Afternoon brought them to an island barely big enough to warrant the name, just one large hump of land jutting out of the ocean, a lush stand of trees on its back the only sign that the place held freshwater. A spit stretched out into the sea, its rocky outcropping curving outward and around like the rind of a depleted moon. The Jester rounded it, and Lobos Beach came into view, and with it, at last, the Silence.

  The ship was tucked into the indent that they called a bay, with its sails furled, and anchor firmly in place. The damage from the encounter with the kraken was stark in the bright sunshine, the breaks in the wood catching the light. Two long boats sat tied up on the sandy beach. The sound of hammers and saws drifted across the water in snatches, carried on the breeze. Longing rose in Elisabeth at the sight, her chest squeezing, her heart fluttering for a few beats. She missed her ship and her crew. She was so close to being reunited with both. Figures appeared on the shore, and then on the ship. A grin spread over her face—her crew, she was looking at her crew.

  “They’ve seen us,” Mortimer spoke at her elbow, spy glass raised to his eye. She wanted to rip it from his hands to be able to look, to count the women that stood looking at them.

  “Hoist the colours and Parley,” Henry called out. “Wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea and shoot at us.” The last was stated lightly, a sparkle in his eye that told her he was goading her with the quip. Elisabeth frowned at him, bothered that he would tease her about the competence of her crew.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

  “Would serve you right if Moira decided to shoot you anyway,” she replied, voice flat. He laughed, as she intended, a loud booming sound. Even in this moment, she wanted to wrap her arms around him, and celebrate the victory of finding her ship with a kiss. The attraction she felt for him irked her, and she knew that she was looking for reasons to dislike him, to create a semblance of distance from him. With the Silence in front of them, escape from him, and the temptation of the siren’s offer to bind him, was possible, was imminent. Rejoining the crew of women was the only cure she knew for what was close to obsession after the days and nights spent with Mortimer.

  “Just put me in a boat and send me over,” she suggested, in the same uninflected tone. A sudden twinge of nervousness hit her stomach. The time of departure, and of separation, was fast approaching. Leaving him was going to be difficult. The comfort of his warmth next to her at night was too easy to get used to.

  “Eager to leave me, are you?” He raised an eyebrow, but there was tension around his eyes that spoke to the dark undercurrent of his temper.

  “Eager to find out the status of my people and my vessel. You know they were in bad shape the last time I saw them.”

  “Aye, so I see even now. We’ll get you back to them soon enough, captain.” He gave her a nod, and walked away across the deck, barking orders as he went: trim the sails, drop the anchor, get the boat ready. Elisabeth stayed at the rail and out of the way, while the Jester heaved like a kicked anthill, sailors scurrying to do as their captain commanded. It took an agonizing hour of maneuvering and preparations before she sat in a longboat on her way to shore. She let the sea-spray wash over her, closed her eyes against it, a smile on her face at the imminent reunion with her crew. When she looked ahead, she saw a group of women standing on the beach, watching their approach. She recognized Moira almost immediately---the quartermaster stood with her arms crossed, and Elisabeth knew the scowl that sat on the woman’s face. A few more oar-strokes and a noise went up from the beach, as well as the Silence that lay at anchor near them now.

  “It’s the captain! It’s the captain!” The cry went up from both the women on the beach, and the watch on the ship. Moira raised her hand to shade her eyes from the glare of the sun on the sea. A loud splash sounded from behind them, Elisabeth turned from staring at the beach to see a plume of water went up in the shadow of the Silence. She watched and found Cressia swimming toward them, cutting through the water like a shark with the taste of blood in its mouth. The relief she felt at seeing the bodyguard took her breath away and made her heart skip a beat. Part of her wanted to weep with joy, or to yell a greeting, but she pressed her mouth into a tight smile and kept her emotions in check. Mortimer, and his crew were watching.

  The boat rode a wave up onto the beach. Elisabeth leapt from the vessel and stumbled in the surf. She splashed through the water to where Cressia was pulling herself from the sea, clothing and veil plastered against her like a second skin. The two women embraced, almost knocking each other down onto the wet sand.

  “You’re alive!” Cressia’s voice broke with emotion. With the water streaming from her hair, Elisabeth couldn’t tell if the assassin was crying. A few tears were mingled with the water on her own face at the relief of being reunited with her shadow.

  “Of course I am, Cress. You know I have more lives than a cat.” She laughed. “I’ve made sure of that.”

  “Aye, I know. I was there when you cast that spell. I remember the toll.” Cressia shook wet hair out of her eyes. “But you were in the sea a long time, Captain. And then the rope snapped.”

  Moira joined them at the edge of the surf. “We searched for days, but you must have drifted with the current. We set a buoy, and had to retreat to find fresh water.” The quartermaster finished for Cressia. “We were going to head back as soon as we replenished our stores and completed the most critical repairs.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Moira.” Elisabeth turned and clasped hands with the woman. “I knew you’d do right by the crew, and I made it here on my own.” All three women looked back at the group of sailors from the Jester who were securing their boat on the beach. Henry oversaw the work from the shade cast by a nearby stand of trees. Moira’s gaze was dark as she considered them.

  “I see that,” she said, finally, tone flat. It was clear that she was not pleased with their presence.

  “Were they following us again?” Cressia asked.

  “No.” Elisabeth paused, considering her time onboard the Jester. “But they were looking for us when we didn’t make it to the rendezvous. Apparently, there were rumors about a haze in the middle of the sea.”

  “Figures. Pirates and sailors love their tales.” Moira gave a short bark of laughter.

  “Aye.” Elisabeth shared in the moment of mirth, but turned serious quickly. “We’ll have to trust them. At least for now. We have an accord, after all. And he did bring me home.” She might have misgivings about the arrangement and Henry Mortimer’s intentions, but she needed her crew to remember that they were allied with the Jester. She saw Henry looking at her across the expanse of white sand and felt a hot lick of desire in her belly. Elisabeth rolled her shoulders to distract herself from the sensation.

  “Let’s go have a parley,” she said and started to walk across the beach toward the group of sailors. She didn’t wait for her companions, but trusted that they would follow. They took their usual positions, one to her left, and the other to her right. It felt good to have them there, their support palpable in the warm air. The expression on Henry’s face as they approached was dark.

  “What a happy reunion.” His voice was low. Elisabeth recognized a barely suppressed anger in it. She suspected that he didn’t want to lose the control he had over her while she was his guest.

  “My thanks for returning me to my ship.”

  “I made a promise to my ally. I keep those.” He looked around at the women on the beach, then out to sea at the Silence. “We have supplies we can spare. I’ll have the men bring ashore some of the fish and hard bread. We can feast tonight.”

  “The crew’ll appreciate that. They…We’re grateful.” Moira’s voice held relief. Elisabeth knew from that alone that the conditions on the Silence were difficult.

  “What’s the status of my ship?” Elisabeth asked, unable to contain her need for information any longer. She turned her attention to Moira, studying the woman as she wiped her face with a kerchief, and then huffed.

  “She’s taken a beating from that kraken, but she’s sea-worthy as long as we don’t run into any weather. We’ve stocked her with water, and been doing some fishing. With a little help from the Jester, we’ll have enough supplies to get us into Driftwood Bay. We might need to make use of a couple of lads. The crew’s light to run a ship her size. And they’re all weak from the short rations.”

  “What are you doing in the woods? I hear saws and hammers.” Mortimer interjected, his gaze drifting across the trees that stood behind the group. Moira shot a look at her captain, and Elisabeth nodded.

  “We’re cutting timber. One of the masts has a crack in it. We’re trying to shore it up before we head back out to sea.”

  “But you say the ship’s sea-worthy?”

  “Aye, as long as there’s no storms. It’s a precaution.” Mortimer considered her answers. Elisabeth almost saw the calculations running through his mind of what the risks were in letting the Silence out of the bay.

  He turned to one of his sailors, “Send word to the ship to send the carpenter over, and some lads to help him.” With the messenger dispatched, he returned his attention to Elisabeth. “I’ll want to have a look at her before we sail.” Elisabeth shrugged in response.

  “Captain, there’s one more thing.” Moira paused and ran the cloth over her sweating face again. She turned to face Elisabeth, mouth set in a grim line. “We have that firestarter in the hold.” A nervous glance at the ship, before she continued. “I almost put him overboard. And you won’t like what I did to him.”

  “Tell me.” The tone of command in the words left no room for further prevarication.

  “I dosed him with spell block tea.” Elisabeth glared at her quartermaster. Spell block tea was an abomination. A concoction the empires of the world used to control magic users in their population. She fought to control her temper at the news.

  “We had no choice,” Cressia spoke quietly. “Without you there to control him, he was too dangerous. He threatened to burn the ship. Didn’t believe that you weren’t onboard. It was dose him or kill him.”

  “Damnit.” The She-Wolf strode a few steps away from the group, and glared at the glistening bay, the two ships at anchor in its small sheltered space. A cold pit of rage sat in her stomach at the thought of the indignity the firestarter had suffered, and at the notion that Moira kept the tincture onboard the Silence. She closed her eyes, and took a handful of slow breaths. The quartermaster always acted in the best interest of the crew, she reminded herself with each exhalation. When she felt able to control her anger, she made her way back to the group.

  “We’ll talk about why there’s spell block on my ship when we’re back at sea. For now, all I’ll say is that I understand that you did what you thought was necessary to protect the ship. But you know how I feel about that shit.” It was Elisbeth’s turn to run a hand over her face, as though she could scrub away the cloying sensation of disgust that filled her at the mere mention of spell block tea.

  “Did it break him?” Not every magic user was able to come to terms with the effects of the concoction. The suppression of their natural abilities severed them from sanity, or they simply disappeared alongside their powers. Their personalities erased.

  “Hard to tell, truth be told. He wasn’t all there to begin with if you ask me.” Moira shrugged.

  “Fuck. Is he still dosed?”

  “Aye.”

  “Good. Take me to the ship. I’ll deal with him.”