“This place is a fucking dump,” Swift groans, leaning against the railing. “And don’t you dare try to tell me different, don’t you give me any of that shoregirl bullshit. I can already see it in your eyes—you want to make us into these noble poor people.”

I say nothing.

“Everything in this city works because of the pirate industry. I feed those kids back there with money that I earn by hunting ships full of innocents. I’m not oblivious, Cas—I know that’s not right. But it’s all I have, and it’s all I can do. So just … don’t look at me like that, okay?”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like you have more respect for me because you know where I come from.”

I try to come up with something to protest with, but I’m grasping at straws. This morning, I didn’t know anything about why Swift had gotten into the pirate trade in the first place, beyond the fact that she’d done it willingly. I’d never imagined what kind of life would lead to that. I guess in my head, Swift was born into piracy the same way I was born into the Reckoner trade, and I’d never pictured her growing up outside of it.

She gives my wrist a tug and starts picking her way down a dangerous-looking path, past racks of laundry hung out to dry in the afternoon sun. We descend a few levels to a grocery store that deals in both fresh catch and the far more expensive preserved items that ship in on the vessels trading here. Swift pulls out the wad of cash she siphoned and uses it to pay for a few giant sacks of rice and some assorted staple foods that she gets me to help carry back up to her house. It doesn’t do much to dispel the impression that I’m a slave. Her father rolls his eyes when we show up loaded with groceries, but he lets us store them in the baskets woven from plastic scraps that dangle in the kitchen area.

It’s so normal, after months at sea, that I want to cry. I’ve been bottling up how much I miss home, how much I miss late night runs to the little corner grocery down the road and cooking with Tom and Dad and just plain old stability, for god’s sake. What’s even worse is that I’m absolutely terrible at concealing it. I let my fingers fidget, trying to subtly vent off the effect all of this is having on me, but Swift feels it. She glances down at my hand, then catches my face before I can swallow back the emotion showing there. “What’s eating you?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“C’mon, Cas.”

“Outside,” I hiss.