“We didn’t hear anything after that,” Theo said. “But three nights later, she showed up on horseback with a knapsack and a second horse trailing behind her. Her hair was flattened on her head with all these tiny fucking… needles.” Theo pinched his fingers together in the air to demonstrate their miniscule size, his face twisted in frustration at the phantom needles.

“They were pins, dear,” Yarrow said.

“They were teeny, tiny torture devices,” Theo said adamantly. “You should have heard the noises she made when I helped her take them out, mate. It took ages. I felt like I was torturing the poor thing.”

“Darling,” Yarrow said.

“Right, well, anyway,” Theo continued. “Ace showed up, looking like she’s just pulled off a jailbreak.”

“She sort of had,” Yarrow muttered.

“She told us she was headed to Portugal, that she was determined to live on the sea again, and she hoped we would come with her. Of course, we did. To be honest, we were kind of sick of our old crew, and Ace was family. There was no question. We went.”

“You can pretty well fill out the rest of the story,” Yarrow said. “We met with Abilio, got The Valerian back, and went about forming a pirate crew. And now… well, Ace’s past has caught up with her, as she always feared it would.”

Zander let out a long breath. His hands shook, his body still reeling, but his thoughts were coming back into focus.

“And you knew the merchant vessel near Azores was… his?” Zander asked, thinking of the ship with the octopus carved on the bow.

“Not his,” Yarrow said. “It belonged to a family friend of Ignacio’s, a family he did business with often. The Marins are a seafaring family, while Sanz and his lot are inland folk. Seeing Sanz himself on that ship today… well, that was a shock. As far as any of us knew, the Sanz family didn’t own any vessels. Anyway, Ace knew someone on the Marin vessel would likely recognize her. It’s why the decision to take it was left up to the crew. Why Ace didn’t deal with the captain.”

“He knew her,” Zander said.

“Yes. He officiated their wedding,” Yarrow said. “Ignacio and Ace were supposed to sail away on his sloop the day after the wedding, a sort of coming out tour for Sanz’s new wife—a gift from the Marin family.”

Theo snorted. Zander looked at him questioningly.

“After Ace met us at the inn, we headed to the port at Malaga and took Marin’s boat. We burned it off the coast of Portugal. I’m afraid we’re responsible for his dislike of pirates.” He chuckled.

“And Declan knew he recognized her,” Zander said. “He contacted him somehow when we were in Porto, and word got to Sanz where she was headed.”

“Aye,” Theo said. “Declan was on the sloop that day, below deck. It’s likely he saw something that would have helped him locate the Marin family. The man was a prick, but he was rather smart.”

“But why would any man waste all these resources just to chase his estranged wife across the ocean?” Zander asked.

“Because she never told him where to find her inheritance,” Yarrow said. “The fabled Vidal fortune.”

Zander’s head shot up as he remembered what Ace said. “It never left Antequera.”

Zander now knew two things for sure. One—he knew where Ace was, or at least where she was headed. And two—he knew he would do anything to get her back, even if he had to defy God himself, before whom Ace had been married.

He had jumped into the sea to chase her once. Now, he’d jump right into the jaws of a monster to find her again.

12

The tale of Ace’s marriage and subsequent escape told, the three pirates turned their attention to the ruin that surrounded them.

First, they tended to their wounds. Zander was relieved to find that Yarrow’s injuries were mostly superficial—cuts and bruises and quite a few sore muscles. When Theo stripped his shirt off, the injury on his shoulder made Zander’s breath catch. Yarrow tended to it with a serious look, their fingers gentle as they pulled bits of debris from the wound, cleaned it, and applied stitches. They’d found enough usable materials among the wreckage of the room to make a poultice, but it was only enough for one application. They checked Theo for more wounds and found none aside from a few broken ribs.

Zander, who’d spent most of the battle either climbing the rigging or lying on the ground unconscious, noted with a sense of bitter regret that he was not seriously injured.

Next, they tended to the bodies. They threw the men Sanz left behind into the sea first, murmuring generic prayers and wishing them rest despite the anger burning in their guts.

With the invaders out of the way, they laid their friends together on the main deck and took their time saying goodbye. Zander looked at each of his friends in turn, tears coating his cheeks as he said silent farewells to all seven of them. He etched their visages in his mind, allowing the horror to build a wall of flaming fury around his heart.

Theo knelt beside each fallen member of The Valerian in turn, resting his hand on their shoulders. He talked to them as if they were still there, telling jokes, reminiscing, openly weeping. Yarrow stood by and looked at the crew members silently for a while, then retreated to their quarters. Moments later, Zander heard muffled screaming followed by the sound of knuckles against wood.

After they’d said their goodbyes, Theo and Zander buried their friends at sea and washed their blood from the deck.

Continuously pushing away thoughts of what he could have done, should have done, Zander went below deck in search of shot plugs and a few spare buckets. They spent the next few hours tending to the most severe damage to The Valerian. When they finished, they were still left with a wreck, but it was a floating wreck, at least.

As evening approached, Zander, Theo, and Yarrow stood gathered in a circle around Ace’s desk.

Ace’s quarters had been trashed, drawers emptied and shelves wiped clean. Books and other small treasures littered the ground. Zander positioned himself with his back to the bed, unable to look at it without imagining Ace there, sleeping, her arm draped over her face and her foot peeking out from beneath the covers. He couldn’t bear to think about it without turning into a sobbing mess.

He tried to stand up straight, taking on the air he knew Ace would have in a similar situation—tough, unbothered, determined, despite the raging sea of emotions running beneath her skin.

“If he thinks the inheritance is still in Antequera, then he’ll have taken her back to his estate to get its exact location out of her,” Yarrow said. “But if I know Ace, she’ll find a way to stall—to survive—until she sees an advantage in telling him. Hopefully, that will give us enough time to reach her… even though, technically, she told us not to come after her.”

“An order I’m happy to ignore,” Zander said. “She didn’t tell me shit, so I’ll take the blame if she gets mad.” He shrugged.

Theo chuckled at Zander’s attempt to lighten the mood. Yarrow gave him a crooked smile and continued.

“The most direct route would be to sail to Malaga and travel North from there, a journey we’ve made many times.” They pointed to Malaga on the map, tracing their finger the short distance North to the region of Antequera.

“But The Valerian isn’t fit to sail as far as Malaga,” Theo said. “And Lord Prick will likely have lookouts at Malaga’s ports anyhow.”

Yarrow nodded in agreement.

“We can make it as far as Algarve and find passage from there to Porto,” Yarrow said. “Abilio will help us with the necessary supplies. We’ll need weapons, at the very least. Horses.” Their eyes flashed toward Theo, who was cradling his arm. “Perhaps some medicine.”

Zander tried to gauge the distance from Algarve, at the pointed tip of Portugal, to Porto. He suppressed a sigh by biting his tongue. This was going to take forever. He felt time slipping through his fingers like sand. The familiar tug in his chest grew ever fainter as Ace drifted farther away.

Chills ran down Zander’s arms from the wind outside, echoing the cold feeling in his gut. The fire damage above deck where Zander had last seen Theo and Yarrow fighting had opened a small crevice in the far wall and ceiling of the captain’s quarters. The ocean air drifted in, rustling loose papers.

“Speaking of repairs,” Zander said, gesturing to the fissure. “What happened there? One moment Ace was calling for surrender, and the next it sounded as if a bomb had gone off.”

“Enough,” Yarrow said. “That was what Ace said. ‘Enough.’ It was a code word meant for me and Theo. Ace knew we likely wouldn’t win this fight, and she warned us we’d need a backup plan. She wanted us to get out and take you with us, and she wanted to make sure Sanz left The Valerian behind. She’d rather it sink than end up in his hands.”

“What was the plan?” Zander asked.

“A distraction. Something explosive enough that me and Theo could bail overboard and be presumed dead. She was supposed to use it to get you to safety.”

“We didn’t know she was going to hit you over the head, mate,” Theo clarified.

“After that,” Yarrow continued, “we’d stay with The Valerian and make sure she didn’t sink, or if it fell into the hands of Sanz’s men, we’d stowaway and make a new plan from there. She’d hoped there would be a crew left behind as well. She didn’t predict he’d take survivors with him.”

“And what was the distraction?” Zander asked. “A bomb?”