Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first time Stede had felt it, he thought he might be dying.

Given his experiences over the past couple of months - two sword fights with Izzy Hands, one of which had ended in impalement, a knife to the nose, a stabbing, a botched hanging, and a skewer very nearly inserted through his right-side ear canal - he did not think that this assumption was entirely without precedent.

It began shortly after his conversation with Mary - following the skewer adjacent to ear incident - when the candles in their room were extinguished, and they were encased in darkness, and he was lying on his side, missing and longing for the pitch and fall of his bed on his ship at sea, and remembering the sound of Ed snoring away on the sofa. He was thinking about how Mary’s face had softened and her eyes had lit up when she’d told him about Doug, and how she’d known that she was in love with him. And there, in the dark of night, he’d thought of Ed again; the way he smiled sometimes, and tried to hide it by half turning away. How his eyes crinkled up at the corners, and the way he laughed and told jokes, and laughed at Stede’s jokes, even when they were not very good. The way he’d held his jaw and his hands and smiled at him that last golden evening on the beach, like Stede was somehow everything that he wanted, everything he needed…

And then, for the very first time, he’d felt it: a curious feeling between his ribs. A flicker, a flutter, like a tiny moth was caged there behind his sternum, and its wings were beating steadily, very nearly in time with the familiar dull plod of his own heart.

His father had passed away several years ago, just after Alma’s birth. Stede had felt rather wicked for the strange sense of satisfaction that had settled within him, realising that Bonnet senior had died without the gratification of knowing that Stede and Mary’s lukewarm union had produced a male heir. The cause of death had been a heart attack, the physician had said. Stede hadn’t been quite sure what that meant, but the doctor had explained it as a kind of strain - the old man’s heart working overtime, clenching and releasing, kicking violently against its bonds until one day, it simply gave out.

Remembering this, Stede had pressed a hand to his own chest, feeling his own heartbeat and that strange, in-between tremor lurking just behind it. And he’d thought, well, perhaps this is it. And he’d waited.

And waited.

But nothing had come of it - he had simply lain there in the darkness, motionless and silent. And when the morning sun pierced through the curtains and split across the floorboards it was still there - that strange, second pulse. And thus he had determined that he was not, in fact, dying, and that perhaps God, or fate, or some other unseen cosmic force had seen fit to allow him a second chance. A chance to make things right with his family, to return to his friends, to his ship, to the sea, to Ed. And he’d screwed up every ounce of courage he possessed, risen, and thrown the windows wide open to greet the first day of the rest of his life.

It’s still there, now, days later - that odd little arhythmic tick. But he’s still alive. Perhaps not quite well, but as well as he can be, given the circumstances. It is certainly no mean feat, rowing a small dinghy groaning and creaking beneath the weight of seven fully-grown men out into the open ocean with neither land nor sustenance in sight.

He hasn’t mentioned this strange occurrence to any of his crew. He’s not sure he could adequately explain it; that other life that appears to have sprung into being within his ribcage. The steady pump of a second heartbeat is there in his chest, unmistakably physical…and, stranger still, with it comes the unfamiliar sensation of no longer being alone, but instead accompanied by some unseen, silent sprite whose language he does not speak, and who cannot, or will not, communicate with him, but whose presence is - something, he supposes. Not disconcerting, nor entirely comforting, in truth. Still, its secret habitation within his breast is something for him, something close and hidden, a thing he alone can harbour and carry with him across the waves. He is not sure that the others would understand. Indeed, he worries that they, with all their sea-borne superstitions, might see it as an ill omen; that they might believe it means he has been preternaturally marked for death or that he has in some other way inadvertently endangered their entire journey. Stede feels that way often enough, in truth - he has no wish to encourage this notion.

“S’pose we’ll be having to draw straws soon,” Buttons says gloomily, not an hour after Stede had ascertained that there was indeed no food or water to be had on the tiny spit of land the remnants of his crew had apparently been dumped upon, and consequently insisted that they all pile into his little rowboat.

Stede, eager to nip any insinuations of cannibalism in the bud before anybody got too carried away, stands up, and points towards the horizon. “Is that a ship?” He says loudly.

The dinghy rocks violently beneath them and the Swede comes dangerously close to being pitched overboard.

It isn’t a ship. Nor is the next faraway black dot Wee John sights in the distance two hours later. Nor the next.

Evening draws in. It is cold on the water, with no blankets to keep them warm; no roof over their heads; not even a sail to catch the wind. They huddle together - they must, they have no other choice in the tiny boat - and wait out the night. Stede counts his heartbeats, as well as the beats of the second, shadow heart behind it, until he falls asleep.

The following morning everyone is hungry and thirsty and stiff and exhausted. Stede’s head is pounding as he takes his turn at the oars, pulling and pushing against the water until his shoulders burn and his back freezes up and his eyes begin to stream.

“We should stay where we are,” Wee John insists. “We’ve no idea where we’re going. No compass, no map. We could be heading straight into the Atlantic for all we know. We should’ve stayed on the island - someone was bound to sail past and find us.”

“Captain found us,” Oluwande tells him. “And how long were we sat around there? We may as well get moving. It’s better than waiting -” He stops and falls silent.

Stede rubs his sleeve across his slick forehead. Better than waiting to die goes unsaid.

And so they row, and row, and row, and watch as the long blue horizon gives way to more blue, then indigo, then pink, and finally orange, and the sun dips and melts beneath the waves and the moon emerges, pale and shimmering and cold, and night falls upon them once again.

It’s been over a day now, Stede realises. The inside of his throat feels as though it is coated in sand. His lips and tongue burn. He wonders vaguely how long a man can go without water. Ed would know. It’s the sort of thing he thinks a pirate captain ought to know, really. But then again, would it do any good to know? Would it do any good to have a watch in his pocket ticking away the hours, minutes, seconds, until they begin to expire? Perhaps not. He breathes in deeply, smelling only salt and sweat, and wishes, not for the first time, that the rest of the crew were with them. That Ed was with them. He doesn’t think he’d mind the smell of sweat if it was Ed’s; doesn’t think dehydration would be so bad if Ed was there to throw an arm around his shoulder and watch the sun and the moon and the stars, and the sea and all the earth fade away into static and then endless black silence at his side.

His throat fills, and his eyes prickle with tears, and he blinks them away furiously before the voice of one of the Badminton brothers seizes the chance to return.

Pete still has a little hardtack in his shirt pocket and had passed it around earlier. He offers it out again, but everyone shakes their heads. The salt just makes their mouths drier.

Roach says, “Well. If I’m first to go, I suppose you can eat me.”

“That’s the spirit, lad,” Buttons says, but he sounds more defeated than Stede has ever heard him.

“Nobody’s going to - go anywhere,” Stede says, firmly. But it hurts to speak, and even to his own ears he sounds unconvincing. The sharp pounding directly behind his eyes is almost unbearable. He allows his eyelids to fall half-shut against the glare of the moon and the water and the sight of his crew who are, once again, facing terrible peril and almost certain death due to his own misplaced confidence; his own stupid certainty.

Wee John picks at his thumbnail. Oluwande, seemingly needing something to do, moves into position to take over the oars.

The Swede says, faintly, “Are you not going to sleep, Oluwande?”

Oluwande, looking over his own shoulder - as though there is anything to see but more water and salt and night, says, “Nah. Rather keep going. The sooner we get to land, the sooner we can see Jim, and Lucius, and Frenchie, right?”

Stede smiles, though he’s not sure the other man sees it, but the motion hurts his cheeks and the cracked corners of his lips. He stops, sinking further into his spot in the dinghy, exhausted.

The Swede says, “Well - it is night time. Perhaps the captain could tell us a story? You know, like old times.”

Pete and Roach seem instantly cheered.

“Oh,” says Stede, “I don’t know-” His throat is awfully sore, after being so dry for so long.

“Now, come on cap’n,” Buttons says.

Even Oluwande and Wee John seem to perk up a little.

“Aye,” says John, and he pokes Stede’s foot with his own. “For old time’s sake, eh, captain?”

Stede is quite touched. “Well,” he says, “I suppose -” And then he realises. “Oh, but I don’t have any of my books. I would, but - I’m really no good at making stories up, you know. No imagination.” He stops, feeling awful. He can’t even do this right. “I’m so sorry, everyone.” He pauses and looks at the others. They appear so small against the seemingly endless backdrop of sea and sky and stars. “So awfully sorry.” He wonders if they know what he means.

“Oh,” says the Swede, slumping down in his spot against the side of the boat.

They bob on the water in silence for a long moment. Then Buttons says, “I know a story, if you’d fancy letting me take a turn.”

“Oh, Christ,” John says.

“No, no,” Stede says, “Buttons, that - that would be marvellous. Wouldn’t it, everyone?”

Nobody speaks. Stede elbows Oluwande.

“Ow,” Oluwande says. “I mean - yeah. Yeah, go for it, Buttons.”

“Alright,” Buttons says, “Well. It’s a well-known story, but it’s one of my favourites. Once, there was a great kraken. Black as night, eyes as red as the devil, teeth like knives.”

Roach says, “Krakens don’t have teeth. They have beaks.”

Wee John says, “Birds have beaks.”

“Have you ever seen a kraken?” Buttons demands. Nobody says anything. “Aye,” Buttons says. “Well, I have, and don’t be fooled - they do have the most terrible teeth. How d’you think I got this?” He reaches down, and pulls up one leg of his trousers.

Everyone leans forwards to examine the scar on his calf. Stede hasn’t seen it before. The skin there is puckered and white. It is, Stede thinks, a formidable wound. He supposes if he ever makes it off this godforsaken dinghy that he ought to see about getting something similar. His scars from being stabbed, first by the Spanish, then again by Izzy, were a good start, but what use was a pirate captain who hadn’t tangled with a shark, or an octopus at least?

“Aye,” Buttons says severely. He lets the fabric of his pants fall back down to cover the wound. “I’ll thank you not to interrupt again. Now. As I was saying.” He gazes out over the moonlit sea. “This kraken - he was a foul beast. Hated and feared. Huge and vicious. He could take down entire ships with a single tentacle. He snapped them in half, like they were no more than firewood, and he’d pluck the screaming sailors from the deck and swallow ‘em whole. He had one fear - and that was the light, as all evil creatures of the night fear the light. He hated and feared sunlight, and even the glow of the moon and the stars, but, as is the case with all things that are terrible to us, he couldn’t help but be fascinated by it too. He would float there in the cold, inky depths, where there’s naught but shipwrecks and sea serpents and the skeletons of long-dead whales, or hide in the darkness of the undersea caves that were his lair, and think on the light cast across the surface of the water, wondering what it might feel like against his supple, wet skin.”

He pauses.

The crew sits in silence.

“Well?” Stede says, “What happened then?”

“Oh,” Buttons says, “Well, as I say, it’s a very well-known story. Something about the kraken falling in love with a lighthouse, treasure, they have a shared heartbeat, and so on. I was never too fussed for that part. I just liked the kraken, you ken.”

Pete says, “The way my mom told it was from the perspective of the lighthouse.”

Oluwande says, “Mine too.”

Buttons says, “Well, that doesn’t sound like a very good version of the story.”

“My mother always said the kraken was grey,” the Swede tells them.

“Wait a minute,” Stede says, “You all already know this story?”

The crew turns to look at him as one.

“Of course,” Roach says, “it’s a classic.”

“Well, I don’t know it.”

“It’s kind of like sailors’ folklore,” Wee John says. “Like, it’s just a story everyone knows.”

“I don’t.”

Pete says, “Well, you’re not -” then jolts as somebody apparently kicks him in this shin, and stops himself.

Kindly, Oluwande says, “You didn’t grow up on the docks - with sailors - like us, captain. But it’s a very well-known myth.” He stares out over the sea, eyes slightly glazed. “One of my favourites.”

“Wow,” says Stede. “Well - tell me more about this kraken. And the lighthouse. What do you mean the kraken fell in love with it? And what about the shared heart-”

Buttons stands up, setting the whole dinghy rocking side-to-side. “Cap’n,” he says, “on the horizon: sails! We’re saved!”

⛯

The sailors who pick them up are French merchants, heading north for New England with their hold bursting with sugar. They are kind enough, Stede thinks, for Frenchmen, and they help Stede and the rest of his crew up onto their ship, and give them water and meals, and a place to sleep. This place to sleep is, unfortunately, the solid wooden deck, beneath the open sky and the stars. Stede explains that he does prefer a mattress, and his back is not accustomed to such hard surfaces - but regrettably, the captain, whose name is Dubois, explains that there are no free hammocks or bunks on the ship, and therefore no other options for sleeping arrangements. They are, at any rate, provided with blankets, which Oluwande points out is an improvement on the dinghy, and at least on the merchant ship they are able to stretch out, rather than being cramped together like sardines.

Everyone falls asleep almost at once after ingesting what Stede considers to be obscene amounts of food and liquid - the merchant crew seem rather put out by the sheer volume of what they manage to consume - but Stede finds he cannot fault them for it. He may have been hungry and thirsty, but doubtless his crew were ravenous after being marooned. He supposes he ought to question them more about that later. What on earth, he wonders, could Ed have been thinking, putting them all out like that?

On the other hand, it appears, from what little he had been able to glean when he’d first stepped upon the small island, and found himself at once accosted by frantic, furious crew members, that Izzy Hands had in fact been the party responsible for the actual act of marooning. Stede thinks that he ought to have known. Perhaps, he frets, Izzy had mutinied - had overpowered Ed somehow - and taken control of the Revenge.

He stares up at the moon, at the stars, at the clouds, counting the soft thuds of his second heartbeat, and worries.

Where is Ed? He asks himself. Is he okay? What had he done after Stede had so cruelly abandoned him back at the academy? At least he knows he is alive, he supposes - the crew had informed him that he’d come back to the ship no worse for wear, though they’d been cagey about what had transpired after that.

All will be well, he tells himself: it has to be. He closes his eyes, slows his breathing, trying to force sleep. Listening to the deep, slow breaths of his crew behind him, he thinks that surely he should be wiped out too, after hours and hours beneath the hot sun and the cold, vacant night sky, with precious little to eat and even less to drink. And yet he cannot stop his mind from racing, thoughts turning and tumbling in his head like pebbles on a beach tossed back and forth by the restless surf.

The sooner he falls asleep, he tells himself, the sooner they will reach Nassau, and the sooner they reach Nassau, the sooner they can obtain a ship, and the sooner they obtain a ship, the sooner they will reach the Revenge, and their friends, and Ed.

Ed might be angry, he thinks - hurt by Stede’s desertion. He might be upset. Stede hopes very much that he won’t be. But perhaps the alternative is worse? He imagines stepping onto the deck of his ship, and Ed turning to see him, and that beloved face bearing the same mask of horror and confusion that Mary’s had when he’d re-entered his old home in Barbados just a few weeks prior. He imagines Ed’s discomfort at his reappearance, his irritation - it is galling to admit, but the truth is that Stede is a pretty poor pirate; an even poorer sailor. Ed is sweet, he thinks, and kind, and generous, but surely there will come a time when his patience runs out. Surely it will, at some point, make sense for Ed to cut his losses and accept that Stede has always been something of a liability?

He swallows and turns onto his side. The hard, unforgiving wood of the deck bites painfully into his hip.

Perhaps Ed has already cut his losses. Perhaps that is why the majority of his crew were dumped on that tiny island.

He digs his teeth into his lower lip.

It will not do, he tells himself, to think of Ed in such uncharitable terms. Ed is a good man; a kind man. If anything, Ed will be disappointed and frustrated by Stede’s cowardice.

The twin heartbeats thump in his chest, terminally off-beat, and he tries to calm them. Worrying is of no use.

Nevertheless, the strangest feeling of swelling grief twists within his stomach, rising into his chest and his throat, and for a moment he wonders if he is going to vomit. It feels sudden and violent, and it frightens him. He clenches his fists and waits for the feeling to abate.

He falls asleep with one hand pressed against his chest, turning the sudden inexplicable turmoil he feels beginning to take an iron grip on his insides over and over and over until at last he is enveloped in an uneasy slumber.

⛯

The following morning they are awoken early by the screams of gulls and the merchant sailors alike.

Stede’s own crew are slow to rise, grumbling under their breaths and bickering amongst themselves as they watch the other crew move around the boat efficiently.

Stede approaches the captain, ignoring the strange pull of misery that seems to be emanating from the second heartbeat within his breast and which has engulfed his body overnight, determined to negotiate their safe and fast passage to the Republic of Pirates. There, he thinks, they will be able to procure a boat, and even better, perhaps some news of Ed.

“Not good,” the captain tells Stede, shaking his head firmly, one hand raised in the air. “Not good, sir. Pirates!”

“Yes, we know,” Stede tells him impatiently. “That’s why we need to go there!”

One of the merchant sailors, standing nearby and apparently eavesdropping, says something in French, and the others all murmur together and nod their heads sadly.

“What?” Stede says.

Roach says, “He says you’ve been driven mad by the sun and thirst.”

“We’re not mad!” Stede says, affronted.

Roach, placating, says, “He only said you were mad.”

“Come now!” Stede says, “I promise, upon my honour, I will ensure no harm comes to anyone aboard this ship if you just take us where we need to go!”

“Please,” the captain says, firmly. “Please understand - I mean no disrespect - how can you promise such a thing?” He gestures vaguely at Stede. Stede glances down at himself. He supposes he doesn’t appear very menacing, and unfortunately, none of his crew are armed. He himself only has a small dagger in his belt, which he is forced to admit is most likely not much comfort to the French captain and, in reality, not likely to fare well against the likes of Spanish Jackie or Izzy Hands.

He sighs, somewhat losing steam.

Captain Dubois pats him on the shoulder. “Come now, sir,” he says. “The sea was not made for such gentlefolk as yourself.” He casts an eye over the rest of Stede’s crew, and Stede wonders what the other man thinks of them - whether he has questioned why they were sailing so far out into the ocean in such a small boat. Probably thinks that Stede had dragged them out there for a lark, he thinks bitterly, and really, would he be wrong in this assumption? Everything Stede does, he can’t seem to help but muck it up even further. If he hadn’t abandoned Ed back at the academy, perhaps his crew wouldn’t have been marooned.

He’s still not certain what happened there. He knows he’s going to have to ask, sooner or later. Whenever he thinks about it, though, he gets this sick, anxious sensation in the back of his throat, like he’s going to vomit.

To Captain Dubois, he says, “So - you won’t be taking us to Nassau?”

Dubois looks at him incredulously.

“No chance at all?”

Dubois says, “We are sailing directly to New England. You may disembark there. Not Nassau.” He turns, and heads up to the quarter deck.

Defeated, Stede slumps forwards, resting his elbows upon the taffrail.

“Never mind, captain,” Roach says, comfortingly. “We could always kill him. And the crew. Might as well take this ship, huh?”

“With what, Roach?” Stede asks him, despairingly. “I have one dagger. That’s it!”

“Buttons has his teeth,” Roach says thoughtfully. “But yes - Izzy made sure we didn’t have any of our weapons when he took us to that island.” His eyes light up. “Oh - I have this!” He removes a knife from his boot. “He didn’t find this one!” he says, cheerily.

“That’s a butter knife,” Stede says.

Roach shrugs. “A knife’s a knife,” he says. “Best we have.” He claps Stede bracingly on the back, and heads over to rejoin the rest of the crew on the fo’c’s’le.

Stede rubs a hand over his face. He feels terribly tired all of a sudden, and perhaps even more defeated than he had done out in the dinghy. At least back then, they’d had some semblance of freedom, even if the situation had been dire. At least then, he’d been able to give an order, make a decision, see how it panned out. Here, they may not be at death’s door, throats parched and stomachs empty, but they are still no closer to finding the Revenge, to reuniting with Ed and the others. The way things are shaping up, they are going to end up hundreds of miles from anywhere he knows, far from Ed, with no way to get back to the Caribbean.

He stays there on deck a while longer, staring out at the sea, wondering if it is just his imagination, or if the water and the skies are growing greyer with every nautical mile.

⛯

Days pass. Captain Dubois does not change his mind on Nassau, no matter how much Stede wheedles and nags.

He does, briefly, consider attempting to hijack the ship with his dagger, Roach’s butter knife, and Buttons’ splintering teeth, but even taking into account the French merchants’ relative lack of weaponry, he is forced to admit that their chances of success are not great. A couple of the men are armed, he has noted, including the captain - to protect against pirates, Dubois had told him when he had admired the other man’s cutlass, and he’d wondered what the captain would have said if Stede had revealed that the very men he had saved were, in fact, pirates. He supposed he would have laughed and declared him mad again. But the fact is they are outnumbered, and in truth Stede would feel quite awful about having to kill them when they had been so kind and accommodating to both him and his men. He could, he supposes, let them live, and ask them to join his crew, but he doesn’t have much to bargain with currently: he is quite in arrears on his men’s wages, and will need to sort that out once he is back aboard the Revenge. Hopefully Ed won’t mind helping him out with that one - now he has left all his worldly fortune to Mary and the children, it will take a considerable amount of plundering to make up the difference. Perhaps Ed won’t begrudge giving him a loan of some sort, just until he’s back on his feet. Mind you, he muses, if Ed is not averse to co-captaining together again, his coffers really ought to be open to Stede also. He wonders what kind of salaries Fang and Ivan and Izzy are earning. Perhaps he and Ed can put their heads together and come up with some sort of equitable payscale that can be applied across the board.

Anyway, Stede thinks, reflecting on his current quandary, violence is probably not the answer in this situation, no doubt much to his crew’s chagrin.

A fuckery, then. Stede likes this idea a little more, though nothing immediately comes to mind when he tries to think through his options. Besides, this method still leaves the problem of the French crew to deal with.

Stede resolves to meditate on it a little longer, though he is keenly aware that he is beginning to run out of time.

“How long,” he asks Dubois, after a few days have passed by, painfully slow yet far too quickly at the same time, “will it take us to get to New England?”

Dubois shrugs, resting one arm against the mizzen-mast. “Three weeks, perhaps a little less, depending on the weather.”

This is not welcome news to Stede. Three weeks is an unimaginably long time, especially considering the fact that by the time they reach New England, they will need to obtain a new ship and sail back down south, which will take them a further three weeks, roughly, before they can even begin looking for Ed. The information makes him feel so desperately unwell he goes and sits in the hold for about an hour, head in his hands, and pretends not to be crying when he is discovered hunched amongst the crates of sugar by Pete.

“I’m fine!” he says, crossly, before the other man can ask.

“Okay,” Pete says, and backs slowly away and out of sight.

⛯

Stede is beginning to feel more and more desperate with each passing day. It does not help that whenever he finds himself distracted, whenever his mind clears and goes wandering, he is overwhelmed by the most curious feelings he has ever experienced.

The strange sensation of the new heartbeat, pulsing away beside his own, does not let up. It does not feel like the pump of his own heart - not quite - but almost like its shadow, something dark and slight and weightless from which he is nevertheless incapable of escaping.

Initially, he wonders if perhaps it is mirroring his own, repeating its rhythms with the same intensity and speed and cadence, just half a beat behind. But gradually, he finds himself coming to the realisation that in fact the two heartbeats do not match up at all.

Sometimes, when he is sitting on deck and watching the sea, or night is drawing in and he is lying down, eyes closed, breaths evening out and beginning to slow, that odd second rhythm will kick up a notch, jolting like he’s missed a step in the dark or been set upon by some wild beast.

Initially, Stede spends his days staying out of sight when they are busy, eager not to get in the way or make a fool of himself. But he quickly discovers that he needs a distraction from the sensations within his chest, as well as the depressing news that they will not be dropped off by their rescuers at Nassau. Then one day, Wee John drops down beside him, and, apropos of nothing, begins to teach him how to correctly patch and mend a sail. He soon finds himself lending aid to his crew as they work.

“I say,” he tells John, one day, holding out a sail he’s been repairing with very little supervision, “this is all quite useful, isn’t it?”

“Oh aye,” John says, “when you live on a ship.”

“Indeed.” Stede frowns, staring into the middle distance. “Maybe we could do more of this when we get back to the Revenge. It’d be jolly handy to be able repair our own clothes. That way I wouldn’t need to commission a whole new suit whenever I get stabbed.”

John gives him a funny sort of look. “You’ve not been repairing your clothes?”

Stede shrugs. “Never knew how.”

“Ah,” John says. He purses his lips. “Would be nice to have a new suit, for sure. Or - any suit, really.”

Stede looks at him in surprise. “You don’t own a suit?”

John looks baffled. “Captain, have you ever seen any of us out of the outfits we’re in?”

“Well,” Stede says. He thinks. “When Nigel Badminton and his men came aboard. Some of you got dressed up then. And again, when Ed and I went to that French party -”

“Those were your clothes, captain.”

“Oh,” Stede frowns. He hadn’t really thought about it. Of course he knew the crew wore the same sort of thing every day - that was practical, he supposed, for the hard manual labour they did aboard the ship - but he’d sort of assumed that, (at least on shore or perhaps tucked away in their bunks) they had something for Sunday best. Maybe such assumptions were a little naive, he thinks. “Well,” he says, elbowing Wee John cheerily. “We won’t have that. Once we’re back we’ll see about getting some nice fabric - we’ll find a good merchant ship with some silk, or something, and you and I can do a bit of tailoring.”

John nods, and smiles, though it doesn’t quite seem to reach his eyes, and goes back to his own sail.

Stede does the same, thinking longingly of pink and blue and turquoise silk and satin and linen, and the day he can finally get out of the plain, neutral-toned breeches and white shirt he’d left Barbados wearing. They were more practical than his usual attire, to be sure, but so drab! Such a pity, he thinks. He wonders if he can persuade Ed back into something purple. The colour did suit him right down to the ground.

He learns other skills too, though unfortunately finds he doesn’t take to these quite as well as sewing (the horrid Badmintons, he thinks, would have had a field day with this knowledge). He learns how to swab the decks (and why such a thing is necessary), how to climb the rigging (though he ends up getting a foot caught in the ropes and twisting an ankle, which results in his being out of action for two days on the trot), how to unfurl the sails and reposition the boom, and he’s even given a turn at the helm, supervised closely by Buttons and Captain Dubois’ first mate. He also spends some time in the galley, peeling,chopping and washing up. He finds he rather enjoys these menial daily tasks - the concentration required, the attention to detail, the sweat he works up.

And the strange thing is that - even when he’s climbing the rigging, or hauling ropes and heavy crates around, and his own heart pounds in his ears with the effort and sweat beads thickly on his temples - sometimes that odd second heartbeat remains completely unaffected.

Stranger still are the unfamiliar and even violent sensations and emotions which frequently threaten to overwhelm him. Sometimes he blinks, and out of nowhere he feels drunk (uncoordinated and slow, his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth) and he finds himself speaking so slowly and carefully that other people frown at him, and ask if he’s okay. Sometimes he feels a wild burst of frenetic energy, even if it’s late at night, or early in the morning, and he’s tired and aching, and sometimes he feels so terribly angry it scares him. In such moments he secrets himself away in the hold, hiding behind barrels and crates and sacks of sugar, trembling and clenching his fists so tightly he worries his knuckles will burst out of his skin. Most of the time, though, he just feels…sad.

Not sad - bereft.

This feeling comes to him most keenly when he thinks about Ed. About the academy. What happened to his crew. He wonders where Lucius and Jim and Frenchie are, and if they’re okay, and if Ed is okay. Other times, the feeling hits him out of nowhere, a swell of pain and horror and heartbreak so deep and profound he feels it will surely tear him asunder.

He finds himself with alarming frequency retreating below, hiding amongst the cargo where the air is thick and sweet. He listens to the slap of waves against the hull, pulling his knees close to his chest and choking on sobs, palms shaking while his throat snaps tight with anguish. Sometimes he cries at night too, and he wonders if perhaps there is something uniquely wrong with him in this regard. Is he doomed forever to fall asleep with salty tear tracks burning his cheeks? Nevertheless, he has had plenty of practice hiding this miserable habit, and he thinks it unlikely the rest of the crew are aware of it. He hopes they aren’t. Nobody mentions it to him anyhow, for which he is desperately grateful.

Stede is unable to account for these horrible feelings, and they scare him somewhat. And yet, he begins to notice a curious distance between these sudden new emotions and the ones which he perceives to be his own. Like his mysterious second heartbeat, he has the strangest notion that these feelings are like ghosts, entirely separate from him, yet doomed to occupy the same space in which he resides. It is as if he catches them every so often when either he or they wander beyond the metaphorical veil. They feel almost like the sensations one experiences when reading a very good book - real and painful enough, but not of this world - something that feels entirely too close, and yet so far away he cannot truly make sense of it. It is like seeing a distant shape beneath the dark water upon which they traverse, and knowing there are whole worlds beneath them - aeons and aeons of history and plants and rock formations and strange creatures almost barely out of sight, obscured by depth and currents and the dappling of light - which are literally miles below, and yet only one careless mistake, one bad storm away from the soft, breakable shell of his body.

He doesn’t tell anybody about the feelings, or the strange bodily sensations he finds himself experiencing more and more frequently these days. (Are they happening more frequently? he asks himself. Or here, on this ship, where he is not captain and he is being carried away, miserable and unable to do a thing about it, is he more likely to submit to them? Stede does not know.)

He tries his best to fill his time with the new skills he is attempting to hone. He speaks with his crew, too, and with the French merchants who indulgently and patiently allow him to slip on the wet deck, make a mess of his knots, drop and fumble objects and items he carries back and forth between the deck and the hold. He thinks about their destination. Most of the time the idea of landing so far away fills him with a kind of frantic despair, but, he tells himself in those moments of mad optimism that he supposes make him a fool of the greatest proportions, it is possible for Ed to travel as far as New England, isn’t it? Ed has surely sailed for decades, for many miles, over many years. Stede has no knowledge of all the places he’s been, surely? Perhaps New England is just one of many of Blackbeard’s haunts. Perhaps he is sailing there right now, just a few miles ahead of them, standing on the prow of the Revenge with his hair rippling in the breeze like a dark banner behind him.

Stede wonders if Ed ever thinks about him, and another of those strange, foreign waves of abject misery washes in like the tide.

⛯

It is smooth sailing, up north through the still blue waters of the Caribbean. Stede fluctuates between gratitude for the calm weather (he hates it when the waves grow wild, and the lightning flashes, and the ship rocks and pitches sickeningly from port to starboard) and desperately pleading with God (if She even exists) to send a storm their way, to slow their progress, to keep them close to where Ed most likely is.

Still, the calm and pleasant weather does not mean their journey is without danger. One day, they come within sight of the burnt-out husk of a ship, blackened by now extinguished flames and listlessly sinking below the surface of the sea. They do not spot any sailors either aboard or in the nearby waters. The ship’s tattered sails flutter lethargically in the breeze. They take turns investigating it through the telescope as they pass her by.

“What happened here?” Stede asks as he hands the scope off to the Frenchman next to him. He catches Oluwande and Buttons sharing a dark look.

Captain Dubois spits off the side of the ship. “Pirates,” he hisses, and spits again.

Two days later, they come upon an empty dinghy, barren of life, one oar resting across one of the seats, the other conspicuous by its absence.

The day after that, there is another ship - burnt-out, empty, still.

Once again, they stand together along the taffrail, and stare at the fire-dark skeletal remains as they sail slowly past.

Dubois, standing beside Stede, swears beneath his breath. At his shoulder, his first mate murmurs something in his ear.

Stede hears him well enough. He starts and turns to look at Dubois. “Did he say Blackbeard?”

Dubois nods stiffly.

Stede’s heart - his own heart this time, he thinks - begins to pound.

Stede stares at him. “You think Blackbeard -”

“I know!” The captain interrupts, “I know it is Blackbeard. Who else? You have seen the wrecks for yourself now. The fires - they are his calling-card. I have heard rumours these last few weeks. We saw more ships, before we found you. They say Blackbeard is worse than ever. Comes upon ships in the night with a new flag. Takes no quarter. Burning and pillaging and looting everywhere he goes. The whole sea is set alight. Now, do you see, why I will not take you to Nassau?”

Stede swallows; turns to look at his crew. Strangely, none of them will meet his eye.

“I don’t,” he says. Pauses. “Perhaps - you don’t think - some other pirate -”

“What other pirate?” the captain says, emphatically. “There are so few left. Most - hunted down. Hanged. Or they take the king’s pardon; become privateers. The governor of the Bahamas - he is in Nassau as we speak, offering a pardon to any pirate who turns himself in. There are hundreds of them now, burning their flags, flying King George’s colours. Pah.” His face twists. “I hate pirates, but I hate that British king more. It is a mockery. I tell you - you can dress a wolf like a dog, but you cannot guarantee it will heel.” He turns and strides away, first mate at his side.

Stede frowns, watching the abandoned ship as it gradually falls away behind them. Is it true, he wonders. Is Ed really setting fire to ships across the sea? Taking no quarter, taking no prisoners?

That doesn’t sound like the Ed Stede knows. That sounds more like the Blackbeard Calico Jack had described, the Blackbeard from stories, Pete’s tales, Izzy’s rants, Stede’s books…

Of course, it’s not like Ed doesn’t partake in typical piratical violence - Stede is not so foolish to think that. He’s seen Ed on raids, seen him use his knives and swords and guns and cannons to intimidate other sailors, other ships; seen him steal and maim and cause general havoc. But the way Dubois had described it, this was something else entirely.

Stede tries to push aside the sickly sense of unease that has settled in his stomach, but all that remains is that strange secondary grief. It’s growing more intense now, as though the more he notices it, the wilder and sadder and stronger it gets. He inhales, fighting back the odd wave of nausea it brings with it.

He turns and looks towards his crew. They’re gathered together in a tight little cluster a short distance from the rest of the sailors, whispering amongst themselves.

Stede feels ill.

“Oluwande!” he calls.

Oluwande looks up.

Stede gestures for him to come over.

Oluwande approaches. “What’s up, captain?” he says. It’s sweet, Stede thinks, sadly, that they all still call him captain, as though he is in possession of a ship anymore.

“Oluwande,” he says, anxiously, “The - Dubois - what he just said, about Blackbeard.” He glances around, and lowers his voice. “When you left the Revenge, what - what kind of mood was Ed in?”

Oluwande looks nervous. “Um,” he says, “What do you mean? Why do you ask?”

Stede says, “All this about those ships we saw being because of - of Blackbeard. The pillaging, looting. Setting ships alight. Hardly leaving a soul alive.” I thought that was all in his past, he doesn’t say. He looks at the other man. “Is there something I should know?”

Oluwande looks deeply uncomfortable. He leans on the railing beside Stede, twisting his fingers together. “Um,” he says.

“Please,” Stede says, “I need to know. If Ed is - if Ed is hurt, or in trouble -”

“He was - different,” Oluwande says reluctantly. “After he got back.”

Stede shifts awkwardly. “Without me.”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” Stede runs his palms slowly back and forth across the sun-warmed wood of the taffrail. “How - how different?”

“Well…” Oluwande sighs. “I mean - at first, he just - he went into your cabin. Locked himself up in there for days. Izzy said he was fine, just a bit under the weather, but in a good mood. None of us saw him though, so I don’t know if that’s true.” He grimaces a bit. “Probably not, thinking back now. Then, when he finally came out, a few days later, he was just - I don’t know. Weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Well,” Oluwande looks deeply uncomfortable. “He wouldn’t wear anything but your dressing gown thing. The pink one?”

“Right,” Stede says slowly.

“And he kept talking about not wanting to be a pirate anymore. We were just sat there. Dropped anchor for no reason. Didn’t want to go anywhere, do anything. We were running out of supplies. Only reason anything got done on the ship was ‘cause of Izzy. And -” he hesitates.

“And?”

“Well - he wrote all these songs.”

Stede blinks. “What?”

“Yeah. All these shitty, sad songs. Made Lucius write them down for him, and then he made us sit and listen to them. It was kind of uncomfortable, actually. And then he’s all, oh, let’s have a talent show.”

Stede says, slowly, “Well - that doesn’t sound too bad.”

Oluwande says, “Yeah, but…I don’t know. He was being weird. Like, he wasn’t himself. And then, we’re all ready to put on this pissing talent show, but we can’t find the captain. Lucius goes to look for him. And then we can’t find Lucius. And then the next day, Izzy’s the one being all weird. He’s like, Blackbeard is himself again. I’m like, okay, whatever that means. But Izzy’s foot’s all bloody and he’s walking with a cane. We’ve still not seen the captain. Then Izzy says, oh Blackbeard wants all of Bonnet’s stuff gone. We had to chuck your things into the ocean.”

“I’m sorry,” Stede says, “What?”

“Yeah mate,” Oluwande says, apologetically, “sorry about that.”

“All of my stuff?”

“Yeah. Like, your books, your clothes. Most of your furniture.”

“Oh.” Stede looks down at his hands. All his books, his clothing, his things, the beautiful things he had carefully collected and arranged in the great cabin, the little luxuries that had made his life at sea so comfortable and nice. All the little parts of himself, accumulated and placed so carefully, so lovingly, things he’d shared with Ed - gone.

“Dunno why,” Oluwande says, “we could have made a decent bit of money fencing it. No offence.” He winces a bit. “None of us thought you were coming back.”

“Did…did Ed say anything about me?”

“Nah,” Oluwande says, shaking his head. “It was kind of strange actually. He used to be obsessed with you didn’t he? And then he wouldn’t say a word about whatever happened. Izzy said we weren’t to mention your name.” He leans in conspiratorially. “You know, Pete thought he killed you.”

“Izzy?”

“Blackbeard.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Stede says, crossly.

Oluwande shrugs. “Well we didn’t know. He never spoke about you. Not to us. Not to anyone. It was like you’d never been there.”

“Oh,” Stede says. His heart clenches painfully. The grief swirls and churns inside of him like rough water. He feels quite sick.

“Anyway, after that, Izzy made us all get in one of the dinghies. Well, all of us except Jim and Frenchie and Lucius. No idea where they were.” Oluwande chews his thumbnail anxiously. “Fang and Ivan rowed us out to the island. I asked Izzy where Jim was, he said they’d be along shortly. And then they never turned up.” He looks away. “I’d just - I’d just got them back,” he says, softly.

Stede reaches out, places a hand on Oluwande’s shoulder, staring blindly out at the waves. “Do you,” he says, slowly. “Do you think - maybe Izzy did something -”

Oluwande shrugs, dislodging Stede’s hand. Stede tries not to feel hurt by the gesture. “Dunno. Maybe some of the others do. I don’t…I’m not sure.”

Vehemently, Stede says, “Well, he is an awful little man. I wouldn’t be surprised if -”

“You didn’t see him,” Oluwande interrupts. “The captain, I mean. Blackbeard. He didn’t - he wasn’t right, not since he got back. And I mean, Izzy’s an arsehole, yeah, but he worships the guy.”

“Still -”

“You weren’t there,” Oluwande tells him again, insistently. “You didn’t see.” He pauses. Frowns. “Where were you? Why’d you leave?”

“I don’t know,” Stede says, but the lie feels acidic, like bile in the back of his mouth. He grips the rail in front of him, unable to meet the other man’s gaze. “I - I was frightened.” He stares out at the ocean - at the miles upon miles of deep, dark water, and wide, empty sky. “I left him. I left all of you. All alone.”

“Yeah,” says Oluwande, quietly.

They don’t say anything more for a long, long time. Stede just breathes in the scent of salt; listens to the voices of the merchant crew and his own men, the soft purr of the water below them. In his chest, the second heartbeat throbs interminably on, and the grief that has gradually crept higher and higher within his body, reaching out with sly tentacles to engulf and strangle him all throughout the morning breaches - entwines with his own, and he feels dampness on his cheeks, a sting in his eyes, and he suddenly wants nothing more than to sink to his knees and just give up.

But he can’t, he tells himself. He can’t. Not again.

He stands a little straighter; roughly brushes away the tears beginning to slide down his face.

“I’ll fix this,” he says to Oluwande. “I’ll make it right.”

But when he looks to his left, looks for the other man, he is gone.

⛯

Stede does not sleep well that night. He finds himself tossing and turning, distracted by his second heartbeat. It takes him a long time to find sleep. When at last he does, he has odd dreams; of tentacles and rough, rolling waves and a searching light across the sea.

A little while before dawn he awakens. At first, he is uncertain as to why.

The ship is still, and silent. The sailors on nightwatch are quiet, curled in on themselves, wrapped in their heaviest woollen coats, and the morning sun has not yet begun to lick at the horizon.

Then it hits him - the most painful, desperate wave of agony and grief he has ever felt in his life. It twists his stomach; cramps his lungs; ties his throat into knots.

He feels sick with it; wants to scream.

He cannot see.

He stumbles to his feet. He feels as though he has capsized; is below water, upside down, unable to right himself. He is plugged through his nose up to his brain, unable to breathe, unable to scream. His chest is burning.

He finds his way to the poop deck. The roaring he hears might, he thinks, be the water churning in their wake, or it might be the blood in his ears. His eyes sting and there is salt in his mouth; acid on his tongue.

His fists burn.

He feels blood on his knuckles, but when he looks down, gasping, there is nothing there; just his own pink, freckled hands, shaking like crisp Autumn leaves in the wind.

He grabs the taffrail; swallows a great gulp of air.

His stomach lurches, and all he can see is the water beneath, distorted by black spots across his vision, and all he can feel is the bite of the wooden railing against his chest, and he becomes slowly and painfully aware that he is vomiting over the side of the ship.

When he comes back to himself, it is with the realisation that there is saliva hanging from his lower lip, and sweat all the way down his neck and back, matting his hair flat against his skull. He is shaking so violently he thinks he will surely fall.

He hears a strange gasping sound, and realises with a shock that it is him making that noise; that he is sucking in great, hopeless, panicked breaths, that there are tears streaming from his eyes and into the corners of his open mouth, and that his chest is heaving, his lungs burning.

He’s burning.

He’s sobbing.

He closes his eyes.

Never, never, in all his life has he been so desperately, painfully sad. How, he thinks, can anybody bear even a quarter of this feeling? He feels like he’s hollow; like he’s been cut open and emptied and bruised to his core.

He tastes his own tears on his tongue.

Presently, he becomes aware that there’s somebody standing behind him - there’s a hand on his back, barely felt through his shirt. His skin pulses and writhes like a living creature.

“Ed?” he croaks, and tries to look, fights to turn and see the man he so loves, the man he has longed for, the man he has missed, Ed, he’s missed him so, so terribly -

It isn’t Ed. Of course it isn’t.

The French sailor who has climbed down from the crow’s nest pats him gently on the back.

“You are well?” he says, “You are done?”

He mimes vomiting. Stede’s stomach lurches.

But he is well - he is alright now. He can see again, mostly, and the sweat prickling all over his body is ice-cold, and he is coming back to himself a little.

He breathes in. Chokes back a sob. Passes a shaking hand across his face. He nods. “Yes,” he says, “I th-think so.” And then, still stumbling on his words: “Thank you.”

The sailor nods. “You rest below,” he says, and he helps Stede back to his poor excuse for a bed.

Stede tells nobody of the unfortunate incident. When morning comes, he extracts himself from his tangle of blankets, dampened with sweat, and tries to ignore the agonising wound of sadness that has opened in the very centre of his guts.

⛯

They do not come across another brutalised and abandoned ship for several more days. Stede begins to wonder if the sight of the last, and what Dubois and Oluwande had said to him were merely upsetting dreams. Then they find another - this one unburnt, but damaged to the point of destruction nonetheless. Her mast is snapped clean in two. A hole is punched in her hull and she is taking on water. Then, a day later, another - also not burnt, but torn apart. Then another, just the very tip of the bow visible as she sinks beneath the surface of the water.

Another.

Another.

Stede feels perfectly wretched - part vomit-inducing haunting grief and partly his own wrenching misery. He keeps his head down, avoiding the others as much as he can.

He sees the nervous glances his crew send to one another, but he can’t bear to comment on them.

What can he say?

It is his fault, he thinks, everything that has gone wrong - his fault.

Every time they pass the carcass of another destroyed vessel, another empty dinghy, he feels sick.

Perhaps they are all his fault too.

At first, he feels so heartbreakingly awful that the only thing he can think to do is toss himself over the side of the ship and sink to the bottom of the ocean where he can’t hurt anybody ever again. But, he tells himself, he hasn’t come all this way just to fall apart.

He made everything wrong - so wrong - now, at the very least, he has to try to make it right.

Perhaps his crew will forever resent him.

Perhaps Ed will never forgive him.

He isn’t sure what he can do, but he knows he cannot give in; cannot surrender to the grief and the guilt. And so every day, he takes a deep breath, and swallows down the pain and the sadness and the fear. And he stands on the deck, and scans the horizon for familiar sails.

One day, a cry goes up from the man at the helm.

“Men adrift! Off the starboard bow!”

Everyone rushes onto the deck. The merchant sailors scramble for the sails. The anchor is tossed out.

Stede leans over the taffrail with Captain Dubois. “Oh! Goodness!” he says.

There is another ship in the distance, burnt, wrecked, sinking beneath the waves like all the others. Its mast is splintered, crooked like a broken bone. Amongst the flotsam and jetsam littering the water are a group of three men, clinging to what appears to be the remnants of a small dinghy. Even at a distance, Stede sees the terror in their eyes; the exhaustion that has rent their faces and left them haggard and lean.

Together, Stede’s crew and the French merchants unfurl lengths of rope and toss them over the side of the ship to the men adrift.

They are hunched and shaking as they scramble aboard, all eye whites and chattering teeth.

One of them falls to his knees the moment his feet hit the deck, and begins sobbing and praying loudly.

“What happened?” Black Pete says, one arm around another man whose knees are sagging under his own weight.

Stede isn’t certain that he wants to know.

“We were attacked,” says the man Pete is holding upright, “several nights ago. Pirates,” and the other, third man, the only one standing unaided says, “Blackbeard.”

Stede feels the eyes of his own men upon him. Stop, he wants to cry, don’t look at me like that. He lives in terror that Captain Dubois and his crew will begin to suspect that the men they plucked from the sea, the men they saved several weeks prior are not in fact poor, unfortunate souls such as the ones they see before them now, but realise that in fact they are the pirates they so fear; that they are not only murderers and looters and thieves, but that they are, in fact, in league with Blackbeard himself.

Were.

Stede doesn’t know what makes him feel queasier; the idea of their true identities being uncovered, or the notion that their alliance, their friendship, their love for Blackbeard, for Edward - Edward’s love of them, of him - might have come to a horrible, violent end.

Dubois, eyes wide as dinner plates, whips between staring at the remains of the wrecked ship a few hundred feet from them, and their newest rescues.

“Blackbeard?” he says. “Did you see him? Where did he go? He must be close by, still, surely!”

The first mate barks an order to raise more sails, to get the wind behind them - but Stede hardly hears him.

He must be close by.

His dual heartbeats pound.

The rescued sailor still on his feet shakes his head. “Disappeared,” he says, “like a ghost. They came upon us in the night, like a phantom. We never stood a chance.” His eyes are haunted.

Stede swallows. The motion hurts his throat. “What - what happened?” he says.

Oluwande, carefully, says, “Captain -” but Stede waves him down, and he retreats, slowly.

The man says, “I told my captain it was a terrible idea. He had heard rumours - found a map. We thought it was a hoax. But there were so many other ships - dozens of men, all hearing the same whispers. The same old story.” He casts his gaze around the other sailors. His gaze rests briefly on Wee John’s tattooed arm - the great Octopus marked there in black and grey. Then he looks away. “We set sail. There were many others - privateers, merchants, fortune-hunters. Even some small-time pirates. All gathered. All had heard the same story, of the lighthouse. Only - this time, they said it wasn’t a story. There had to be some truth to it, the captain said. Why else did so many know the same tale - and not only that - the same location? He said the map must have been found recently; passed around, stolen and snatched. And now it was his.” He shakes his head, and Stede sees he is trembling. “We must have been among the last to leave port. As we drew close to where the map was marked we began to see driftwood. Flotsam, jetsam. Then a body in the water. Then another. Ships with great gaping holes in their hulls. Split masts. No living thing in sight. I begged the captain to turn back, but he refused.” He shakes his head, slowly. Stede finds he is hardly able to breathe. “It was a sign, he said, a sign we were on the right course. There was one ship we passed - one man left alive, just one. He was half-dead already, dying from exposure and thirst I think. Perhaps he had been drinking seawater to stay alive. But I know what he said to me.” His gaze, still hounded and empty, darkens. “Kraken.”

Stede blinks. “A - a kraken?”

The man turns to him; stares him straight in the eye. “Not a kraken. The kraken.” He nods, slowly. “That’s what they call him. Blackbeard.”

Confused, Stede shakes his head. He’s never heard of Ed being referred to by that moniker before. “Who’s they?”

The man flails his arms irritably. “Seafolk. Sailors. Lately, that’s his new name. That’s what they’re saying, in the ports, between the ships. And the things we’d seen - the destroyed vessels, the burnings, the deaths - who else could it be?” He looks away. “And then he came upon us, in the night. A cannonball through the mast. Another through the hull. We raised the white flag, but…” He shrugs; says no more.

⛯

Stede spends the next few days moping around the ship, trying not to get in anyone’s way or burst into unprovoked tears. He still feels perfectly wretched.

It’s all his fault, he thinks, that his crew are in the mess they’re in - that Ed has sailed off and is apparently enduring some sort of nervous breakdown that is causing him to commit mass murder, and that Lucius, Jim, and Frenchie have mysteriously vanished.

Nobody has said any of this out loud, but after suspecting as much over the past couple of days, Stede is certain now that the others blame him for their predicament. Why wouldn’t they? He does. If only he’d had the courage to meet Ed at the dock, to return to the Revenge with him, if he’d just pushed down his own anxieties and doubts and got on with things as he ought to have done, they’d be in much better shape than they are now, surely. Even if he’d still been panicking when they’d reached the ship - even if Chauncey Badminton’s words were still ringing in his head, even if he’d been certain about his own propensity for disaster and ruin, at least he could have told Ed that he needed to return to Barbados. At least they could have talked it through. As a crew, he thinks bitterly.

Perhaps Ed would have asked him not to go. Perhaps Ed would have assuaged his fears. Perhaps Ed would have reassured him that he was not an awful person, a terrible monster. Perhaps Ed would have kissed him again.

The pounding of the misplaced second heartbeat in his chest seems to intensify at this thought, along with his own, and once more he finds himself choked by the odd sense of grief that so often materialises from nowhere. It is a similar feeling, he has begun to realise, to the emotion he’d felt as a small child, when his beloved cat Iris had passed away. The cat was not a pet - his father had not permitted such troublesome frivolities - but it had lived in one of the barns outside their house, and Stede had sneaked out most days to give it a saucer of milk or whatever pieces of fish or chicken he could scrounge from the kitchen, or slide surreptitiously from his own dinner plate into a napkin. Iris had been wary when Stede first approached her, raising her back, her fluffy tail puffing out into an angry bush, but after a few weeks, she had begun to settle, trotting over to demand treats whenever she saw Stede crossing the yard, and eventually curling up in his lap in the rare moments he managed to snatch for himself, hidden from his father and sitting cross-legged in the barn, eyes closed and head tipped back against the wall. He had cried and cried when the cat passed away, and his father had boxed his ears for it. He tried very hard not to cry again after that - not anywhere there was a chance his father could catch him anyhow - but regardless, the mournful feelings had settled in his stomach, sickening and draining him, and for months afterwards he felt tired and miserable - more so than usual - almost all of the time.

He feels like he is in mourning now.

Maybe, he thinks, sadly, he is mourning his relationship with Edward.

He tries to shake these musings off. He has to do something; he doesn’t know how many more desolate shipwrecks he can handle seeing. He is even beginning to think that Roach’s idea of killing the merchant sailors isn’t bad, or wouldn’t be, if only they had some form of weaponry. But the sailors do not deserve that, he reflects, even if they are French. They are not Chauncey or Nigel Badminton. And he’s not sure he could shake off the guilt of killing again if the deaths were at his own purposeful hand, or at the very least, as a result of his direct orders.

He passes a hand over his tired face. He cannot think straight at the moment. He needs to clear his head.

He ends up heading above to the deck. It is dusk, and the sky melting into the sea is pink and orange, and the pale moon above is a perfect crescent. He closes his eyes. Breathes in. Breathes out. Opens up again.

Over at the capstan, a couple of members of the merchant crew along with one of the men they fished from the ocean the other day, the one who had stood shaking and told them about Ed coming upon them in the night, are pouring over a piece of parchment. For lack of anything else to do, he approaches them.

“Evening, chaps!” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound like he is battling the urge to sink to his knees and weep. He peers over the shoulder of the shortest sailor. “What’s this?”

The bit of parchment, he sees, is in fact, a map. It looks rather old, and worn: it is stained yellowish, and is ragged and curled at the edges.

The man from the burnt-out ship says, solemnly, “My captain’s map. He gave it to me for safekeeping when the first cannonfire fell upon us.” He shudders.

Stede examines the markings on it. It appears to be a map of the Caribbean, and a little of the east coast of the Americas. There is a small, fat X symbol stamped across a stretch of open sea towards its centre. In the bottom right corner is printed a coloured image of a kraken, its long, slender tentacles wrapped almost tenderly around a lighthouse.

“Oh!” he says, “the kraken and the lighthouse!”

“Oui,” says one of the French sailors, nodding. “You know this story?”

Stede nods, pleased to not be completely out of his depth for once. “A little,” he says.

“Very famous story,” the sailor says, tapping the picture. “Many people look for the treasure, many, many people. For hundreds of years.”

The man holding the map nods, his face sombre. “Including us,” he says. “I told my captain it was just a story; that there was no truth to it, no treasure.”

Stede frowns. “Treasure?”

The man nods. “Treasure. The treasure the kraken gifts to the lighthouse. You don’t know about it?”

“Guess I haven’t got to that part yet,” Stede says. “Tell me?”

The French sailor grins, leaning forwards across the capstan. “The kraken - he falls in love with the lighthouse, yes?”

“Yes,” Stede says, “though I still don’t understand how a -”

“The kraken,” the sailor continues, ignoring Stede’s interruption, “he wants to be with the lighthouse. Wants the lighthouse to join him in the sea. Because - because krakens - they cannot survive on land, yes? So he wants the lighthouse to come to him. So -” he gestures vaguely. “The kraken, he courts the lighthouse.”

Stede is lost. “He - it courts the lighthouse?”

“Yes.”

“How on earth does one court a lighthouse? How does a kraken court anything?”

The sailors all laugh. “The same way you court anyone!” the largest man says, grinning. “Flirting!”

“Flowers!”

“Chocolates!”

“Jewels!”

“Romantic walks on the beach!”

The sailors all laugh again.

Stede says, “What is a lighthouse going to do with all that stuff? And - and it’s a lighthouse, it can’t walk! And neither can a kraken, for that matter!”

The sailor closest to Stede grins, and pats him on the back. “They’re just teasing,” he says. “But courting - well, gifts are important. So the kraken, he dives down to the deepest depths of the ocean. He swims amongst the wreckage of old boats, the ruins of ancient cities. He finds buried loot, lost coins and rings and gems and strings of pearls. He attacks ships, tearing holes in their hulls and splitting masts in two - pirate ships, warships, merchant vessels - and he takes their cargo, their fabrics, everything in their holds. Crowns, sceptres, gold, silver, every precious thing you can think of - the kraken takes it. He leaves sailors stranded in the ocean, he drowns kings and captains and cabin boys alike. And when he has all he can carry, he takes it all the way back across the sea to the lighthouse. And he presents it as a gift.”

Stede blinks. “Wow,” he says.

The sailor nods eagerly, pleased with his response. “For years every sailor on these seas has been told stories of the kraken’s treasure. The man who could find that hoard would be the richest on earth. Richer than any lord, any monarch, any emperor. Such was the value of the creature’s bounty. But alas -” they spread their fingers wide, palms turned skywards, “the loot is lost. Sunk to the bottom of the sea, the story goes. It would take some feat to find it, let alone dive and retrieve those riches.” A sly grin spreads across their face. “Many maps bear this image,” and here they point at the entwined kraken and lighthouse in the corner of the map. “Many sailors have it - or just the kraken, or just the lighthouse - tattooed; they believe it will bring them favour in their quest for riches. And there are plenty of maps out there which claim to point to the location of the hoard.”

“And this is one of them?”

Another sailor shrugs. “Could be. These maps - most of them - all of them, probably - are fake. Why would there be a map to the treasure? A kraken cannot make a map; neither can a lighthouse. And this story - it has been around for many years. Longer than you and longer than me. My grandfather told me this story, and his grandfather told it to him. Some say this tale has been told ever since there were boats, and seas, and sailors.”

Stede’s head spins. “What a wonderful story,” he says, softly.

The man they saved from the wreck frowns. “And that’s all it is,” he says, voice rough and pained. “A story.” He shakes his head. “I told him. I said, the reason you are hearing so much about this treasure is because the world is getting smaller, and people want desperately to dream again. The ocean is shrinking. There are no more secrets, no more places to discover. Everything is trade, trade, trade, money, money, money, empire, empire, empire. There are no creatures. There is no magic. All those people who sailed out looking for this -” he stabs the map with a finger “- were fools. We were fools. There are no adventurers - only greedy fools looking for money. There are no krakens - only cruel men who kill.”

He folds up the map, making it smaller and smaller, until it is a tight, fat, square. And then he tosses it to the ground.

The other men, tired, begin to yawn and stretch and disperse.

Stede waits at the capstan until they are all gone. Then, cautiously, he bends and picks up the map. He unfolds it a little, just enough to look at the image of the entwined kraken and lighthouse. Then he folds it up again.

It’s not real, he thinks, but the story is lovely. Might as well. A nice little distraction from his misery, at any rate.

He puts it in his pocket.

⛯

The following day, Stede is miserable again. He remains on the quietest part of the deck, initially examining his newly-looted map, before relocating to the hold, where he sits down on a crate of sugar, head in his hands. His head hurts for some reason, and he still feels bereft and adrift.

Buttons comes to find him in the afternoon. He stands in the doorway a moment, motionless. Stede finds it highly disconcerting, but he cannot bear to lift his head and see what his old first mate wants.

A long moment passes. Stede hopes fervently that Buttons will just leave. He is so sad, so desperately sad he thinks he will bore a hole into the floor, sinking to the bottom of the ocean and taking the entire ship with him.

“Cap’n,” Buttons says, eventually.

Stede sighs heavily. The twin feelings of grief in his chest tug at his heart, threatening to drown him.

“Cap’n.”

Stede sits upright. “What is it, Buttons?”

Buttons eyes him. “Nothing, really. Just wanted to take a look at you.”

Stede bristles. “Right, well, you’ve taken a look at your pathetic excuse for a captain. Do you mind awfully buggering off for a bit now?” He drops his face into his hands.

Buttons shrugs. “Will do, cap’n. Just thought you might like to know we’ll be within a mile of the Republic in the next couple of hours.”

“Well, we’re not going to Nassau,” Stede says into his palms. “Captain Dubois has put his foot down quite firmly on that matter.”

“Aye,” Buttons says. “So I heard.” He pauses. “So you still don’t want to kill ‘em and take their ship?”

“Afraid not.”

“Ah,” Buttons says regretfully. “Pity.” He leans back on the doorframe.

“I just - oh, God,” Stede says. He feels tears threaten once more. “I feel I’ve rather blown a hole in the whole thing.”

“What thing?” Buttons says.

“You know.” Stede looks at the side of the ship. He really did blast apart the seams of Ed’s existence, he thinks - not to mention the lives of his crew. Blasted them apart like a cannonball tearing through the hull of a ship. “The crew’s lives. Mine and Ed’s, ah - relationship.”

“Oh, aye,” Buttons agrees.

Stede stares at the hull. Within a mile of the Republic, he thinks.

Buttons stands up straight, making as if to leave.

“Mr Buttons,” Stede says, getting up from the crate. “In your professional opinion, how far can a ship such as this one sail whilst taking on water?”

Buttons pins him with his needle-sharp stare. “What’s on your mind, cap’n,” he says. He’s beginning to grin, Stede sees.

Stede squares his shoulders; stiffens his spine.

“Answer my question,” he says, raising his chin. He suddenly doesn’t feel like crying anymore. The grief is still there - but it is tempered, blanketed by his own sudden determination. He feels, once more, like the version of himself he was back in Barbados, coming up with the final fuckery, resolving to return to Ed. “And fetch Wee John. We have work to do.”

⛯

Stede is on deck, practising knots with Oluwande and one of the French sailors when suddenly, from the hold, there is a colossal bang. The whole ship rocks from side to side. Pieces of splintered wood fly through the air and into the water below. Stede, along with several other members of the crew, topples to the floor.

Captain Dubois appears behind them, face white and panicked.

“Pirates!” he cries. “Blackbeard! We’re under attack!”

Somebody screams.

Behind him, Wee John appears at the top of the steps leading down into the hold. His face is soot-blackened and his hair slightly singed.

“‘Fraid not, captain,” he says. “But, uh. Slight problem with your hull.”

⛯

The captain is absolutely furious. He yells at his crew in French, trying, Stede supposes, to establish how exactly a crate of sugar could have spontaneously combusted and blown a hole in their hull.

The crew yell back at him, waving their arms in the air like windmills.

The captain rounds on Stede next. “You,” he says, “you want to go to Nassau. Nassau is the nearest port. Now we must stop for repairs. You did this!”

The French sailor with whom Stede has been tying knots says, “He’s been on deck with me for the last hour, captain.”

Captain Dubois is not dissuaded. “Your crew! You gave the order -”

Stede says, “How could my crew cause a crate of sugar to blow up of its own accord?”

Beside him, Wee John nods sagely. “Thing with sugar, you’ve to be so careful,” he says. “The smallest spark could set it off. Wouldn’t even need to be a match, could be ash from a pipe, a spark from a bit of flint, and - boom. Whole thing’s gone. Lucky it was just the one crate, to be fair.”

The captain stares at him.

Wee John shrugs.

The ship changes course for Nassau.

⛯

The Republic of Pirates is as busy, noisy, and filthy as ever. Stede inhales deeply, relishing it. He feels invigorated, energised, the deep sadness within his heart momentarily settled.

“We still have to find a ship,” Oluwande points out.

“And Blackbeard,” Pete says.

Buttons says, “I still think we should’ve killed ‘em and taken their ship.”

The rest of the crew murmurs their assent.

“Come now,” Stede says, jovially. “They did save our lives.”

They move together along the docks, Stede craning his neck to look up at all the boats and ships they pass by. He doesn’t recognise any of the flags he sees flying from the masts, nor any of the faces scowling down over the taffrails. Distantly, he is reminded of the times he used to visit the harbour back in Barbados to see the Revenge being built - how conspicuously out of place he had felt, and vulnerable. And yet he had been brimming with nervous excitement too, delighted by the prospect of finally achieving his dream of sailing the open seas.

To his crew he says, “Shout out if you recognise anybody. If you see anyone who might be willing to take us.”

Pete says, “Well, that’s Mary Read’s ship. I know her.”

The rest of the crew groans as one.

“No you don’t, mate,” Oluwande says.

Pete grumbles something Stede cannot hear beneath his breath.

Pointing towards the next ship along, Wee John says, “That’s Josiah Burgess’ ship, Providence. I know the quartermaster.”

“Oh yes?” Stede says, excitedly. “Should we give him a shout?”

John says, “We could. I don’t think he’d be too happy to see me, though. Last time we saw one another I slept with his boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Stede says. They press on.

The streets are quiet - much quieter than they were the last time they were in the republic, anyhow, Stede thinks. He glances around.

“Is it normal,” he says, “for it to be this empty?”

Roach says, “I’ve never seen it like this.”

They stop and look around. There are a couple of stalls set up, and people standing behind them, as well as sailors moving between the docks and the taverns, but far fewer than Stede remembers seeing on their last trip to the island.

“Over there,” Buttons says, pointing.

Towards the end of the dock, a great galleon is moored. This one looks to be in much better condition than most of the others lined up alongside it. It’s bigger too; far bigger. Stede recognises this ship’s flag instantly.

He says, “What on earth are the British navy doing here?” He remembers, suddenly, what Captain Dubois told them. “Do you think that’s the governor’s ship?”

Oluwande says, “I don’t like this.”

They continue on cautiously. Behind the galleon are a further series of ships flying the British flag.

Oluwande says, “I don’t like this at all.”

Somewhere a short distance behind them, a door opens, and they turn to see a group of British officers stepping out of a bar, laughing together, coats and breeches bright and cleaner than anything the port has seen in years.

“Keep your heads down,” Stede says. He isn’t certain whether or not any of the officers will recognise his crew - he doesn’t recognise them, and he is hopeful that they won’t know him by sight - but it is better to be safe than sorry, he rationalises.

He guides the others away from the British ships, down towards the opposite end of the docks. This end of the port is even quieter, with fewer vessels moored here. They find themselves quickly running out of options, and turn towards the centre of the town instead.

Pete is in the middle of suggesting that they head into some of the bars and taverns to ask around and find out if anyone is willing to let them board for the promise of future payment - admittedly, Stede has very limited funds with which to pay them now, but that, he thinks, is a problem for a later date - when the Swede suddenly taps him on the shoulder.

“Captain,” he says, “look.”

Stede turns.

On the side of a building covered with old, faded wanted notices, posts advertising work, and bawdy solicitations, is a newer poster. This one sits front and centre, directly in the middle of the wall. The ink is dark and fresh. The word WANTED sits emblazoned at the top in a loud, bold font - but it is not this word that Stede sees first. Nor is it the name underneath, or the promised reward - a higher value than Stede has ever seen offered for an individual pirate, or indeed any criminal, before.

Instead, it is the face inked across the middle of the poster: long, black hair, thick and wavy, blown back from the subject’s shoulders as though caught in an updraft. Straight eyebrows, framing big, dark eyes, staring out from beneath thick, black lashes, from the page, like the subject of a haunted painting in some frightening gothic tale. A straight nose, a wide mouth, hidden, mostly, behind a long, curly beard and moustache, unsmiling.

There is no light in the subject’s eyes; no upwards lift of the mouth, no playful tilt of the head. It looks nothing like Edward - his Edward.

It looks exactly like Edward.

It looks more like Edward than the portrait he had so disliked in Stede’s book: the one with the nine guns, and the sharp knives, and the fuses in his hair. And yet, somehow, this weaponless portrait is ten times more terrifying. The dead-eyed stare is something Stede wishes never to see on the other man - that cold, flat expression is so devoid of his usual charm and humour, utterly bereft of any sort of emotion.

“Damn,” Roach says, behind him.

Pete says, “That looks nothing like Blackbeard! My Lucius could do a much better picture, captain.”

“Yes,” Stede says, breathlessly. “I daresay he could.”

They all look at the poster.

The Swede says, “What does it say, captain?”

Stede attempts to loosen his dry tongue. With some effort, he manages to read: “Wanted: the notorious pirate Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach. For the crimes of piracy, looting, murder, assault, extortion, escape of lawful custody, and others. A bounty of £500 to be paid to the man responsible for his capture or death.” He swallows.

The crew is silent. At last, Pete says, “That’s a lot of money.”

“Yes,” Stede says, faintly. “It is, rather.”

Another moment passes. Distantly, Stede can hear one of his crew kicking at the dirt with the point of their shoe. Somebody else seems to make the decision to continue on along the road. Stede hesitates a moment. Then, he pulls down the poster. He thinks briefly that he ought to rip it to pieces - it is not Ed after all, not his Ed - but then again…he reconsiders. It is Ed, he supposes, a form of Ed. Not the Ed he knows, not the Ed he cares for and is so fond of - but it is still Ed, in a way. An Ed, an idea, a notion of him, one of many stories.

He stares at it a moment longer. “I’m coming, Edward,” he says, running a finger down the cheek of the man in the picture. His heart thumps in his chest, and that horrible feeling of grief threatens to sweep over him once again.

Further along the street, there is a shout.

Startled, Stede looks up.

To his horror, a hundred feet or so away, Oluwande and John are attempting to restrain a furious Buttons, who is attempting to throw himself at some poor soul who has just stepped out the door of one of the taverns.

Haphazardly, he shoves the poster into his pocket, alongside the stolen map, before hurrying after his crew, demanding to know what is going on.

“Captain!” Roach says. He points at the man Buttons is trying to accost.

Stede frowns. He blinks. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” he says.

Calico Jack, both surprisingly and sadly very much alive and well, stands outside the tavern, bullwhip fastened to his belt, grinning like an idiot at Buttons, who is currently cursing the other man using words and phrases Stede hadn’t even known existed. His expression brightens and his stupid moustache twitches as he finally makes eye contact with Stede.

“Steve!” he says, and rushes across the street, dodging a pig, two chickens, the restrained Buttons, and a woman selling mystery meat on a stick to reach him. “Good to see you, man!”

The slap that falls on Stede’s back is so violent he almost hits the ground.

“And the rest of the whole damn motley crew! What’re the chances, huh?”

“You’re still alive,” Stede manages, gathering himself and standing upright with all the dignity he can muster.

Jack laughs at an ear-splitting volume. Several passers-by stop and turn where they stand just to see what beast of legend could possibly have produced such a sound. “Sure am!” he says. “And I guess those English bastards didn’t get you after all! That’s a damn shame.” He winks.

Buttons threatens to hex Jack and his mother and all of his ancestors for all eternity.

“Really, Buttons,” Stede says impatiently. “Please do give it a rest. I know you were fond of that seagull but all this cursing is terribly uncouth.”

“Come have a drink with me,” Calico Jack says. He peers behind Stede. “Bring the gang!”

Buttons finally settles down enough that Oluwande and Wee John finally see fit to release him, though warily. He approaches Stede and Jack. Stede notes he has his awful wooden teeth in. Voice slightly muffled, he says, “Permission to bite, cap’n?”

Privately, Stede thinks it awfully silly for Buttons to get so damnably upset over a bird, but he does not voice this opinion. Instead, he says, “Buttons, please. A moment.”

Buttons looks disappointed.

Jack, rocking back on his heels a little, says, “Jesus Christ.”

“Well,” Stede says, “I can’t say it’s good to see you, Jack. You smell terrible and frankly are one of the most unpleasant people I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. Now, please step aside before I am forced to allow Mr. Buttons here to seek revenge for his, ah, friend.”

“Hey now,” Jack says, raising his palms and eying Buttons with considerable apprehension. “No need for that. Hey, is our good ol’ mutual pal Blackie here, by any chance?” His eyes glint as he looks at Stede carefully.

Stede gets the distinct impression that there is some joke, or perhaps some piece of knowledge that he is missing out on. It is a feeling he is intimately and uncomfortably familiar with. He wonders why Jack is asking. Perhaps he means to seek revenge for Ed abandoning him in the dinghy, he thinks.

“No,” he says, carefully.

Jack nods, mouth twitching beneath his moustache superciliously.

Stede hates him deeply.

“Ah, well,” Jack says. He tucks his thumbs into his belt and thrusts his hips forwards. “Probably for the best.”

Stede looks at him carefully. “What do you mean?” he says.

Jack scoffs. “Uh, duh, I wonder. C’mon Stevie, use your noggin. This place is crawlin’ with navy rats! And our best pal Eddie is public enemy number one right now, huh?”

Behind Stede, Oluwande says, “Hey, there’s no need to be a dick, mate.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack says, rolling his eyes. “You know what? You guys want some free advice?”

Raising his chin, Stede says, “Not particularly.”

Jack steps a little closer. “You might wanna try being a little nicer, Steve,” he says. “‘Cause I know a lot of things about a lot of people. And, you know, it’s funny…” Jack tilts his head to the side, grinning. “I’m wonderin’ why just the other day I seen your face in the newspaper. And when I said to the gentleman reading it - hey, what’s that say about that there ol’ gal - do you know what he tells me?”

Stede’s heart plummets. “What?” he says, slowly.

Jack grins. “He says, ‘Oh this? Well right here it says prominent Barbados aristocrat mauled to death by domesticated tiger.’” He grins even more widely. “And then he says, ‘and trampled by horse and carriage.’”

“Ah,” says Stede.

“‘And finally finished off by a falling piano.’”

Pete says, “You survived all that, captain?” Stede turns to look at him. The other man actually seems quite impressed.

“Hell of a thing,” Jack says, leaning back against the brick wall behind him.

“Indeed,” Stede says.

“And yet here you are,” Jack nods at him. “In the flesh. Not a mark on you.” He tilts his head. “Must have been a heavy sigh of relief breathed by the naval officers of the Caribbean, to find the dread pirate Steve conveniently dead and mutilated, am I right?”

Stede swallows, vaguely aware his crew are all staring at him. He breathes in, slowly, steadying himself. Breathes out again. Says, “And - am I to take it you’re threatening me? Blackmailing me? With the knowledge of who I really am?”

“Oh!” Jack says, looking offended that Stede would even imply such a thing. “Oh, man, no, not me, not ol’ Jacky!” He laughs, and slaps Stede’s shoulder so hard Stede almost goes crashing to the ground once more. “What a thing to suggest. No, I’m just - interested.” His eyes glint a little, and Stede is reminded of that morning he first met Jack - of the brightness in the other man’s eyes, and in Ed’s, when he’d found them both causing havoc on the deck of the Revenge.

“Oh,” he says, uselessly.

Jack gives a funny little half-shrug. “You’re more than you appear, Steve,” he says, and Stede wonders if the other man means to sound slightly impressed.

“Well,” he says, confused, “I suppose so.”

Jack gives him a long, appraising sort of look, before finally shaking his head. “Man, I don’t get it,” he says. “There’s someone for everyone, I guess. Look, Stevie, no hard feelings, huh? You just - you just tell Blackie to watch his back. And you know - he might think I’m a dickhead now - more of a dickhead than he did before, anyway - but you let him know he should be grateful. Knowledge of Blackbeard’s a powerful currency ‘round these parts.” He waves a hand vaguely up and down the street.

Stede follows the sweep of his palm, spotting yet another group of suited and booted naval officers heading back down towards the docks. His stomach twists uneasily.

Jack says, “You tell him, maybe I was wrong. Maybe pirates do have friends, or whatever. ‘Cause plenty other guys woulda been hot on his heels with all the king’s men in tow and enough coin in their pocket to set ‘em up for the rest of their lives.” He winks. “See you around, partner.” He salutes the crew, edging cautiously around Buttons, and disappears up the street, whistling to himself.

Puzzled, Stede stares at the spot Jack has vacated.

“Well, that was weird,” Roach says.

Buttons says, “Now, come on captain, let me hex him!”

“Yes,” Stede says, distractedly, “alright.”

Wee John says, “Were you ever going to tell us you got eaten by a tiger?”

“What?” Stede says, confused. “Oh - yes, that. Well, I was mauled, actually. But it wasn’t real. It was a very sweet, docile creature, in fact. Lovely fur.”

He turns Jack’s words over and over in his head. What on earth had the man been talking about? What had he been insinuating?

Pete says, “Well, what do we do now?”

Roach, shrugging, says, “I vote pub.”

“Oh, yes,” the Swede says eagerly, “I vote pub also.”

Wee John says, “Aye, I could go for a drink. Captain?”

Stede says, “What do you think he meant, knowledge of Blackbeard is a powerful currency ‘round these parts? Who talks like that?”

The crew exchange glances. Oluwande says, “Well, I assume he was talking about the British. And that poster we saw earlier. I mean, obviously Blackbeard’s a wanted man. I imagine the navy’d be pleased to have any information that might help them find him.”

“Yes,” Stede says, faintly. Something still doesn’t seem right, he thinks. He says, “Well - what about what he said as he was leaving? About me telling Ed that Jack was wrong? About plenty of other men being hot on his heels, or whatever it was?”

Everyone is silent for a moment. Then John says, “I mean, the man does talk a lot of shit, doesn’t he.”

“No…” Stede shakes his head slowly. “I mean, yes. But also…” He runs his hands anxiously through his hair. “There’s something he’s not saying. I think it’s a threat.”

“What?” Roach says.

The Swede says, “Do you think he would turn Blackbeard in?”

Stede says, bitterly, “Well, he is a bit of a cretin.”

“I’ll say,” Buttons says. “I think we should kill him, captain. I, for one, would be happy to volunteer for the task.”

Pete says, “Does that mean Calico Jack’s working with the British? Again?”

Stede’s heart drops into his stomach.

Oluwande is frowning. “If he is,” he says, carefully, “then why are they all hanging around here? Why are they not chasing Blackbeard down right now?”

Stede has heard enough. Something thoroughly untoward is going on. With a bounty that large hanging over his head, even if Jack for whatever reason has not bowed to his own greedy whims and taken the money, sooner or later, somebody is bound to. Stede cannot let this happen. He cannot allow Ed to be betrayed once again. Stede’s betrayal is enough.

He turns to look up the street in the direction Jack had swaggered off in. The other man has just reached the corner, and appears to be accosting a large-busted lady in an extremely ill-fitting and out of season dress.

“John,” he says, “Roach. Bring him back. Quickly. Roach - no knives!”

Roach seems disappointed, but acquiesces to Stede’s request - and a moment later, Jack is back, looking thoroughly disgruntled.

“What the hell’s this about, then?” he demands, struggling somewhat beneath John’s meaty arm. His face is beginning to turn purple.

“Wee John!” Stede admonishes his crew member. “Let him go!” To Jack, he says, “I am sorry, Jack. I was just thinking - you know, you were a good friend to Edward over the years. You saved his life, after all. And I know it wasn’t like you wanted to set Ed up for the British to capture him…I know that was Izzy’s idea. He is awful, really.”

Jack looks rather suspicious. “Aw, come on man,” he says, in obvious discomfort. “He ain’t that bad.”

Stede says, “Hmm,” noncommittally.

Behind Jack, Oluwande is wearing an expression of utmost bafflement.

Stede says, “Look - I’m just - I’m sorry things happened the way they did. I am. And I would prefer we part on good terms.”

Buttons is looking mutinous.

“Good terms?” Jack says. “That what you call it?” He glares sideways at John and Roach.

“Please,” Stede says. He does his best to look pathetic and frightened. “I would so hate for the, ah, authenticity of my death to be called into question. Please - let us buy you a drink. As a goodwill gesture. For keeping both myself and Edward safe.” He smiles, tremulously.

Jack narrows his eyes.

Buttons looks ready to spit.

The rest of the crew trade glances with one another, baffled.

“Captain,” Oluwande says, cautiously.

Jack huffs. Then he lets out a loud bark of laughter. “Well,” he says, “why the hell not? If you’re paying, Steve!”

Stede exhales a heavy breath of relief, hoping he still looks delicate and nervous to the other man. “Oh!” he says, letting a smile spread across his whole face, “It would be my pleasure, Jack!”

Jack punches him painfully on the shoulder, and bounds back into the tavern from which he had previously emerged like a large, over-excited dog.

After a quick glance backwards, and an encouraging nod from their captain, Roach, John, Pete, and the Swede follow him, as does Buttons, who still looks deeply unhappy, and appears to be caressing the awful set of wooden teeth he has now removed and placed back in his trouser pocket.

Oluwande, brow furrowed, leans in close. “Captain?” he whispers. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” Stede tells him, standing up straight and rubbing the place on his shoulder where a bruise is no doubt beginning to form. “But I believe we’re about to find out.”

⛯

Getting Calico Jack well and truly sloshed is the easiest thing Stede has ever done. What isn’t easy is getting together the cash to afford the endeavour. Stede has a little money in the pocket of his breeches - just spare change really, the rest of his fortune he’d left to Mary and the children - as do a few members of the crew. But after the first couple of rounds (most of which Jack helps himself to, much to the crew’s disappointment), it turns out it doesn’t matter; Jack is cheered considerably and it becomes surprisingly easy for Roach and Oluwande, who are sitting either side of him, to extract coins from his pockets.

Stede knows the other man is drunk enough to begin wheedling away at once Jack actually hoists his glass into the air, slopping most of his whiskey down his own arm, and proposes a toast - to Stede, no less.

“You’re alright, Steve,” Jack says, his words slurring just a little. He reaches past Oluwande and grabs Stede by the shoulder.

Stede winces in pain.

“I gotta admit, I thought you were an asshole with a stick the size of a gorilla’s forearm up your ass when we first met - an’ maybe you are, maybe you’re into that, I ain’t one to judge,” he wags a forefinger at everyone seated nearby as though in admonishment, “But you know what? You’re alright. Pullin’ off that shit with the tiger, or whatever - that’s pretty badass, man.” He throws the rest of the contents of his glass down his throat with considerable violence.

“Well, thank you,” Stede says, pleased.

Oluwande catches his eye and nods encouragingly.

Stede takes a steadying breath and sits forward, hands on the edge of the disgusting tabletop. It’s not quite as filthy as Jackie’z, but it’s pretty close. “Jack, I must - I have to admit,” he says, doing his best to look plaintive and compelling, “You are - a very experienced pirate. You’ve been at this game a hell of a lot longer than I have.”

Jack affects a look of great modesty, and shrugs carelessly.

“And - I have to say…the things you said today, the things I’ve been hearing…I’m worried about Edward. Terribly so.”

“Oh yeah?” Jack says, and suddenly there is something else there - something sharp and shrewd in Jack’s eyes that Stede does not like.

“Yes,” Stede says. “The wanted posters - the British being docked here - I know they’re trying to track him down. And I can’t help but worry -” He stops, his throat tight. Suddenly he finds he doesn’t need to pretend anymore.

Jack grins. “Ah, man, I get it. You and Blackie in some kind of domestic?”

Stede startles. “Certainly not,” he says.

“Whatever,” Jack says, “I don’t care to know if you wouldn’t put out and he gave you the ol’ heave-ho, or whatever.”

“That’s not - I mean to say -”

“I don’t give a shit,” Jack interrupts. “Really, I don’t.” He pauses, eyeing Stede carefully.

Stede hesitates. Then he says, “We were sent to the privateering academy after we were captured. But we escaped. And ended up getting separated.”

Jack looks at him intently over the rim of his glass.

Stede tries his best to look innocent.

“And what about you guys, then,” Jack says, nodding towards the crew. “How’d you end up so far from your ship?”

Pete says, “Um.”

“We were caught in a storm,” Oluwande says, thinking quickly. “Big storm.” He elbows Wee John, who is sitting beside him, wearing a slightly dumbfounded expression.

“Oh,” John says. “Yeah. Big…huge storm.”

“Fell overboard,” Pete chimes in. “It was really nasty.”

Jack nods, slowly. “Huh,” he says. “That’s interesting. I got a ride here a day or two after you guys were arrested.” He nods at Stede. “Smooth sailing, all the way from Blind Man’s Cove to Nassau.”

Stede says, “Oh. Hmm.”

Roach says, quickly, “Windspout.”

Jack narrows his eyes. “Right,” he says. “And Blackie…he ain’t lookin’ for you?”

“Very probably is,” Stede says, and John says, “Probably thinks we died.”

“He’ll be very upset,” Pete says.

“Right,” Jack says, again, moustache twitching. “Huh.” He sits back in his seat, surveying them all.

A moment passes. Stede inhales slowly. Then he says, softly, “Well. I suppose…I suppose you were right, Jack. You and Ed both. Maybe it could never have…you know…worked between us.” He pauses, looking down at his hands, worrying at his lower lip. “Maybe I don’t really know him that well. Maybe I never did. I mean, how could I ever really relate to him? We’re so…so different. He’s a great man. A great pirate. And I’m - I’m -” He blinks back tears. “Well. Maybe you really do know him a lot better than I do.”

The Swede looks like he’s about to cry. Oluwande pats Stede’s back reassuringly.

Jack grins beneath his stupid moustache. “Ah,” he says, slopping his newest glass of liquor all over his own pants. “No hard feelings, Stevie. You’re a good guy, I guess. But - that’s just how it is - when you’re raised in this life.” He nods knowingly at Buttons, whose eye twitches. “Warrior’s bond, kinda thing. Blackie and I - we just get each other, y’know?”

“Indeed,” Stede says tremulously, watching Jack down yet another glass.

“Everyone knows it,” Jack says, gesturing vaguely. More sticky liquid rains down over his shirt. “Hell, even those navy assholes know it, y’know?”

Stede tilts his head sideways. “What do you mean?” he says.

Jack cackles, slapping one hand down on the table. “Well damn, they offered me enough of a bounty to set me up for life!” He laughs again, loud and braying, then suddenly grows serious, leaning forwards in his seat. “But y’know what? I said no. Blackie’s - well, he ain’t my friend, is he? But - he was my shipmate. A fellow pirate. A damn good one.” He waves his hand as though swatting a fly. “Got more respect for a man like that than a boot-lickin’ kingsman like Badminton. Hey, barkeep! You got any more of this?”

Stede stares at Jack, spine ramrod straight.

He surely can’t -

“Badminton?” he says.

Jack is now arguing with the bartender, shouting over the heads of all the other patrons seated nearby.

“Jack,” he says.

Jack ignores him.

Stede turns to look at Oluwande. Nods.

⛯

In the narrow, unpleasant-smelling alleyway behind the tavern, Wee John slams Jack up against the wall.

“Ow! Hey, shit, man!” Jack protests, “The fuck’re ya doing?”

“You said Badminton,” Stede says, over John’s shoulder. “Badminton offered you money to track Ed down? Badminton’s dead.”

Jack’s bleary eyes swirl and attempt to focus on Stede. “Looked plenty alive to me,” he says.

Stede says, “I thought Izzy was the one who took the money - you just -”

“Izzy?” Jack says, and now he looks confused. “What’s Izzy got to do with this?”

Stede, frustrated, says, “Izzy told you to get Ed -”

Oluwande says, “Jack! When was this? When did Badminton offer you money?”

“I don’t know, man,” Jack says. Wee John shakes him, and he groans. “Ugh, Jesus! Like a couple days back, I guess.”

Oluwande turns and looks at Stede, confused.

Stede says, “Chauncey Badminton is dead.”

Jack says, “Fuck kinda name is Chauncey? Look, you got the wrong - the guy I spoke to was called Kevin.”

“Kevin?” Stede says. Now he’s even more confused. “What -”

“Will you tell ol’ mountain man here to put me down?” Jack snaps, and reluctantly, Stede nods at John, who deposits Jack none too gently next to a pair of dustbins. “Christ,” Jack says, wobbling a little.

“Tell me about this Kevin Badminton,” Stede demands.

“Fuck,” Jack says, wincing. “Damn it. Okay. Well, first off, it was you he was gripin’ about.”

Stede blinks. “Me?” he says.

“Sure,” Jack says. He rubs his shoulder, wincing in pain. “Says an associate of Blackbeard’s - you - killed his two cousins, and he won’t rest ‘till he has Blackbeard’s head hanging off the front of his ship. I say, well sir Commodore Badminton, if you don’t mind me saying so, perhaps you oughta take this up with Steve. But he tells me, oh, don’t you worry about him, Jack. This was before I seen the story in the newspaper.”

Stede swallows.

“So Badminton tells me he’s lookin’ to take Blackbeard down. Just needs a man to help catch him. To track him. Someone who’s familiar with his routes, his habits, who knows how he thinks.”

“Ah,” Stede says, mouth twisting in disgust. “So you’ve decided to betray Edward a second time.”

“Hold your horses,” Jack tells him. “So I say, what exactly does this little job entail? He says I come on his ship, eat their food, drink their grog. I take him wherever it is Blackie’s fucked off to, I help him and his men take him down, and when the deed’s done, he’ll give me a share of the reward.”

“And - what,” Stede says. His hands are trembling. “You say no? Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“‘Course I said no,” Jack says, crossly. “Fuck, man. Blackie and I go way back. Turning you over to the British is one thing -”

“Oh, thanks very much!” Stede says.

“Look, I said no, alright!” Jack says, heatedly. He tries to elbow his way past John. John grabs hold of him again and shoves him back against the wall.

“Oh, fuck man, come on!” Jack yells. He looks at Stede. “I’m still here, ain’t I? If I’d said yes, why would I be hangin’ out in this shithole?”

Oluwande looks sideways at Stede. “What do we do?” he says, quietly.

Stede hesitates. All the crew are looking at him now. Even Jack, scowling over the top of Wee John’s arm, seems to be waiting for him to say something.

The twin heartbeats thump in his chest.

Stede swallows. He says, “Accept the offer.”

“What?” Oluwande says.

“What?” Jack says.

The rest of the crew begin to voice their concern, loudly.

“Quiet!” Stede says, “Quiet! Listen to me, please!”

“The hell are you talkin’ about?” Jack asks him.

Stede says, “Go back to Badminton. Tell him you’ll help him. And take us with you. When we catch up to the Revenge, we’ll overpower Badminton. Take the ship. We can rejoin with Ed -”

“Are you crazy?” Jack demands, wriggling in John’s grasp. “Jesus fuck. How am I supposed to get you assholes aboard?”

“I don’t know!” Stede snaps. “Smuggle us on, we can hide in the hold. Or we could dress ourselves as sailors, members of the crew, whatever -”

“And how are we supposed to take the ship from a whole crew of his majesty’s finest?” Jack spits. “You’re fuckin’ insane, man.”

Stede has heard enough. He can see it in his head now - this is it, he thinks. This is how they will join back up with Ed. They can disguise themselves, be carried at speed across the waves in a great, powerful warship. Jack will guide them - Jack, who knows Ed’s routes, Ed’s old haunts. They will overpower the British crew - somehow. Take the ship from them - somehow. Ensure no harm comes to the Revenge, or to anybody aboard her. He will step across the gangplank - Ed will be waiting for him on deck, black hair streaming out behind him in the salty breeze, brown skin turned gold beneath the sun, eyes aflame -

“No way,” Jack says, “I ain’t fuckin’ around with the goddamn navy, find someone else -”

Stede isn’t going to listen to another moment of Jack’s protestations. “Roach,” he says, “you have a knife?”

Roach’s whole face splits into a maniacal grin. “Yes, captain!” he says, beaming, and withdraws the butter knife from his boot.

Jack’s expression slips a little. “Now, hold on,” he says.

“Mr Buttons,” Stede says, “permission to bite is granted.”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” Buttons says, delightedly, and there he is, at Stede’s shoulder.

Jack flails wildly beneath the press of John’s large hands.

“Help us!” Stede demands.

“Are you serious?” Jack splutters.

“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” Stede says.

Roach presses the point of his blade against Jack’s throat. “It’s not sharp,” he tells him, “But I think that will just make it more painful, my friend.”

Jack’s eyes widen with alarm.

“Look at this!” Stede says, and pulls Ed’s wanted poster from his pocket. “Look! Five hundred pounds! Do you know how many people will be tracking him down for that amount of money? Do you not care? He was your shipmate! Your friend, whatever you say! We have to help him!”

Roach’s knife presses insistently against Jack’s Adam’s apple. Jack gags.

“Look at it, Jack!” Stede demands desperately. He waves the poster in Jack’s face.

Jack blinks. His eyes grow even wider.

“Where’d you get that?” he says, voice strained.

Stede looks at the poster. Only - it isn’t the poster. Instead of seeing Ed’s terrifying face staring back at him, he sees a grid - the shape of waves, islands, an X. A kraken and a lighthouse, locked together. It’s the map he’d taken from the sailor who had apparently been attacked by Blackbeard when they were sailing with Dubois’ crew. Confused, he refolds it, and places it back inside his pocket.

He looks back at Jack.

Jack is staring up at him, eyes huge, the strangest expression flickering across his face. He doesn’t seem to notice the butter knife still held against his throat, or even Buttons’ sharp, splintering teeth at his shoulder.

“If what you’ve told me is true, Jack,” Stede says, breathlessly, “Ed is going to die. The navy will stop at nothing to find him. I just - I can’t let that happen. I have to - there are things I need to tell him. I…” he trails off, his throat thick all of a sudden. “Please,” he says. “Please, please, help us. I’ll give you - you can have the ship. The naval ship. We can kill the crew, you can have their ship, I’ll pay you, as soon as we’re back with Ed, I’ll pay you, anything, I promise.” He knows he’s begging, knows he must sound pathetic. He can’t help it. This could be his only chance. He has to make Jack understand.

Jack blinks. Breathes in, slowly. Stede reaches out blindly - grips Roach’s arm, and pulls it away from the other man’s neck.

At last, Jack nods, once. “Alright,” he says, reluctantly. “Alright. I’ll help you.”

Buttons sinks his teeth into Jack’s bicep.

“Son of a bitch!” Jack yells.

⛯

Getting aboard the ship - the Torquay, one of the large British vessels they’d spotted when they’d first docked in Nassau - is easier than anticipated. Jack instructs them to walk confidently up the gangplank, as though they belong there, and they are not challenged as they head below deck and towards the hold.

Badminton - Commodore Kevin Badminton, apparently - is nowhere in sight.

“He won’t come aboard for a while,” Jack says, dismissively, when Stede inquires as to his whereabouts. “He’ll be letting everyone else do the dirty work.”

“I’m not sure about this, Captain,” Oluwande murmurs, just behind Stede, and out of earshot of Jack, who is leading the way through the twisting dark passages of the lower deck.

“We hardly have any weapons,” Wee John points out.

“I don’t see what other choice we have,” Stede tells them. “If we don’t go with them, what will happen? Jack betrays Ed and we can’t do a thing to help him, or Jack tries to go through with the plan alone and immediately fails because he’s outnumbered. And then Badminton captures Ed regardless.”

“Or option three,” Oluwande says, “Jack betrays us to Badminton, betrays Blackbeard, and then we’re all fucked.”

“We have to at least try!” Stede snaps. “What would you do, if it were Jim in Ed’s place?”

Oluwande stares at him, eyes wide with pain. “Jim is there. Jim is on the Revenge. With Lucius and Frenchie. I -” He stops, shaking his head.

Stede feels awful. “Oluwande,” he says, but Oluwande has moved off already, following Jack into the bowels of the great ship, leaving Stede behind in the dark, narrow passageway, the dual heartbeats ticking away in his chest and that awful dull grief beginning to envelop him once again.

He swallows back the pain, and follows his crew.

Their plan is relatively simple. Jack and Stede had outlined it together over the course of a day, in one of the dark, smokey pubs of the Republic of Pirates, whilst the crew looked on dubiously.

Jack has already been aboard the Torquay, to speak with Badminton and agree to his terms. He’d taken the opportunity to check out the lay of the land, so to speak, whilst he was there, examining the layout of the vessel and scanning over the British crew, carefully assessing their size and strength - as a collective, and also as individuals.

Whilst there are a good number of uniformed officers on board, whom Stede is not eager to touch - Badminton, he tells Jack, is more likely to know those men with a modicum of status than the more junior members of the crew - there are also other sailors who have not yet earnt their coats and epaulettes. Jack scopes them out, assessing height and build, and is able to identify seven men who he believes are a good match for Stede and his crew, size-wise.

Roach and Pete had been excited by the notion of bloodshed - of taking on these men who are to be their doubles, of taking them out and then taking their clothes and identities along with taking their lives - but Stede was keen not to do anything that might risk drawing attention. The difficulty was going to be, Jack had pointed out, not only getting these men alone and cutting their lives short quickly, but also disposing of their bodies after the fact. They couldn’t exactly tote seven corpses up onto the deck and pitch them overboard into the harbour whilst their supposed compatriots were readying to set sail.

“So we keep them in the hold,” Stede had said. “Keep them tied up and gagged. Then we can toss them overboard as opportunities arise.”

Jack had been impressed, and seemingly rather taken by this idea, but Oluwande had pointed out that the longer they had their own hostages secreted about the British ship, the higher the risk of being discovered.

“How about we eat ‘em?” Buttons had suggested. “Human meat tastes like pork. So I’m told. Nobody’d be any the wiser.”

Stede had elected to ignore this idea.

“We could just send them off into town,” John had said, shrugging. “One of us tells ‘em all there’s a job for them to do. Something to collect, or a message they need to take, like.”

“That’s good,” Stede had said, “well done, John!”

And so they had boarded the ship, their doppelgangers gone, long-since left gagged and bound and stripped naked by Stede and his crew in a pigsty behind Jackie’z whilst Jack waited for them aboard the ship, leaning on the taffrail and watching the skies.

Now, in the dark, they undress and change into the plain shirts and breeches worn by low-ranking sailors in the Royal Navy. Jack stands guard by the door, keeping watch to ensure they are not intruded upon.

“Remember,” Stede says, as he struggles with the cheap, uncomfortable fabric he is currently attempting to wrestle over his head, “we need to remain inconspicuous until the Revenge is in sight. Don’t speak out of turn, don’t get too pally with any of the crew members or officers, and remember - we’re not pirates. We don’t know Ed, we’ve never met Blackbeard - as far as we’re concerned he’s really scary -” Here, several members of the crew exchange looks which Stede is unable to decipher - “Just keep your heads down, and everything will be okay.”

Jack turns away from the doorway to face them. “You three,” he says, pointing to Oluwande, Wee John, and Stede, “You’re on the gundeck.”

“Right,” Stede says. “Remember, we don’t want to tamper with the cannons until the Revenge is in sight. Soon as Jack gives us the word, we can start disabling them.”

Jack looks at Stede, his eyes sharp in the dim light shining in through the grubby portholes. “And our deal’s still on?”

“You’ll have the Torquay,” Stede says, “If you hold up your end of the bargain.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack says, waving a hand dismissively. “Hey. Where are your pants, man? Your other ones?”

“What?” Stede says.

But Jack is already bending over, rifling through the clothes dumped onto the floor, turning out their pockets.

“What are you doing?” Stede asks him.

Jack glances up. “Making sure you got everything,” he says.

Stede puts his hands in the pockets of his new breeches - extracts Ed’s wanted poster, the stolen map, and a few coins belonging to the pants’ previous owner. “I do,” he says, puzzled.

Jack straightens. “Good,” he says, “uh, that’s good.”

“Well,” says Stede, turning away and looking back towards his crew. “Everyone ready?”

⛯

Sailing undercover with the navy is frightfully dull.

Stede tries to lead by example and not speak to anyone other than his own men unless absolutely necessary.

Commodore Badminton - Kevin Badminton, a terrible name - recently promoted, Stede has discovered, following his cousin Chauncey’s sudden demise, is mostly absent from their day-to-day existence, which is a relief. He keeps to his cabin, surrounds himself with his fellow high-ranking officers, and only appears on deck a few times a day to squint into a spyglass and demand to know if Jack is confident in their route. Stede watches their interactions from a safe distance. Clearly, Badminton despises Jack, who is all too well aware of this, and appears to delight in tormenting him by being as loud and obnoxious as possible. The more junior crew members aboard seem enamoured with the pirate, which Stede finds baffling, but it does mean he is able to converse with the other man without arousing significant suspicion.

For the most part, Stede spends his day polishing cannons and cannonballs, fetching and carrying things, and staring out at the wide blue sea. When they are able to, he gets Oluwande and John alone, and the three of them begin the arduous task of tampering with the cannons and surreptitiously dumping cannonballs and gunpowder overboard without any of the British crew seeing.

Jack has arranged for Roach and Pete to be placed in the galley, despite Pete’s protestations that this is work for women. Roach thumps him upside the head when he says this. Pete then sulks for the next few hours, until Stede points out that if any crew members suffer any injuries in their pursuit of the Revenge, he and Roach might be assigned to assist in the ensuing amputations, given their experience with knives, which cheers Pete greatly. He is also pleased when Stede informs him and Roach that they will be responsible for gradually introducing all manner of unpleasant and undercooked items into the meals of the naval officers and sailors so as to ensure they are all thoroughly incapacitated when they come within close range of their old ship.

Buttons and the Swede are put to work on the deck. Buttons spends the majority of his working hours in the crow’s nest as a lookout. His job is to alert Stede and Jack as soon as their quarry is within sight.

Mostly, their time aboard the Torquay involves a lot of waiting around. Stede seizes every moment he has above deck to stand at the bow, squinting along the horizon, searching anxiously for the familiar cherry wood ship he loves so well; for his cat flag, for Ed’s skeleton, for anything familiar.

He aches in a way he’s never experienced before - a terrible, constant longing that feels like it will never be sated. At night, he dreams of the Revenge - of times past with the crew, laughing and joking together, and of Ed, the smoky scent of Ed in his cabin, the dull thump of his boots on the stairs and the deck, the sound of his voice, his big soft eyes, his smile. Sometimes the dreams feel so real he wakes up reaching out for a man who isn’t there, for a curtain of dark hair hovering above him, for a hand against his cheek, for parted lips, leather-clad shoulders, a bare, tattooed arm, darkened by the sun.

He’s never there, of course.

Stede wakes up alone every morning, curled in upon himself, and the ache gets worse.

In these early hours, when the crew are still asleep around him, he feels that second heartbeat more keenly than ever before. Most of the time, in these quiet dawns, it beats slowly, evenly, reminding him somehow of a sleeping cat. It is during these hours, typically, when he feels a moment’s reprieve from that other horrible sensation - the churning, unpredictable emotions that swell within him and choke him without warning.

Usually, at this time, when the horizon is just turning a dull yellow and the moon is still visible in the anaemic-looking sky, the sadness fades - and blessedly, he feels nothing; just his own feelings, his own sadness, his own melancholy loneliness. He takes these opportunities to sit out on the bow all alone, sometimes hanging his legs from the side of the ship, the way he and Ed always used to do - and somehow, it makes him feel that gaping chasm more than ever.

The strange, secondary emotion which haunts him is eerie and painful - but misery loves company, he supposes - and there is something comforting about it too, oddly - something familiar, even if that familiarity is in itself painful and gaping and hollow.

Then later in the day it comes back - the misery, the ache, the roiling anger - and it makes him shake, and often he finds himself retreating below, fists clenched until he is able to get a handle on it.

It is during one of these early mornings on the bow, whilst he watches the horizon, telling himself that each time he blinks, each time he opens his eyes and refocuses on that faint line between sea and sky, he will see familiar sails swelling into view, that Jack joins him.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” Jack says, and Stede, not anticipating company on the deck at the same time as him, flinches.

He twists at the waist; peers up.

Jack is leaning against the taffrail, looking down at him.

“Hello,” Stede says. He turns away and looks back out at the sky, which is gradually beginning to change colour, from deep indigo to hot pink to soft lilac. He wonders if Ed is asleep, or if perhaps he is looking at the same sky as Stede. He swallows back the tears that threaten to gather in the back of his throat at this notion.

“Do you think we’ll ever catch up to him?” he says, softly.

“Blackie?” Jack says. He shifts his weight from one side to the other. “Yeah. Ocean ain’t that big. Well, it is. But there’s only so many places to go. Man’s gotta stop for supplies, right?”

Stede frowns. He says, “You know, somebody else said that to me, not so long ago.”

Jack says, “Said what?”

“That the ocean isn’t that big. That it’s shrinking. That the world is getting smaller.”

Jack shrugs. Says, “Probably somethin’ in that.”

Stede says, “It was the man who gave me this. Well - he didn’t give it to me. I suppose I took it. But he chucked it away, so - finders keepers, right?” He takes out the map and unfolds it.

Jack goes still above him.

Stede can feel him staring down over his shoulder. He strokes a finger over the illustration of the kraken and its lighthouse.

“Have you ever heard of the story?” he asks Jack. “The kraken and the lighthouse?”

Jack shifts. “Sure,” he says. “Most every man sailing these seas has heard. Fact, any man sailing any ocean in the world. I once met a sailor from China who knew the story.”

Stede turns; looks up at him. Jack is closer than he expected. “Really?”

Jack nods. “Sure. One of those tales you’ll find wherever there’s ships; wherever there’s saltwater. My daddy used to say the story's been around as long as men have taken to the sea in boats and as long as they’ve been building beacons to light up the shore.” He shrugs. “May be that there’s a hundred versions of the tale. Sailor from China told me theirs is a dragon and a pagoda, whatever the hell that is. I guess it’s still the same thing, at its heart.”

Stede hums; folds the map back up. “I still don’t understand,” he says. “About the kraken bringing treasure to the lighthouse. And how does a sea creature fall in love with a building?”

Jack crosses one leg in front of the other, resting the tip of his toe on the deck. “Well, that’s the thing of it, ain’t it?” he says. “It doesn’t matter what it is. A kraken, or a lighthouse, or a dragon, or a pagoda, or a man. It’s a story. The story behind it, you know.”

“That’s what the sailor who had this map said,” Stede murmurs. He turns the map, now a thickly-folded square of worn, crinkled paper over and over in his fingers. “He said it wasn’t real. It’s not a real map, this thing. There’s no hoard of treasure, because it’s just a story.” He reaches out over the waves; lets the wind catch hold of the map and shift it in his hands. “I suppose I might as well throw it away.” He hesitates. He could let it go, he thinks. It would be so easy. It’s just a stupid pretend map, as fake as the one from St. Augustine.

Beside him, Jack has gone very still and quiet.

Stede watches the map move in his hands. Then, he thinks of the picture of the kraken and the lighthouse. The dragon and the pagoda. The story. He doesn’t know why, but he closes his fingers on the paper and pulls his arms back to his sides. He slides the thing into his pocket.

When he looks back up, Jack seems more relaxed. He’s looking down at Stede with a curious expression on his face.

Stede says, “It’s a lovely story, I suppose.”

Jack blinks. Shrugs his shoulders. He says, “Well, every story has some truth to it, I guess. Every story starts somewhere, right?”

Stede looks back out to sea. “Right,” he says. He thinks. “How does it end?”

“Same way any story does,” Jack tells him. “Depends who you ask.”

They stay there, silently watching the sea for a while. The sun rises.

Then, there’s footsteps behind them. Stede looks up.

Buttons is there, telescope in hand.

“Cap’n,” he says. “I can see her, on the horizon. The Revenge.”

Stede looks up at Jack.

The other man grins. “Go time,” he says, and takes his bullwhip from his belt.