He shrugged, although he knew that he did, and he basked in his reputation for being unpredictable and daring. He would do risky things on impulse, mostly because they were risky. Four years ago, on a schoolboy’s dare, he had climbed the wall of a three-story building. He became known among his classmates at Boston Latin as the Human Fly, although his ascent had not been quite as gravity-defying as a fly’s: He’d scaled the building at its corner, using the protruding corner blocks for handholds and toeholds. He hadn’t been frightened for a second, a lack of fear due more to a lack of awareness than to bravery. Arms and legs moving involuntarily, he had been in an almost trancelike state, as unconscious of danger as a sleepwalker climbing a tree in the middle of the night.

“Well, you do, and you’re making me nervous, because I can tell there’s something bubbling in that brain of yours.” Eliot slid out from behind the table to fill a plate for Drew from the skillet—“Before it gets cold and ends up tasting what it looks like,” he said.

“There’s nothing bubbling,” Nathaniel protested, following his middle brother outside. “I was just wondering if maybe Dad expects us to make a real voyage of it.”

Eliot handed the plate to Drew and took the wheel. Drew returned to his perch beside the Charley Noble, from which a ribbon of smoke trailed into the air.

“Hell, in three months we could sail clear across to England and back if we wanted to.”

Although he wasn’t looking at them but at the red buoy, marking one side of the entrance to Deer Island Thorofare, Nathaniel sensed his brothers’ alarm.

“Said we could, not that we will,” he added, to reassure them.

“Bubble, bubble,” Eliot said, and then turned to Drew. “Big brother changed his mind about why the old man told us to get lost. Now it doesn’t have anything to do with whatever fix Lockwood’s in. It’s to test our characters. Don’t feel my character needs testing, how about yours?”

Drew, wary of saying anything that might invite an attack, motioned noncommittally. Nathaniel kept his eye on the buoy and on the surf foaming around the ledges and rocks guarding the islets of Merchant’s Row.

“Bear off some,” he told Eliot. “I want to stay well clear of that stuff.”