an inconspicuous manner as three men enter the brig.
“She don’t look like much,” one says to the others.
“But did you see what she did to Gastol and Moll?” another asks. “Dead as rocks.”
The third man remains quiet, watching me as the others do.
“Have you finished ogling?” I ask. “Or are you hoping I’ll perform tricks for
you?”
“Don’t mind us,” the first pirate says. “It’s not every day you get to see the
pirate king’s own flesh and blood.”
“And am I what you were expecting?”
“They say the pirate king is as big as a whale and as fierce as a shark. We weren’t expecting a tiny little thing.”
“I must take after my mother,” I say. I’ve never met my mother, so I couldn’t
say for certain, but my father tells me I received my red hair from her.
The rest of the day is much like this. Pirates come and go, taking whatever chance they can get to see the pirate king’s daughter up close. After the first bunch, I stay mostly quiet.
It’s close to nightfall when my last visitor shows up. Whereas all the other pirates arrived in groups, this man comes alone.
He’s not much to look at, this one. Medium height and build. Brown hair and
beard. He does look older than most of the other pirates on board. Maybe not quite thirty, but it’s hard to tell with the beard hiding the bottom half of his face.
He’s got a gold coin in his right hand, which he moves over his knuckles with
ease.
“Hello, Alosa,” he says. “Name’s Theris.”
I’d been leaning back on two legs in my chair, but now I swing forward, straightening myself. “I must have seen every man on board pass through here at
least once today. Why should I remember you? Or care what your name is?”
“You shouldn’t,” he says, reaching a hand up and scratching his forehead. His
fingers move fast, but the movement is unmistakable. He draws the letter K.
“I’m not a very interesting man to know.”
The K is for Kalligan. It’s the signal men under my father’s employ use to identify themselves. Theris must be the man on the ship working for my father.
He would have been the one who let my father know that the crew of the Night
Farer wanted to kidnap me in the first place.
You never know when unfriendly ears are listening in, so I keep the
conversation casual. “So it would seem.”
“Just wanted to catch a glimpse of the pirate king’s daughter.”
“And let me catch a glimpse of you?”
“Precisely. Sometimes survival isn’t about what you can do, but who you know.”
“Noted,” I say icily.
Theris nods before retreating.
I wasn’t expecting my father’s man to make himself known to me. We have
different jobs on the ship. Theris’s is to provide my father with information about this ship and its captain. Mine is to play the role of thief. We shouldn’t need to help each other. In fact, we’re expected to be able to perform our tasks
alone.
But my father is counting on me not to fail. Perhaps his desire to find the map
is so great that he’s ordered Theris to keep an eye on me. On the one hand, I can understand why he wouldn’t want to take any chances, but on the other, I’m deeply insulted. I can handle this mission on my own, and I won’t be calling on
Theris for help.
* * *
I have to wait until nightfall before I can start. I can tell when the sun sets because most of the pirates retire below. I can’t see them from the brig, but I can smell them. They can’t be far. I can imagine them sleeping in hammocks or on a
straw-strewn floor. Whatever it may be, it’s bound to be better than the brown-
caked floor I’ll be sleeping on. I cringe at the thought.
I start humming again as I shrug on my coat, which is fashioned similarly to
the justaucorps men wear, but mine was made for a woman’s figure. Mandsy made it for me. She can wield a needle just as well as she can wield a sword, which is only one of the many reasons why I made her part of my crew.
Though the coat will help me look like any other sailor if I’m seen from a distance, I hope I won’t have much need to blend in once I’m above deck. I’m
counting on the cover of darkness to mask me.
Once I’ve got my cell unlocked, I silence my humming. I drift around the lower areas of the ship, getting a feel for the shape of it. A storage room for food and supplies, a treasury for the pirates’ plunder, a modest kitchen, and the main crew’s sleeping quarters make up the space belowdecks. Easy enough to