I should probably warn her to step back from the tank. I’ve seen pups pretend to sleep, just to trick people into coming closer to them. Bao’s playful side is still developing, and I don’t know if he’d take Santa Elena’s arm off or just try to startle her. But I want to see how this plays out, so I hold my tongue.

The captain’s lips curve into a soft smile. “When I had my boy, I don’t think I ever really slept for the first month. People always tried to tell me that motherhood was this beautiful, sacred, precious thing, but god as my witness, motherhood’s nothing but a hot mess.”

“I’m not a mother,” I say as I sit upright, pushing off the musty towels that cover me.

“You sure as shit look like one, Cassandra.”

It’s not untrue. My scalp is still patchy and misshapen from where Bao tore out my hair, my shirt is covered in stains from fish guts, and though I haven’t seen a mirror in ages, I can feel the weight of dark circles under my eyes.

“I miss the days when my boy was small, though,” she continues. “I was stranded out on a floating city with a newborn baby, but it felt like the beginning of something, you know? When I took this ship, it was with him strapped on my back. People will tell you differently. They want me to be a demon in their stories, and a demon carrying a baby doesn’t fit that image, right? Now it’s the middle of the story, and it’s monotonous.”

I can’t wrap my head around monotony in a life of piracy. I can’t understand how she could consider raising a Reckoner pup that could upset the balance of the NeoPacific monotonous. There are so many ways she could have an unfortunate accident on this deck, and I know the triggers to at least three of them.

“You’re thinking about killing me right now, aren’t you?” she asks.

My head snaps up.

“Don’t look so surprised. I developed an instinct for this sort of thing years ago. You’ll find it’s a very useful skill on a boat like this.”

“I’ll work on it,” I deadpan. Bao chooses that moment to heave a snore so thunderous that he wakes himself up. Santa Elena leans out farther over the tank. Some sort of thrill lights up in her eyes, and I wonder if this is her break in the monotony.

Bao regards her with one beady black eye, stretching his stubby legs until his keratin plates creak. Go on, you little shit, I urge him. Do it.

But he doesn’t.