Captain Morrissey was engaged in a one-man board game when I entered his cabin. I recognized the setup immediately; I’d grown up playing Soldier’s Advance with my siblings, until our mother had decided it wasn’t sophisticated enough for people of our class. The game was built for three players, all moving their token toward the center of the triangular board, but the Captain had only set up two, leaving the third path empty.

He sent the others to get me. He can’t be that upset.

The clatter of the six-sided die cut through the silence in the room. Morrissey frowned at a result I was too far away to see, looked at the betting cards in his hand, and placed a card face-down on the table. He reached over to his opponent’s token—the navy blue one—and pulled it four spaces closer to the board’s center, then turned his own card up to reveal a large number 1.

“Sir,” I spoke up. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to, less commanding than the clack of the die on the table as he rolled again.

“Rhotar,” Morrissey said without looking at me. “Can I get your advice here?”

I clasped and unclasped my hands, a little annoyed at a delay probably meant to keep me nervous. Still, he was the Captain, and he was probably doing this for a reason, so I walked to the opposite side of the table and looked over the board.

“Blue is way ahead,” I observed, glancing at him. He nodded, watching me intently, so I continued. “Black bet that Blue would only move one space on the last turn—probably assuming Blue would play it safe, because they could afford to make smaller moves at this point. But Blue moved four. I’m guessing that was the max they rolled, right?”

He nodded again. The corner of his mouth twitched.

I looked at the die—he’d rolled another 4 for Black’s turn. “Blue will bet four, so that if they’re wrong and Black gets to move, they still won’t go far enough to catch up,” I said.

“So I should move three?”

I furrowed my brow at the board. “If there was a third player, they’d bet three. Force Black to take the loss. But it doesn’t look like you’re accounting for anyone else here, so really, Black should have been moving more aggressively this whole time.”

“I see.”

I paused, getting the vague sense that I’d just called my Captain an idiot.

“You’re quite the strategist, Rhotar.”

That had to be leading somewhere. “I do my best, Sir,” I answered, meeting his gaze.

“It’s quite impressive. You always seem to know what your opponent is doing.”

I swallowed. “I do my best,” I repeated.

He leaned forward, dark brown eyes holding mine. “I want to know how you knew Sheriff Carter would follow us,” he said quietly. “And I don’t mean following you to the bar, I mean why he’s fifty miles from Hashton in the first place.”

That sounded…accusatory. “Honestly, I didn’t, Sir,” I said carefully. “It was only a guess, but I figured if I went to intercept him and he didn’t show up, I wouldn’t really have done any damage.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” His voice rose slightly.

“I didn’t think you’d take my guess seriously.”

“Right.” He reached to the board and slid the black token three spaces forward, the movement harsher than strictly necessary. “Nor should I, because you’re a deckhand with three months of experience who spent his entire life being pampered.”

I felt irritation bubble in my throat. “I chose to leave that life and join your crew,” I said. “I didn’t have to.”

“That’s just it, Rhotar. A competent strategist would never make a move like that unless he had something to get out of it.”

He really was about to accuse me of being a traitor. Why in the world did he send people to find me if he thinks I’m trying to betray him?

“I’ve done nothing but help this crew,” I said, barely holding my voice steady. “And in Hashton, I told you every step of my plan. It was just here…” I didn’t finish. I’d already explained once.

Morrissey let out a long sigh, leaning back. “You show a lot of promise, and what you did back in Hashton…that was nothing short of legendary.” He smiled slightly, then shook his head. “But I have no way of knowing what happened in Tarriva except for the word of two deckhands and an injured doctor, and the two of those people that aren’t you both worship you. I’m sure you can see the conundrum.”

That was ridiculous. Why had he chosen Sterling and Kienna to rescue me if they weren’t trustworthy either? If Sterling had lied about Tarriva, couldn’t he have lied about Hashton? If we all were lying, how did he know Sheriff Carter had ever been in Tarriva at all? But I didn’t think pointing any of that out would help my case, so I responded, “I can, Sir. How can I prove myself to you?”

He leaned in, hands gripping his knees. “I need you to start treating me like your Captain. That means you follow my orders, you tell me what your plan is, and above all, you don’t disappear to somewhere I might not find you.” He took a breath. “I know back home you were the one giving orders, but as long as you’re on my ship, you answer to me, got it?”

I nodded.

“Good. One last thing.” He grinned broadly. “I never rewarded you for your success in Hashton.”

I froze, watching his face and trying not to look too hopeful.

“What do you say we make you crow’s scout? Put that climbing skill to use, eh?”

My expression sank toward disappointment despite my attempt to stop it. Because his intent was obvious: by putting me up at the top of the mast, he was putting me where I couldn’t leave without being noticed, and I couldn’t hear whatever planning was going on.

“I’d be honored, Sir,” I forced out.

He smiled. “Excellent. I never expected to get such a useful sailor out of you.”

I forced my face to stay neutral. “Thank you, Sir.”

He tapped the table. “Dismissed.”

I didn’t ask the obvious question, but it raged in my head as I turned to leave. If you never expected me to amount to anything, Sir, then why did you let me into your crew?

The crow’s nest was barely wide enough for me to kneel in when I got tired of standing. I got a telescope from the previous scout—a woman named Dally who’d been more than happy to pass on her position for a new one at a lower elevation—but the lens was so scratched it wasn’t much better than squinting really hard. Wind, salt, and sun rubbed my skin raw, and my hair whipped about like it was one of the black sails beneath me. By the end of my first few hours, my feet hurt, my eyes hurt, and I’d seen nothing but deep blue water and red cliff face.

I couldn’t even take pride in being useful to the ship, not when the Captain apparently didn’t trust me.

So when I finally spotted an opportunity in the distance the next day, I felt nervous more than relieved.

“Ship on the horizon,” I called down to Morrissey, who was at his usual place at the helm. “It looks like there’s crates on deck, moving pretty slow!”

It was a perfect target. I knew it, and the Captain knew it as he motioned for me to climb down. Bastian ambled over to join him, crossing his arms at me as I landed on the deck and hurried up the stairs to the bridge.

“What do you suggest we do?” Morrissey asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

I swallowed, glancing out over the waves in the other ship’s direction. From here, I could mistake it for a sun spot in my vision. “I doubt they’ve seen us, and if they have, I doubt they know what we are.”

Neither man responded.

“We could get pretty close to them without raising alarm, then drop our flag,” I suggested. Ships usually surrendered when we revealed ourselves within cannon range.

“Sir,” Morrissey added softly.

“Sir.”

Face unreadable, he asked, “What do you think, Jared?”

Bastian eyed me. “He’s still used to the Chrysanthean sailors. The ones around this continent are tougher—you remember when we tried that tactic out here four months ago.”

He said it like it was my fault for not remembering something I hadn’t been there for. I clenched my fists, but it was Morrissey who responded.

“You’re right, but that’s not the larger issue with the plan. Rhotar?”

I met his expectant gaze. There was something he thought I could understand—something he wanted me to understand.

“What’s the big picture here?” he prompted. “Why should we attack that ship?”

Bastian cleared his throat. “They could have supp-”

Morrissey held up a hand to silence the quartermaster, keeping his gaze locked on mine.

Bastian was wrong, somewhat to my gratification; we weren’t talking about supplies. But I didn’t know what we were talking about.

“I’m not sure, Sir.”

The Captain let out a silent sigh. “We wait until nightfall,” he announced, peering out over the deck and his crew working below. “Rhotar, get back in position and make sure that ship doesn’t leave your sight.”

He was speaking forcefully, with almost exaggerated authority. I glanced at Bastian; he was still watching me.

“Yes, Sir.” I gave a similarly-exaggerated nod, scanned Bastian’s face one more time, and turned to go back to the main mast.

Bastian looked smug about something. Maybe it was my performative subservience, or maybe that I’d failed to understand the Captain’s thinking.

I scrambled back up the rope ladder toward the crow’s nest, the wind intensifying as I went. Before Bastian’s voice was completely drowned out, I made out the words, “Told you…more of a liability than an asset…”

My hands tightened on the swaying rope.

If the quartermaster had decided I was untrustworthy before I’d done anything reckless, it almost made me wonder why I should bother trying to prove myself at all.

But the Captain…there was a reason he wanted me around. I could prove myself to him.

I kept climbing.

For the rest of the day, I kept a vigilant watch on the other ship, signaling its direction to Morrissey at the helm. We stayed so far back that I nearly lost track of it a few times, but I refused to request that we move closer and risk them spotting us; I could practically hear Bastian twisting a story about me trying to get us caught.

When it was dark enough that the other ship had disappeared entirely, Morrissey took a final note on its trajectory and waved me back down to the deck. I was heading his way when a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.

I flinched and stumbled, and the hand let me fall forward until I caught my balance on my own. “With me, Rhotar,” Roxy’s voice said.

I exhaled and turned around to find the master gunner with a far-too-excited grin on her face. She obviously knew some plan I hadn’t been let in on, so I nodded to her, and she led me down the stairs to the Starwatch’s common room, where much of the crew had gathered for the evening.

“Oy!” Roxy barked into the room, slicing through the wall of chatter that greeted us at the door.

“What?” someone grunted.

“Rhotar spotted a ship. Looks like crates on deck.”

I found Sterling watching me from a couch nearby. “Are we attacking?”

Roxy’s eyes snapped in his direction, green glinting yellow in the lantern light. “Of course.” To the rest of the room, she called, “Get yourselves ready and wait at the bottom of the stairs. Not you, Farsing,” she said to Kienna, who had already gotten to her feet.

Kienna grumbled something about it not hurting that bad and sat back down.

I followed a group of sailors to our living quarters, where I tied my hair back and grabbed my revolver from under my hammock. Others armed themselves with flintlocks, knives, and cutlasses. Then we made our way back through the belly of the ship to the base of the stairs.

We waited in near-silence, illuminated only by the half moon far above.

Bastian’s hulking form appeared at the top of the stairs. “Cinder, we’re ready for you,” he said quietly.

Roxy turned to the rest of us, letting me spot her usual twitch of irritation at hearing her surname. She scanned over the waiting faces, then hissed, “Atterley, with me.”

Sterling bumped my shoulder with a grin as he followed her up the stairs, his footsteps notably less silent than hers.

As we continued to wait, I ran through likely scenarios in my head. We’d charge all at once, board the ship as fast as possible, look for anything of value and clear out any crew that opposed us. Even these ‘tougher sailors’ probably wouldn’t take long to surrender, so if I wanted to show my loyalty, I had to do it early.

The ship groaned beneath my feet, breathing in and out with the waves, living while the people aboard stayed dead still.

The silhouette of Captain Morrissey appeared above us. It held out its hand.

A cannon’s boom resounded through the walls. The ship lurched with the clanking of a chain—I assumed that was Roxy and Sterling, reeling in our prey with a hook fired from the cannon.

A familiar buzz spread through my body, nerves and anticipation wound into one tight thread. I really did love this—I just had to prove it.

The Captain beckoned as he spun away, and a roar swelled around me as the crew stampeded up the stairs.