they approached the mast.

Nausea threatened again as Archer realized what was about to happen. The only way to tell the Avourienne found a ship before you? Ashes on the deck, and the pirate flag in the mast.

The pirate flag. A human flag, made of the Captain.

Archer tried to step away. He tried to melt back into the shadows of the navy ship, to make the time pass faster. How could he watch people treat people as if they weren't people? As if they didn't have their own families, their own dreams, their own thoughts? And that pile of people on the deck—that pile of souls, of human beings—weren't all dead. Some of them were shifting, moaning in pain, disoriented. Bates stepped forward, drizzling something over them. Rum. Flammable rum.

He wanted to be the kind of person to stand up, to do something. They're all replaceable, Jeanne would say. What good does it do to snap the head from a weed while the root still remains? Close your eyes, Arch. Let it pass you by until you have a shot at the root.

Archer nodded as if she could see him, holding his tongue. Another body on that pile would do nothing but make the pyre burn a little longer. He repeated it to himself. Head from a weed, root. He blocked it all out, and he almost made it out unscathed.

Then someone pressed something to his hand, and he looked up. Silta was giving him the end of the rope, telling him to pull this man up into the mast, to raise this pirate flag.

Archer backed away from her. No, no, no, no. He shook his head, begging her with his eyes. Please don't make me do this. Please, please, please. Was there any pity left in her after all she'd done? Could she sense how badly he needed her to keep him out of this?

"Pull him up, Minnow," she said, holding the rope, still as stone.

Archer felt his nostrils flare, felt his lips quiver and his fingers shake. Meeting her gaze, she glanced at the balcony, where Bardarian was watching, waiting.

"Pull him up, love," she said.

Archer snatched a look at Bardarian. A perfect corner she'd backed him into. Do something like that again, and you'll join your woman. A warning that if he ever did something blatantly against orders, he'd be done, and all would be lost. Jeanne's mercy shot was worth something in the end; this was not. That man would be pulled up regardless of whether Archer or Silta or someone else did it. There was no mercy to be had tonight without far more loss.

He took the rope, nothing but a pawn in an ancient game. Perhaps free will wasn't a true concept after all; perhaps everything was set in stone, already planned out. Archer pulled the Captain up to the mast, through the folds of sailcloth and up to the crow's nest, where he'd die from exposure.

Someone threw a match, and the pile lit up, screams echoing. Orange flames reflected off the polished wood, but Archer didn't turn, didn't look.

The navy captain was done his begging, done his fighting. Die a hero tonight. When he was secure, he raised his face to the dark sky, then lifted his hand over his head, ring finger to his thumb. The King's symbol.

There was the sound of a bullet from the other side of the deck, and the man in the crow's nest cried out in pain. Archer spun to face the fire, finding Bardarian on the balcony, arm extended, pistol still smoking. The fire raged in front of him, reflecting red in his eyes. He'd shot the symbol right out of the man's hand.

"Your king," Bardarian called up, lowering his hand, "won't mourn your lives."

Archer looked up at the navy man, blood running down his arm. Raise your head, he wanted to scream. Stand tall. Don't let them ruin you. When this tale is told, let them whisper about your bravery.

But the navy man hung his head, cradling his mauled hand. He did not stand tall. He gave them what they wanted: a weak, spineless worker bee for a bigger man.

The fire crackled, drowning out the sounds on deck. Every bone in his body was ice cold despite the intense heat. He wanted to do something, to change something, but what would come of Jeanne's memory?

Archer didn't turn as the rest of the crew did. He wondered for a moment what would happen if he stayed there, if he didn't move at all and floated out to sea on the burning vessel. Would he live, wash up on some island and escape this nightmare? Would he be able to move on, to live with having killed Jeanne in vain?

Someone was shouting at him, he realized. It was Denver, pointing to the Avourienne. "Use the ropes! We're drifting, Kingsley!"

Glancing around, the rest of the crew were swinging back to their ship, eager to move their precious vessel far from this piece of firewood. But what if he didn't? What if he stayed here?

"The King is exactly the tyrant he's been made out to be tonight." Silta, low and sharp, but Archer did not flinch at her sudden presence. "Trust me."

"Doesn't make it right," he told her, feet rooted to the ground. He could sense her thoughts, knew she was wondering the same thing as he: Would he stand up tonight? Would he take his side far earlier than intended?

She raised her chin, eyes shining the same colour as the pyre behind her. No, it wouldn't be tonight.

Tonight, he'd bundle up his morality, his values, his innocence. He'd keep it tightly wrapped, safe from her and everyone else. He'd play this game properly, until the right moment.

And when that moment came, Jeanne's name on his list would be joined with three others—King Kain, Captain Bardarian, and Novari Silta.