We spent the morning cataloging specimens—algae samples, strange gelatinous eggs Emille insisted were harmless (they were not), and a barnacle Dilly insisted was winking at her. Bash claimed it was just the breeze, but I’d seen it wink, too.
At midday, Kit found a map folded into a library book someone had gifted us in Lisbon. It was water-stained, old, and poorly drawn.
Naturally, we decided to follow it immediately.
Oscar glared at all of us. “Do we not remember what happened last time we followed a bad map?”
“Yes,” I said brightly. “Adventure.”
“Yes,” Kit echoed, even brighter. “Treasure.”
“Yes,” Dilly said, brightest of all. “Scientific discovery of unparalleled magnitude.”
Oscar groaned. “Death. Death is what happened. To multiple people.”
His voice wavered only slightly onpeople.
I squeezed his arm, and he leaned into the touch.
“But we lived,” I reminded him softly.
He exhaled. “We lived.”
“And we keep living,” Bash said. “Preferably with fewer exploding barnacles.”
Dilly threw a piece of dried fruit at him.
By sunset, the sea was a burnished sheet of copper. The wind softened. The Wraith hummed beneath our feet like she knew she had become something more than a pirate ship—something remembered, something whispered about in coastal villages as the vessel that sailed beyond maps.
A ship that chased knowledge instead of plunder.
Light instead of shadows.
Hope instead of blood.
“Do you ever… miss it?” I asked quietly.
“The piracy?” Bash clarified.
I shrugged. “The running. The danger. The wildness of it.”
He took my hand. “We’re still wild,” he said. “Just differently.”
“In a scientific way,” Dilly offered helpfully, appearing beside us with a jar that contained—somehow—a glowing purple tadpole.
Bash grimaced. “Is that safe?”
“Oh, absolutely not.”
I sighed. “Fine. New rule: dangerous specimens stay below deck.”
Kit raised a hand. “What about mildly dangerous specimens?”
Bash answered, “Those stay near Emille.”
“Moderately dangerous specimens?”
“Those stay near Dilly.”
