Starting with Saba, her boarding team came over, touching her shoulder or grabbing her for a brief hug, muttering how unfair it was, that they were sorry to leave her, that they’d see her soon. At least those were the parts that reached through the blood rushing in her ears.

“Try not to get in too much trouble,” Aedan said as he hugged her, but when he pulled away, his grin lacked its usual glint.

“Ha!” She nodded to them, hands landing heavily on her hips. “You lot try not to get killed without me, more like.” Joints knotted, she waved them off, achingly conscious of Knigh’s gaze on her from the quarterdeck.

Smug bastard. He had to be loving this.

And below him, Fitz emerged from his cabin, arms crossed, a small smile at the corner of his mouth.

Yes. Excellent. She was left here with two men she wanted to murder.

Bloody brilliant.

If she made it to Albion without wringing both their necks, it would be a miracle.

The Welcome Party

“Albion, ho!” The cry broke out across The Morrigan as Land’s End drifted into view, rocky and green, greeted with cheers.

Vice barely glanced up from her work checking the main shrouds. Without Perry, Saba, or the rest of her boarding team, there wasn’t anyone to swap smiles with. Even Barnacle was off somewhere. Probably with him.

It was certainly bloody cold enough to be Albion. She hunched into her frock coat, breath misting in the wintry air.

Yes, Albion was beautiful and green. Nothing she’d found in Arawaké was quite a match for the scent of freshly picked hyacinth, dew still beading its waxy petals. But that was a spring flower.

Winter? She did not miss that and its damp coldness that seeped into bones and frosted windows.

The Covadonga trailed in their wake. No doubt they’d be shouting, too, slapping each other on the shoulders, grinning at surviving another swift crossing of the great ocean.

Perry or Saba would have written letters on behalf of those who couldn’t write, ready to send to family and loved ones once they were in port. That was usually Vice’s job, but with the crew split across the two ships, she couldn’t do it for everyone. Few left on The Morrigan had come to her and asked for the favour.

Wrist flicking as she coiled a line, twisting with the rope’s lay, she sighed and scanned the rolling green landscape passing to the north as they skirted the coast.

Nearly there. Once they were settled in port, Knigh—no, Blackwood would leave, and she’d never have to see him again.

No more of his self-righteous glare or uptight march across deck. He hadn’t sung or played guitar in weeks, so at least she’d been spared that.

No more of his low, rumbling laughter or his warm hands on …