The sun hit her face and Elisabeth woke with a sigh. Judging by the angle of the light through the window, it was midmorning. She was alone in the swaying bunk, the blanket bundled around her naked body. She rolled over and opened her eyes. A table and two chairs sat at the center of the room. A washbasin, towel, soap, two jugs of water, and a silver cup cluttered the surface of the table. A bundle of clothing sat at the edge of the bed. Elisabeth stretched like a cat waking from a nap, and clambered to her feet, thirsty, and excited to get clean and dressed. She moved one of the chairs to block the door, tried the handle while she was there and found it locked. Even so, she didn’t trust the privacy of the room. And while Mortimer had seen her naked, touched every inch of her skin, she wasn’t in the mood to be ogled while bathing. She gulped the cold water straight from the pitcher. The other container was kept warm by a spell. It felt luxurious on her cool skin. Washing her hair felt like shedding a week’s worth of salt from her body, the strands crisp with the dried mineral.

  The clothing didn’t fit, was loose on her gaunt frame, but it was clean and made her feel more secure. At least if a threat arose, she wasn’t going to face it naked. Clean and clothed, she replaced the chair in its earlier position at the table, and crawled back into the bed. The proximity to the window made the spot feel more secure—if needed, she could break the glass and escape into the sea. Mortimer gave her no reason to distrust him, but caution was in her nature, especially when she was a guest on his ship. She glanced at the door, annoyed that it was locked. With no way to distract herself, she wondered about the state of the Silence. Did Moira get them to fresh water before any more of the crew perished? With the curse broken, there might be a chance that one of her spirits knew the fate of the ship.

  Elisabeth dropped into a shallow trance and called on the dead that followed in her wake. The temperature in the room dropped, her breath fogging against the glass. The blue flickers of the ghosts filled the space next to the bed, their figures indistinct.

  “Tell me of the Silence. Tell me about my ship.” The wraiths rippled, and undulated, some disappearing, others becoming more defined. A familiar figure stepped forward, towering over her like he did in life.

  “Your ship’s all in one piece, lassy,” her father’s ghost boomed, his figure becoming more defined, down to the curls in his beard, his presence absorbing the energy of the other wraiths.

  She turned to face him, no longer-half facing the windows, and glared. “Why are you here?”

  “Might be you need to be more specific when asking the dead for help.” He shrugged. “You called, I answered. Can’t a father watch out for his favourite daughter?”

  Elisabeth laughed at him, a sharp, short bark, and shook her head. “Paternal concern has never been one of your traits. Nothing’s changed, old man.”

  “Call it curiosity, then. Wanted to see if you got out of that little trap. Looks like you did, not that your situation’s improved by much.”

  “Well, you’ve seen and judged. Now tell me where the Silence is, or begone.”

  “I told you as much as you deserve. You got yourself out of that nasty bit of work, but what are you doing now, She-Wolf?” His low chuckle lingered for a while after his shade faded back into the ether. Elisabeth ground her teeth. As soon as she got back to her ship, she was digging through her talismans to keep her parents’ ghosts from interfering in her life.

  A knock at the door pulled her out of rumination. Metal grated on metal as the key slid into the lock. The small room was cold in the ghost’s wake and Mariss frowned at her former captain. The young sailor who followed her into the room shivered.

  “Don’t drop that,” Mariss warned. She carried a pitcher, and two cups. The boy bore a platter of food: fish, bread, and citrus fruit. His deeply tanned face showed deep concentration as he deposited his burden on the table. When his hands were free, he picked up the washbasin and soiled towels, and quickly departed. Elisabeth got the sense that she unnerved him. Mariss lingered.

  “Captain.”

  “Mariss.”

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “News of the Silence. And a strength charm if you have one to spare.”

  “I know nothing of the ship. And I’ll see about the other. It’s not something I keep on me.” The woman nodded once at Elisabeth, and then left the room, closing, but not locking the door behind her. Interesting. Was she free to roam now? She got out of the bed, and looked around for boots. There weren’t any. Footwear wasn’t a necessity for a sailor, but she preferred to have them. Determined to get some sea air into her lungs, she was about to open the door, when Mortimer strode through it. Her body’s response was immediate, a lick of desire which flushed her skin. She thought he might kiss her, but he gestured at the table.

  “Sit and eat.” The soft tone of command in the words wasn’t lost on Elisabeth. Her spine stiffened at it. He paid her no heed, and stepped past her to pull out his own chair to sit at the table. As captain, it was in his nature to expect obedience, she understood that, but it chafed to comply. His demeanor was almost cold. The apparent rejection stung her pride. Foolishness, she chided herself, and sat across from him, one leg pulled up against her chest, her arm resting across it. He poured wine into the cups, and she silently wished for more water. Still, it was better than nothing. He handed her the goblet, and she took it with the hand not dangling over her knee. He picked up the other and raised it in a toast.

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  “Captain Wolf,” he said.

  “Captain Mortimer.” She took a slow sip, then set the wine on the table. The food was more interesting. She tore a small chunk off the bread.

  “How’d you find me?” She asked before slipping the food into her mouth. If he wasn’t going to acknowledge their tryst, she wanted to get answers about…all the things that occurred while she was under the sea. He laughed at her question.

  “You’re so serious, Liz. Take a minute. Drink some wine. Eat some food. We can talk later.”

  “You can talk while we eat. I want to know how you found me. And I want to know where my ship is.” She glared at him. “Now.”

  He drained the rest of his cup, refilled it, and then took a deep breath.

  “As we agreed, I hunted while you pursued your idea for gaining the location of the Atlas Stone. It was good hunting, too. I took some nice prizes.” He paused, a smile on his face as he recalled the size of his bounty. “When our rendezvous time came, I made my way to Driftwood Bay. Unloaded some wares, replenished my stores. And then sat idle.” He stopped again and took another drink. “You missed our meeting. At first, I was angry. I thought you betrayed me.” Darkness flashed through his eyes when he mentioned betrayal, and his features distorted into a scowl. The expression was a hint of his temper. Elisabeth noted it.

  “If I’m going to betray you, Henry, I’ll do it while facing you, with a knife in your chest,” she quipped, and took a bite of an orange slice, the tart juice running down her chin. The darkness in his expression shifted into heat in an instant. The relief she felt at the reaction was embarrassing, and she was glad he couldn’t read her thoughts. “What happened next?” She brought the conversation back to the information she wanted.

  “We started to hear rumors. All of the crews coming from the north told strange stories. An impenetrable fog sitting in the middle of nowhere. If ships lingered, they heard voices in the mist, but never saw a ship. No one saw anything past the haze, not with their eyes, not with their spy glasses, and not with magic.” He refilled both cups, and took another long drink. She suspected that he was toying with her, pausing more to test her patience, to string her along. The glint in his eyes told her as much, and told her, too, that he enjoyed having her as his captive audience.

  “Knowing your reputation for trouble,” he continued, “we came to investigate.” A slow smile accompanied the words. “We found the haze, sailed around it, which took two days. We tried to sail through it, and failed. We wasted one shot with the cannon to see what would happen: the ball vanished, and we heard a distant splash. We kept sailing, circling. And then one morning, five days after we arrived, the fog disappeared, dissipated slowly. We waited for a few hours, and then sailed into the area it had covered. After a while, we spotted a body in the water. And here you are.” He raised his goblet to her in another toast. “A guest on the Jester.”

  Elisabeth returned the toast and sipped her wine, using the motion to allow her a moment to think over the story. All of it made sense. Pirates were a superstitious lot and a mysterious fog in the middle of the sea would cause a stir in Driftwood Bay. The fact that sound traveled to the outside of the haze was curious.

  “What about the Silence?” She asked, finally. Dread sat in her belly as she waited for his answer.

  He shrugged. “We caught a glimpse of a sail the night we pulled you out of the water, but there’s no way to know if it was your ship.” His icy eyes held her gaze. “Why would they leave you behind, Captain Wolf?”

  It was her turn to shrug. The curse was broken, the Silence free. With the snapped rope, Moira would have set a watch, and done a cursory search for their captain, but the needs of the crew were the quartermaster’s primary concern. She would have waited for a few hours at most, likely drifting with the renewed current and wind. When time ran out, Moira would have taken the ship to the nearest source of fresh water.

  “Where’s the nearest watering hole?” she asked, ignoring his question.

  “A couple of days sail from here. West-south-west.”

  “That’s where she’ll be then. They’ll be looking for fresh water.” She leaned across the table towards him. “Take me there.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Elisabeth sighed. She didn’t know how to respond. The decision to leave her floating in the sea with no land in sight, and no way to locate her once they vacated the area didn’t sit well with her, but he didn’t need to know that. She understood her quartermaster’s reasoning, but until she sat down with the woman to discuss the situation, she had no way of knowing what actually happened. The thought of mutiny entered her mind for the first time. She chewed on her lip.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, finally, and swallowed the rest of her wine in one big gulp.

  “What about the impenetrable fog? Was that your doing?”

  “Yes and no—it was a curse. It kept us becalmed for weeks.”

  “And who would curse you?”

  She wished for more wine, if only to give her another opportunity to consider her answer while drinking it. With a small, knowing smile, Henry took the jug and re-filled her goblet. Elisabeth found her lips twitching into a smile in response. She took a sip, thoughts turning over what to say, how much to share. They were allies, true, but she didn’t fully trust him. Even after sharing his bed.

  “I suppose I have to tell you sooner or later. Might as well make it sooner.” She sighed. “The Atlas Stone is inside Rowan’s Shroud. And that place is powerful. It sent two creatures to Hag’s Rock when my sisters scried out the Stone. And then held the Silence in a Sargasso until I managed to break that nasty bit of work.”

  Henry sat in silence, leaned back in his chair until it tipped onto its back legs. His gaze never left Elisabeth’s.

  “Rowan’s Shroud.”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of tall tales about the place. What’s true? Do you even know?”

  “Take me to the Silence, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”