It took over an hour for the guard to drink himself to sleep, in which time Zander and his friends struggled to remain awake, desperate to talk to one another. The noise above deck was only beginning to die down when they had their chance.

Once they were satisfied the guard slept soundly, Yarrow pulled themselves across the small space in the brig and clutched Theo’s hands like a lifeline, bringing them to their lips and kissing each one of his fingers. They brought one hand to his face, gently caressing his wounds.

“Who did this to you, my love?” they whispered, their voice fierce, their tender gaze sharpening into hard lines. A dangerous promise lay in their eyes.

Theo leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Yarrow’s. “In time, my fortune,” he said.

The two stared into each other’s eyes, communicating silently for several moments, before they turned to Zander. The three of them shared a moment of heavy silence before Zander spoke, softly, so as not to wake their guard.

“So, we’ll abandon ship in Cadiz and make our way to Antequera.”

Theo nodded. “Aye, seems like our only option.” He looked to Yarrow to confirm, then said, “You two have any luck today?”

“Some,” Zander said. “I was scrubbing the orlop most of the day, but it wasn’t entirely fruitless.” He nodded toward the satchel laying at the other side of the room, partially obscured by Theo’s gun vest. “I suppose Yarrow’s satchel has been picked clean by now.”

“Aye, it has,” Theo said, turning to lift the straw behind his back. Tucked beneath the top layer were the three grenadiers.

“How did you get those?” Zander asked, surprised relief rushing through him.

Theo produced a small metal pin seemingly out of nowhere. “Picked the lock,” he said. “These pirates are idiots. They were too busy hitting me to remember the satchel, for one. Then they left me unguarded at dinnertime.”

“That’s good,” Yarrow said. “They don’t see us as a threat. After all, why would they?” They gave Theo a pointed look, smirking. “I, for example, am harmless—not good for much but making rum punch.” Then they plunged their hand into their pocket, pulling it out to reveal a fat handful of coins they’d stolen from their new pirate friends.

Theo struggled to contain the laughter that bubbled out of him, his hand clutching his stomach as if it would keep the noise inside his body.

“You heard about the rum punch comment, then?” he said through his laughter.

Yarrow nodded, pocketing the coins again and leaning forward to give him a kiss. “You make it too easy, my love.”

“Aye, well, it’s been some time since you’ve gotten to play,” Theo said. “So, we have coins and grenadiers. What else?”

Zander pulled the dagger from his left boot, careful to keep the sailmaker’s needle in its place.

“One of you should take this,” he said, offering the blade handle-first. “I have my other one, and a sailmaker’s needle as well.”

Yarrow nodded at Theo, who took the dagger and tucked it in the side of his own boot.

The three of them planned to lay low the next day, blending in, helping, finding supplies they could steal or weaknesses they could exploit for their escape. They just had to bide their time, to earn a bit of trust. By the end of the day tomorrow they’d be in Cadiz, and if they could only remain unwatched for a few moments, they could escape and begin the long overland journey to Antequera.

Zander slept fitfully that night, dreaming of Ace. A monster pulled her to the depths, a monster he couldn’t see, and Zander couldn’t swim fast enough to reach her.

15

Blending in proved much easier for Yarrow than for Zander.

He was doing his best to be helpful, industrious, invisible. But he seemed to have somehow lost his natural talent for invisibility over the past few months, a fact he was both proud of and frustrated by. These pirates were fucking assholes, and it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep himself from smashing the nearest sailor’s face against the mast.

The ship was crowded, noisy, and stinking. At every turn waited the sweat-slicked face of some pirate ready with an insult or a slap. The conversations he overheard made him sick: tales of violence and licentiousness that made his stomach writhe in hatred, the men who told them daring him to challenge them when they saw the disgust on his face. Zander briefly wondered at the chances he’d joined the only good pirate crew in existence when he swam to Ace’s sloop.

At least Zander’s inability to blend in served as a distraction from Yarrow’s work. They donned an air of harmless amiability, acting as lackey to the largest pirates here and there while simultaneously feigning ignorance about anything to do with sailing, and thus avoiding any real work. They flattered, they sneaked, they slipped out of sight into the infirmary or the crew’s quarters, showing up minutes later to laugh at someone’s joke while detaching the gun holster at their side and emptying their pistol of bullets.

Zander covered for them more than a few times, to his great embarrassment. Once, he spotted Yarrow slipping a flask from the pocket of the red-haired pirate who took Ace’s cutlass, clearly pushing their luck now. He caught their eye, his brows furrowing in a manner that said, Really? Do we need that? They simply smiled back at him.

When Zander noticed the pirate begin to turn in Yarrow’s direction, the flask still halfway out of their pocket, he panicked. He did the only thing he could think of and yelled loudly to get the pirate’s attention.

“Hey!” he said, his voice coming out in an angry growl. The red-haired pirate stared at him incredulously as Yarrow slinked into the background and out of sight.

He narrowed his eyes at Zander, his hand resting menacingly on the handle of Ace’s blade. Zander wished he could cut his fingers off to prevent him from touching it again.

“What,” he said sharply.

Zander said the first thing that came to his mind. “You’ve got bird shit on your head.”

The pirate’s face wrinkled in confusion. He stood and he walked away, his hand leaving the blade’s handle to casually touch his head, testing. Zander sighed loudly, ignoring the snickers from those nearby.

The hours dragged on, and Zander remained the pirate crew’s favorite new target. By late afternoon he had bruises forming on his arms, his face, his ribs. He was starving, having been barred by the captain from eating because of the mess he’d made on deck the night before when his food was knocked from his hands.

“Sorry about earlier, love,” Yarrow whispered to him later on. It was nearly evening, and they were approaching Cadiz swiftly. They stood with their backs toward the men, each feigning interest in the horizon as they stood several paces away from one another.

Zander shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Seems you’ve had a productive day.”

Yarrow nodded, giving Zander a careful sidelong glance.

“Are you alright? You’ve taken your fair share of shit today.”

“I’m okay,” Zander said, meeting their eyes as much as he could without fully turning his head. “How is Theo?”

“He’s alright,” Yarrow said. “He’ll be alright.” Then, seeing one of their new friends approaching, Yarrow loudly yelled something in French at him and walked away in a huff.

Zander stifled the urge to chuckle and looked at the horizon again. He hoped Theo could convince someone to let him out of the brig before they docked. If not, they’d have to sneak him above deck before making their escape.

Later, as they approached the narrow peninsula on the Spanish coast that was their destination, Theo emerged from below deck, his eyes squinting against the sun as it sank low in the sky. He gave Zander a quick nod, subtly patting the pocket of his jacket and the bulge beneath—one of the three grenadiers. Zander and Yarrow had been carrying theirs all day; he wondered how Yarrow’s clothes hadn’t gotten heavy enough to fall off by now, with all the things they’d commandeered since that morning.

The captain, whom Zander had seen very little of since their capture, was directing several men as they carried heavy-looking crates from his quarters onto deck. The men strained under the weight of the boxes, walking carefully under the threat of the captain to cut their ears off if they damaged the goods inside.

The shore loomed. Zander could see a swath of whitewashed buildings in the distance. A single, long wooden dock sat unused on the shore, allowing the large ship to make berth and open the gangway. There were no other ships, only a company of men and several carriages waiting on the beach. Zander could see a rough path on which the carriages had traveled, leading up over rolling hills, largely bare of trees. In one spot, large boulders broke up the beach, leading away from the water and providing the only potential cover for their escape.

Zander thanked his lucky stars it was nearing evening, providing them the additional cover of darkness in the relatively open plain beyond the shore.

He was veering toward the port side of the ship, where Yarrow stood. Theo was making his way there as well, casually drifting behind a thick crowd of sailors, when the captain called out.

“You there!”

Zander didn’t turn around, though he knew somehow the call was directed toward him. A hand gripped his shoulder, turning him roughly around to face the captain, who was pointing at him.

“You,” he said again, “and your friends. Seems I’ve a use for you after all. You’ll carry these crates to shore when we dock and bring back the payment. Chuckles here will go with you.” He gestured to a large man wearing a menacing snarl on his pockmarked face, who Zander presumed to be Chuckles.

Zander nodded mutely and walked forward. Theo and Yarrow approached as well, careful not to look at one another. Zander could almost feel the relief of the men who’d carried the crates out of the captain’s quarters at not having to carry them any further. Whether that was because of their weight or the several dozen armed men waiting for them on shore as they docked was unclear.