“Not rum,” I said.
“Oh? What, then?”
“I noticed you had papers and inks and quills in your cabin. I…”
I stopped myself, remembering stones and crab shells and my wayward, wretched life.
“No. Rum is good,” I said quickly.
He clasped his hands behind his back and turned to face me square.
“Tell me,” he said. It was that same tone as the first time I’d heard his voice, soft-spoken but deep, the one that didn’t need to raise itself to be obeyed. It strummed an unfamiliar but heady chord inside me.
“It’s…” I stammered. “I…”
He waited, arched a thick black brow.
Fog it.
“I like to sketch,” I said. “I love to draw. Animals, birds, people, buildings. It doesn’t matter. I think sketching helpsme understand how things fit together, maybe how the runes connect them all.”
“Hmm,” he said.
“And…” I clenched my teeth. “I would very much like to draw this ship. If that’s allowed. If that’s not a secret. If she will let me.”
I held my breath as he looked away for a moment, to the port window where he had touched her and to the ocean beyond.
“She is a beautiful ship,” he said finally.
He cocked his head again as if listening, then sighed and turned back.
“She will let you.”
I felt the weight fall from my shoulders. Maybe that meant she wouldn’t try to kill me again.
“I have many journals, some of which are empty,” he said. “Would those work?”
“I’m sure of it,” I said.
“Do you read?”
“Ravenously, when I get the chance.”
He smiled again and turned to the gunner.
“Brass won’t contain the chimeric, Mr. Broom,” he said. “So, you will need to fashion new monks. You have what you need in the hold. I will leave its formulation to you and your men.”
“Aye, sir,” said Broom. The gunner’s name was Broom.
“And have Mr. Buck fit five rafts, no more than a yard square each.”
“Aye, sir.”
Thanavar shifted back to me.
“We have three days at most before Bilgetown,” he said to me. “Endeavor to have them all done by tomorrow, if you please. Mr. Broom and his gunners need the practice. They will need to be marked sharp.”
“Tomorrow?”
