“But aren’t you meant to inherit the ship?”

“Let’s hope my mother will not be dying quite so soon,” Vada said with a sardonic look. “It is time for me to set out on my own for a while. On the Maiden’s Wail, I am Vada the Captain’s Daughter. I wish to be only Vada. I am not entirely sure who I am without the shadow of my mother over me.”

“I’m not sure who I am anymore either,” Agnes said, resting her chin on her knees. “In Old Port I knew what was expected of me and I hated it. Perhaps it was easier that way. Now I’m in Pelago at last and I’ve managed to lose my brother and my best friend and anger two uncles I never knew I had without even trying.”

“You are not giving yourself enough credit,” Vada said. “You have pissed your father off as well.”

Agnes laughed, and Vada looked pleased. Then her face grew serious.

“I would not judge myself so harshly if I were you, Agnes. I have been making the trip between Pelago and Kaolin since I was a little girl, and I have known many Kaolin women, of all ages and classes. Never have I met one like you. I am remembering the first time I saw you.” She gazed up at the stars as if she could see the past in them. “You were looking at me as furtive as a mouse, in all your fancy things and that stupid little hat perched on your head.”

Agnes pressed her hand to her mouth to cover her grin. “I had been meeting with my fiancé that afternoon,” she confessed. “My maid thought the hat would make a good impression.”

“Fiancé?” Vada cocked her head. “A very lucky gentleman. Is his heart being broken now that you have fled to Pelago?”

“No,” Agnes said, flustered. “No, it wasn’t like . . . my father arranged it, as a punishment, I think. I never—Ebenezer was a very nice young man, but not for me.”

“And what sort of man is for you?”

Agnes’s heart lodged in her throat and pounded there furiously. She’d come so far—she had crossed an ocean and made it all the way to Pelago, the country of her dreams. It was time to truly be herself. It was time to say the secret she’d been forced to keep for so long out loud.

“None,” she said. “I don’t like men that way.”