“I can’t make head nor tail of the contents,” Waters went on, “but I know she likes anything dragon-related thanks to her love of el Draco, so I thought I’d better keep it aside for her.”

Knigh raised his eyebrows at Waters. El Draco—that was what the Hesperians had called Ser Francis Drake. There were a few books about him on the shelves in her cabin. “Her ‘love’ of Drake?”

“As long as I’ve known her—anything I have on Drake, she buys.”

Knigh scoffed. “Because of the treasure.”

Waters’ brow furrowed, and he tilted his head, fingers splaying over the countertop as he looked at the book. “I don’t think it’s just that. Someone after that would be interested in the biographies and the mad theories scrawled by men convinced they know the key to finding his buried silver. But she buys the adventure stories, the epic poems written about his journeys, and books of his own poetry with just as much enthusiasm as the research material.”

He raised his eyebrows, gaze returning to Knigh. “Lady Vice might be a terror on the seas, a wily trickster, and, so I hear, a wanton temptress”—he snorted—“but she loves a ripping yarn.” He cleared his throat and bent closer, a conspiratorial edge to his smile. “I think that’s what brought her to the pirate life, you know.”

To avoid those clear blue eyes, Knigh flicked through the book. Hand-written, not printed. Yellowed pages—maybe vellum rather than rag paper. Lords and Ladies, this was old. And not Albionic. The symbols … a few looked familiar. Ancient Hellenic? No wonder Waters couldn’t make sense of it.

It wasn’t a language the Navy considered necessary even for officers, so he’d never learned, but some of the alphabet was the same as the modern form and occasionally used in inscriptions. These pages could be a nonsensical arrangement of letters for all he knew. But—no, there was something about the repetition of the symbols, the split of paragraphs that made it feel like it just might make sense if one only had the codex or language to decipher it.

Just like Vee. He bit back a laugh. Lured to the sea by too many tales of pirates and adventures? It sounded just as likely as any other reason he could think of for her to be here. Didn’t she have a wall full of books in her cabin? And didn’t she tell stories for the crew? She’d even said she didn’t want to deprive those who couldn’t read of the chance to hear great tales. The Pirate Queen they sang of, whom the Navy feared, had a soft spot for gripping yarns. Who’d have thought?