She blinked at him. What could she say? FitzRoy, Blackwood, that damn officer leaning over the clerk’s shoulder—they had it all sewn up, didn’t they? As neat and final as a dead sailor sewn into his hammock ready to be tipped over the side.

Oh, well played indeed, Blackwood.

She shook her head.

“Very good,” the judge said with a brief smile, “no sense in delaying the inevitable and wasting the Court’s time.” He nodded in approval. “Then it seems my verdict is a straightforward one. I find the accused guilty on all counts.”

Guilty. Her skin crawled.

Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Maybe this was just punishment for all those years before the letter of marque.

“And to the matter of sentencing, this too is straightforward. With no extenuating circumstances to consider, I sentence you, Lady Vice, or whoever you really are, to be taken in one week to Southsea beach. There you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

The blood roared in her ears. But, no, she’d heard him correctly. Hanged. But—but hadn’t the others …

No. They’d blamed her for their actions. That explained their lenient sentences. She was the scapegoat, she had to hang to allow them to escape with only a spell in the stocks.

Bastards. Pricks. Wild Hunt take the lot of them and chase them for all time.

And with Perry possibly captured or else just ignorant of what was happening, there was no possibility of rescue.

Of course not. No sense in relying on anyone else to save her.

She could do this herself.

Seven days. She’d have to make a plan and escape by then. The weather—maybe there was a storm nearby she could call in. A lightning strike could cause a fire, a distraction, then—

“And until that time,” the judge said, lifting his chin, “you’re to be kept in a gibbet cage on Portsea Castle walls as an example to others who might follow in your heinous footsteps.”

Something like nails dragging down the inside of her skin froze her.

A gibbet.

Made of iron.

It would block her gift and—

She looked at the silvery padlock scar on her palm, the little blisters where her fingers had slipped onto the bars of her cell.

And it would burn.

Bloody Reunion

With rough hands, the guards bundled Vice out of the courtroom, down a winding staircase, to a small, dimly-lit cell beneath. She’d heard about these places. These were the rooms where the condemned awaited their sentences.

She was now one of the condemned.

It wasn’t possible … And yet here she was.

Body a knot of tension, she twisted her wrists against the ropes. But they were just as tight and chafing as when Blackwood had tied them.

The guards paused at the cell door, holding it open.

“Thank you ever so much, gentlemen,” an all-too bloody familiar voice said.

“FitzRoy?”