As they approached the Massachusetts harbor, Maria could see a city of docks and streets that followed the old paths where cows still wandered freely, where markets sold cod and oysters and clams. So many houses were being built that the clatter of hammers echoed constantly. Huge white clouds were strung as if on a clothesline and the harbor was thick with ships. Maria was on the deck with Cadin, at last freed from his cage in the open air, when Samuel approached. He had a slight limp due to the pain in his legs, but it was only noticeable to those who knew him. It had been days since they’d spoken.

“You’re setting him free?” They usually spoke in English, but now Dias spoke Portuguese. His voice was more musical and more urgent, and his questions and intent were harder to ignore. He almost seemed like a serious man. After his illness he had come to understand time in a different way. It was not endless, as most young men believed it to be. There was so little of it he could hold it in his hands, and still it slipped away, even as he stood in the pale sunlight approaching Boston Harbor, beside a woman he didn’t wish to lose.

“He was always free,” Maria said. “I told you that.”

When Cadin lifted into the sky, they watched him wing toward the shore. Boston Harbor was cold and gray even on a summer day. Dias had been stitching as sailors often did, and he’d made Faith a little poppet doll that she was delighted to be given.

“Keep it safe,” he told her, and the little girl nodded solemnly and clung to the doll. When Samuel went to the quarterdeck to help guide the ship to shore, the baby called out to him, but he didn’t answer. Samuel Benjamin Dias, navigator and robber, the man who liked to talk so much he continued to do so in his sleep, had become quiet on this day, as if afraid of what he might say. He’d been too many places and lost too many people to think there was a point in a drawn-out parting. He was gone before Maria knew it, leaving her there to consider what her new life might be once she found John Hathorne, for in truth, she could no longer picture his face. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was Samuel Dias, which clearly was a mistake.