“I’m going to tell him since it looks like no one else will.” She strode aft, Perry dropping her work and hurrying after. “And as for whether I’ve eaten, I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”

“Because your gift burns through energy, leaving you tired and hungry, and when you’re hungry, you’re tetchy as a sabrecat with a toothache.”

“That’s patently untrue.”

“See, and you use longer words, a lady’s words when you get like that.”

Vice grunted and strode along the deck. Her crewmates were already mopping up the blood and hauling fresh canvas to repair the holes from the Veritas’s chain shot, chatting as they worked. A handful of men and women on all sides had died, and six bodies lay, already wrapped in their hammocks waiting for their burial at sea.

Vice shuddered at the sight of stiff canvas shrouding the unmistakable shapes, and she rubbed her opal ring.

Lizzy, who was sewing shut one of the hammocks, glanced up. Her brows lifted, and she gave a sad smile, pitying.

Clenching her hands, Vice forced her pace steady and lifted her chin. She was fine. That sight didn’t affect her at all. Everyone died. Some sooner, some later, but everyone ended up wrapped in canvas or wood and chucked in the sea or shovelled under mud. Everyone.

All the more reason not to rely on them.

Eyes forward, she took a deep breath that shook in her throat.

She was five paces from FitzRoy’s cabin door when it swung open, and the man himself emerged, a feline smile in place. He stepped to one side, letting Blackwood stand alongside him, face neutral.

So neither of them had murdered each other. Surprising.

“Gents, ladies, good folk of The Morrigan,” FitzRoy bellowed, gaze skimming the crew as they paused in their work. Despite her proximity, his eyes skipped over Vice. “It gives me almost the very greatest pleasure”—he paused and grinned, winking at Saba nearby—“to tell you I’ve accepted Captain Blackwood’s offer. As of today, we’re all pardoned by the Queen herself and are her very own privateers.”

“Huh.” The sound fell from her a split second before the crew cheered and clapped for the second time today. Privateers? And all thanks to this pirate-hunting stranger, rather than her own attempts for the past three years.

FitzRoy finally looked at her and raised his eyebrows as if to say, Well?

Nodding, she clapped and smiled. With a half-laugh of confusion, she glanced at Blackwood. How on earth had he persuaded FitzRoy?