After the usual morning routine of checking the ships in the marina for the Albatross, Elodie took her breakfast in her mother’s chambers, to keep up the illusion of her mother being confined there due to illness. 

Then she had to get properly dressed, and quickly for her etiquette lessons at Miss Griffin’s house on Angleby Street. There she practiced dances and tea manners and such with four other ladies of her class. Elodie made the gentle conversations about the weather and social events around the town. One of the girls, Isabel, spoke of her suitors. This was her second year on the marriage mart, and as a result she was getting quite serious about choosing between said suitors. Elodie could only hope that she would be so lucky. 

It was quite romantic after all, wasn’t it, being caught between so many suitors vying for one’s hand?

After all, Isabel’s family had enough gold from mercantile trades that she was not marrying for money, and not so rich yet as to marry for power. Isabel herself fancied a love-match, and Elodie could only hope the same for herself one day. 

Indeed, her mother had insisted on it. 

“Don’t you dare listen to your grandfather,” her mother had said with flashing eyes. “No daughter of mine is going to marry for social status or money or something well-to-do like that.”

She’d slammed down the bottle of rum and tilted her head, something softer coming across her face like a veil. “I married the man my father chose for me, the kind of man he wanted, with money and a minor title.”

It was then that Elodie noticed the ring her mother always wore. The garnet in the center caught the candlelight and in that moment resembled a drop of blood. It seemed especially so as her mother leaned in, a bitter smile overtaking her face. 

“What they don’t tell you is that him being a gentleman doesn’t mean that he’s a good man, it just means he’s got money and land.” She leaned back in her chair and looked at Elodie in a way that made her wonder if her mother was looking for traces of her father in her face. “Your father might have been a true sailor, all grit and thievery, but he was a better man than Jonathan Beckett ever was.” 

She’d then raised her hand to examine her ring herself and smiled. It was not a kind smile at all, with a cruel edge to it like a shark’s. In the candlelight of that night, Elodie could see her mother exactly as she must have been before her birth—the infamous Keira Fleetwood. 

Then she looked to Elodie and her smile softened. “If you’re so keen on marrying into society and all that, do me a favor, will you? Make sure you love him. You deserve no less.”

After her tea and etiquette lessons, Elodie returned home and checked on the ledgers for the finances of the house. Her grandfather was the one who paid for everything, but it was up to Keira—and now Elodie—to verify and allocate those funds correctly. 

Once the ledgers were balanced—as they always were—Elodie then took to one of the upstairs drawing rooms that her mother had converted into a training room for swordplay. 

There were training dummies lined at one end of the room, the other held a rack of swords. There was a variety of shapes and styles that had been commissioned by Keira Fleetwood. Some mimicked the slanted ends of the blades from Oyeshima, or the scimitars to the islands in the southeast, or the great broadswords of the inhabitants of Thule. Keira had insisted when she’d begun Elodie’s training that she would learn to master all of the styles. 

It was strange, Elodie supposed as she picked up her favorite, the delicate rapier that was the standard of duelists and gentlemen in Cartagenan territory. Of course, her mother had insisted on teaching her a great many things from her days as a pirate. But if Elodie gave them only a half-hearted attempt, a mere trial for the sake of appeasement, Keira shrugged that off and would not make any further insistences. 

But the matter of swordplay was entirely different. When Elodie was around thirteen or fourteen, she’d protested the matter with her mother. 

“Why should I need to learn this, when I never plan to take to the seas?” Elodie had groaned as she picked up the scimitar. It had been giving her more trouble than she would have liked to admit. 

Besides that trouble, the daily fencing lessons felt like an imposition on the things that were more important to her life in Port Augustine. Things like social engagements with the girls in her etiquette lessons, or practice with sewing or embroidery to create her trousseau. 

“Every woman, lady or not, should know how to defend herself,” her mother said with the same even patience as she readied her own blade. “The gentlemen would like for you to think they can protect you, but more often than not, they’re the ones you need to protect yourself from.”

With that, her mother took the first swing. Elodie was quick to block her, and push back, using the leverage of where the metal had interlocked. Her mother withdrew and started to circle her. With appraising eyes, she regarded her daughter. 

“Besides, it would be a shame to waste that kind of talent on tea parties and such.” 

She struck again, and Elodie was quick again to block. This time, when the blades interlocked, Elodie sharply turned the blade with a force that sent her mother’s sword clattering to the floor. 

“Yes, like that.” Her mother smirked as she went to go pick it up. “It would be silly to waste that.”

She then picked up the sword and straightened herself. “Now, again, and this time I won’t be going easy on you.”

Elodie did have to admit that it was difficult to find a challenge in practicing her fencing skills with her mother gone. There was only so much that could be done with the dummies, and most of what she kept to during her mother’s absences were drills. The kind of movements that reminded her of the weight of the blade, how to move and maneuver it. 

Despite her rebellion in her early teen years, she had long come to enjoy the art of swordplay. It was similar to a dancing lesson, the feeling of spinning around the room in a synchronized movement with another. Spirits ran high and the movement was graceful, beautiful in its own right.

Even the blades themselves carried their own sort of beauty in the craftsmanship of the metalwork. Elodie could admire how her favorite rapier had such delicate lines, from the slender blade to the intricate details of the handle. She liked how it glinted in the sunlight coming in through the large window. 

More than all of that, however, she had come to feel at home with a blade in her hand. With her sword, she felt so sure of her steps, her strength was unmatched. She was certain such things could be attributed to the years of practice, and her mother’s intentions. For even though such an art was unladylike, Elodie could admit that her mother had a point about gentlemen. 

The evidence of that was in the ring she wore and the murder charge that had convicted her own dear Captain Vance. For it was said that Jonathan Beckett had been murdered thirty years ago by his wife and her lover. And though he was a gentlemen in status, he did not act the part. 

Elodie suspected that was especially why her mother was so insistent that she could fight. So that she would never have to fear any man. 

It was a grim, sobering thought. But one that propelled her nonetheless through her drills.

Night had fallen by the time Elodie had returned to her room. Sitting on the end of the bed was a package, wrapped in thick brown paper and tied shut with a thin string, the kind that didn’t hold more complicated knots all that well. 

She recalled that one of the maids, Rosemarine, had mentioned that there was a package coming today. But Elodie hadn’t thought it was for her. She examined the scrawled ink on the paper for the return address.

Ah. It was from the dressmaker’s shop on Cortes Street. 

Elodie had never untied a knot so quickly in her life. She ripped at the paper to get at the contents, revealing taffeta that was the same exquisite blue of the ocean. She stopped, her fingers hovering over the masterpiece of ribbon and lace folded neatly into a square. 

It had been so long since her last fitting, she’d nearly forgotten. 

She inhaled slowly, taking in the sight of the finished ballgown. The one intended for her debut. Then, with all the gentleness and care she could muster, she lifted the dress out of its neatly-folded square and unfurled it to see the whole picture. 

She took it over to the full-length mirror and imagined what she would look like in it on the night of her big debut. She of course had tried on mock-ups and an early version in the lead-up. But she’d never seen it on her with all of the trimmings and additions. It had already been lovely enough, with that pale blue-green color that complimented her peaches-and-cream complexion and fiery red hair. But with the lace and pale coral ribbons added, the effect was arresting.

She would not try it on tonight. And she certainly would not look at herself wearing it in the mirror. Not until her debut night. She had to preserve a few surprises for herself. But she was already certain that in her finery, every eligible bachelor’s eyes would be on her. 

No one would remember that she was a bastard’s daughter and a bastard herself. No one would remember that her father was hanged for piracy and left as a warning for weeks after on the low tides of the marina. No one would remember that her grandfather was no Albionese gentry, only a shrewd investor and a barrister from the Emerald Isles. 

No, after they saw her like this, all they would see her as was a potential bride. 

Her heart fluttered at the idea as she hung the dress on the door of her oak wardrobe. The wrinkles would have time to fall out of them this way, and she could look at it and dream of her debut ball. She could dream of what it would be like to dance with a true partner, not one of the other girls in her etiquette class. She could imagine her partner’s witty repoire, and what it was like to feel the gaze of a man upon her. 

She returned to her bed and blew out the candle, shrouding the room in darkness. Only the moonlight protruded through the curtains of her bed frame. As she burrowed under her quilt and turned away from the moon, she wondered where her mother was. If she saw the same moon as Elodie, if she was thinking of her. 

Elodie did not fear that her mother had died or come to injury in her quest. Her mother was infamous for her exploits and had once showed her testimonies and gazette articles about the crimes she and her father had committed once upon a time. Her mother was more than capable of handling herself. 

No, the danger came from Elodie’s grandfather. And while Elodie was certain her mother was keeping herself safe, that did not mean that she would complete her quest within the six months she’d given herself. 

Elodie still remembered the note her mother had left for her. It lived in the drawer of her nightstand, kept for the sentimentality of it all. 

Dearest Elodie,

I am afraid I must leave at once. Your father’s greatest treasure is in danger, and if I do not go, all will be destroyed. I cannot take you with me. Please keep the house running in my absence, so I may come home to you.

With love,

Your Mother