I was just like America, was the truth.

Only, I couldn’t declare independence. All I’d been able to do was run.

That night, Izra brought another basket of food for me, the captain likely assuming that I preferred to be alone. If only he knew the truth.

As Asa and I shared a dinner of turtle soup, I practiced my table etiquette and told him what I thought of Common Sense. When I had finished, he sat back, his eyes shining in the candlelight. He’d spent the day working in the tops, trimming sails and performing repairs while balancing on lines dozens of feet above the deck. Somehow, he looked both tired and enlivened by it.

“Have I just witnessed the birth of a patriot?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Saints, no.”

“Did you not just say that reading that pamphlet felt like discovering your own mind?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t change that I’m a Loyalist. I can’t allow my ideas to impede with that.”

“Interfere. And why not?”

“ ’Cause I’m loyal.” I didn’t see why it was so difficult to grasp. “Loyalty means there’s no choosing. The whole point is you hold to it no matter what. That’s what makes it loyalty.”

“And you learned this from?”

“Sewel.”

Asa nodded tightly. “Right.”

“You knew that.”

His shoulders ticked up. “It’s nonsense.”

“I always thought so too, but—” My throat suddenly tightened and my voice broke. My whole grown life, Sewel had made me feel like my thoughts were nonsense and put his rotten ideas in my head instead. He’d poisoned me. But I was free of him now, so I didn’t understand why I felt like crying.

Asa’s gaze held on me, steady as the flame between us. I had no idea what thoughts ran through his mind, but I didn’t regret telling him about Sewel. Not even the awful parts. All I felt in his gaze was his strength, passing to me. My own strength rising up, up, up, till I felt it right on my skin.

Then something changed. Suddenly I felt a kind of warm riptide, pulling deep in my core. I picked up my wine and took a bigger sip than I needed. I’d never felt desire before, and the power of it shocked me. Till then, I hadn’t thought I could feel it. “If what Sewel says is drivel, then what is loyalty?”

Asa didn’t answer right away. “The reverse of what he says,” he replied finally. “Loyalty isn’t fealty. Nor is it duty. It can’t be demanded or coerced. It must be given freely, like love. One feels it here.” He brought a hand to his heart. “As a tyrant who has denied us God-given rights, who has abused, attacked, and killed his own subjects, King George is responsible for the loss of my loyalty—and that of many, many others.”