She must see the defiance, the rejection in my eyes. “Cassandra, there are children on this ship. Children I’m trying to do right by, children that I can’t have falling to ‘Reckoner justice.’ My son among them. I never anticipated that the response from shore would be this severe, and my miscalculation has put every soul on this boat at risk. We need the SRC off our case permanently, and that means ridding this ship of both its Reckoner and its trainer. No, I’m not going to kill you,” she drawls as she feels me tense under her grip. “Until we’re in the clear, you are this ship’s best defense. And I know you’re going to defend it,” she mutters, casting a glance back at Swift. “You’d do anything to protect ‘this ship,’ right?”

I nod. There’s no point in lying.

“That’s the spirit!” She claps her hands together and turns back toward her throne. “Here’s the plan. You lot!”

The crew roars.

“You wear your loyalty on your skin. Show it to me.”

Arms thrust into the air with little black fish sketched across them. Trousers roll up to reveal calves stained with the ship’s mark. On the dais, Varma’s grin widens, stretching the Minnow on his cheek, and Chuck sweeps her mane of wild hair to the side, revealing the ink that slashes between her shoulder blades. Swift nods her head to expose her neck, but her brow is still set in that resentful furrow.

“I’m not gonna hide it. We’re in deep shit. But when has that ever stopped us?”

“Never!” the crew screams back at her. Some of them have slid their weapons out; others brandish their fists.

“When the inbound hits, I want you to hit back with everything you’ve got. We’re gonna show them that trifling with us is the worst mistake they’re ever gonna make. But Cassandra, here—” She points to me, and my spine stiffens. “Cassandra will be doing the brunt of the attack. She and our beast are going to make our stand, and those shore-rat bastards are going to fall on her like flies on meat. And when they do, that’s when we start running.”

Varma frowns, and I feel like I need to pinch myself to make sure I’m seeing it. The whole crew seems flummoxed.

“You heard me right,” Santa Elena says, mounting the dais. “This is the plan: Cassandra is going to crush the pursuit until they can’t catch us, no matter what. And then she’s going to turn herself over to whatever’s left.”

“How do we know she isn’t going to turn on us the second she’s got an SRCese fleet at her back?” Hina shouts over the grumbling noise building in the crowd.