For a moment, the world was warm.
Not in the way the sun warms the skin after a long, dreary night, or the way a hearth fills a room with the promise of rest, but a warmth of memory. A warmth born of amber lanternlight, soft river mist, and the quiet clink of porcelain as tea was poured between two people pretending they had only met by coincidence.
Roc sat across from her.
Seleste.
Her sea-green eyes held the glow of the cabin lamps like precious gems laid beneath clear water, watching him with the same confidence she wore like a second skin. Her fingers rested near her cup, though she had not lifted it for some time. Instead, she watched him, watched the book he had refused to show her, watched the twine around his wrist, watched everything he thought he had kept safely away from the reach of her curiosity.
"You are more difficult than you look," she had said.
"Am I?"
"You know you are."
"Then perhaps I am not as difficult as I should be."
Her smile had sharpened at that, not cruelly, but with the delight of one who had found a door where she expected a wall.
Then the dream shifted.
The cabin's warmth became the violet-dark of the ferry's upper deck. The river had vanished, replaced by the silver spread of open water. The ferry had reached its final stop, and passengers were making their way down the gangplank with bags, cases, and the half-tired relief of those who had spent too long being carried somewhere by something beyond their control.
Seleste stood before him.
Not in her school uniform.
Not with the forceful command of Class 1C's captain.
But in the peach-colored summer dress he had seen in flashes of morning, touched by sea breeze and the opalescent shimmer of her scales.
"I suppose this is where our unlikely habit ends," she said.
Roc wanted to answer.
He could not.
The words caught somewhere inside him, trapped behind the same old restraint that had followed him since childhood. The same restraint that always made him speak too late, too little, or not at all.
Seleste began to step away.
Only then did he move.
His hand reached after her.
She turned, her own hand lifting toward his, fingers nearly brushing.
The space between them seemed so small that it might as well have been nothing.
And then she was gone.
Roc's eyes opened.
His hand was raised toward the ceiling of his cabin, fingers stretched toward empty air.
For a moment, he did not move.
The room around him was dim, rocked gently by the motion of the ferry. Morning light had begun to slip through the round window, turning the small cabin walls a pale blue. From beyond the door came the muffled tread of passengers and the livelier rhythm of deckhands preparing the ship for the day.
Slowly, Roc lowered his arm.
The opalescent spearhead dangled from his wrist, held by deep green twine. It swung faintly above his face, catching the newborn light with a soft shimmer, its surface flashing with colors that reminded him too easily of sea-green eyes and scales glistening beneath moonlight.
Roc stared at it.
Then turned his head aside with a quiet sigh.
"That is going to become troublesome."
Before his thoughts could sink any further, the voices outside rose with the morning.
Deckhands.
Their shanty spilled through the wooden belly of the ferry with a warmth that seemed determined to drag even the most unwilling soul into the day.
Raise her high for the Glass Sea, boys, the morning's turning gold,
And the wind has got a wicked tongue, but our bones were made to hold.
Past the Sword Isles, sharp and white, where the broken waters gleam,
We'll take the tide through Damocles and chase the sailor's dream.
Roc remained still for a breath longer.
Then, as though the song had finally found the right place to pull him from, he sat up.
The cabin was small, though not uncomfortable. A narrow bed, a fold-out desk, a washbasin fixed to the wall, and a trunk fitted beneath the mattress so that luggage would not go sliding about whenever the ferry rose or dropped through the canal locks.
Only, this morning, there was no lock.
The ship did not hold the stiff, measured motion of the Suanna Canal.
It rolled.
Softly, freely, and with a rhythm that belonged to something wider than river water.
Roc turned toward the window.
Beyond the glass, the world was brightening.
The ferry had reached the open sea.
The deckhands sang louder.
Haul away, my lads, haul away,
The sea may steal our names someday;
But home is a light on the water yet,
And a face no heart forgets.
The words were old, carrying the rhythm of men and women who had learned to laugh before the waters decided whether to bless or bury them. Roc had heard the song often enough in the Sapphire Coves, usually sung by dockhands after too much drink or fishermen who insisted every storm was weaker than the one before it.
But aboard the ferry, as it made its first breath into the Glass Sea, the song felt different.
Fresher.
Closer.
As though the morning itself had decided to sing along.
Roc washed, dressed, and tied the leather booklet closed with the same green twine that held the spearhead at his wrist. His hand hovered over the booklet for a moment.
Last night's silver etches waited inside.
The river.
The canal.
The lower deck.
The outline of a figure he had not meant to draw.
He took the booklet with him.
When he stepped out from his cabin, the shanty followed him through the corridor.
There are women in the moonlit foam with coral in their hair,
Su'marii girls with laughing eyes who'll dare a man to stare.
They'll sing you down to silver halls where the blue-green lanterns sway,
But kiss the cup and bless their names, then sail at break of day.
Roc hummed along before he realized he was doing it.
By the time he reached the stairs and emerged onto the deck, the sun had begun its rise in earnest.
A bright blue sky overtook the darkened tones of violet and red receding at the edge of the world. The last remnants of dawn clung to the horizon in delicate ribbons, while the waters ahead spread in a vast sheet of gleaming silver, blue, and white.
The Glass Sea.
Roc took the stairs to the second-level deck, where a gathering crowd had already formed near the railings. Passengers watched as the ferry finally rode out from the mouth of the Suanna River and into the open waters, their cheers rising alongside the splash of white foam that broke against the hull.
A wave struck hard enough to send ocean spray over the railings, dousing several onlookers.
Children screamed.
Adults laughed.
Someone cursed loudly enough to earn louder laughter from the deckhands.
The ferry air came alive.
The deckhands continued their work with the sort of merriment no one would expect from men and women who had begun laboring before sunrise. Ropes were pulled, pulleys checked, cargo fastened, sails adjusted, and all of it was done beneath song.
Haul away, my lads, haul away,
The sea may steal our names someday;
Through Damocles, through storm and death,
We'll laugh with our last breath.
Home is the light on the water yet,
The hand no grave forgets;
So sing her loud till the heavens foam,
The finest port is home.
Without skipping a beat, another voice joined the final line.
Not rough like the deckhands.
Not loud.
But clear enough that it rose through the chorus and changed the shape of it.
The words danced on beauteous notes, carrying the familiar shanty into something older, gentler, and far more dangerous to Roc's composure.
His humming stopped.
"Seleste—"
His words paused when he felt the press of a gentle hand against his back.
Turning, he found her waiting behind him.
The light of morning caught in her eyes first, sea-green gems dancing with the sun until they seemed less like eyes and more like fragments of the ocean given thought. Roc held her gaze for a moment longer than he would have wished, and in that moment he saw not the class captain who barked orders in the halls of Trinity Cross, nor the girl who had lured him into a cabin with a song and a cup of tea.
He saw something else.
A girl of the Sword Isles standing in the first light of the Glass Sea.
Seleste wore a peach-colored summer dress detailed with white lilies, along with a soft white sweater that gave her an air so different from her usual poise that Roc nearly thought he had mistaken a stranger for her. Yet the shimmer of her scales made such a mistake impossible. They glistened with the same luster as her eyes, while her hair seemed touched by sea and stars, carrying their sparkle and hue wherever the breeze moved it.
Even standing two heads beneath his tall frame, her presence had a strange way of towering over him.
Roc let out a half-hearted laugh at himself.
She was quite something.
By her nature, she was rather peerless.
Seleste's brows lifted.
"Should I be flattered or insulted by your staring?"
"You would be too," Roc said, "if you were greeted with such a sight to behold."
For the first time that morning, Seleste's confidence missed a step.
Only slightly.
A blink. A paused breath. The faintest parting of her lips before she gathered herself again.
"You are unusually dangerous when you decide to speak."
"I do not decide often."
"A mercy, then."
The two began walking together toward the gallery, the shanty fading behind them as they descended from the deck.
After a few quiet steps, Roc glanced at her.
"How do you know the Glass Sea Haulaway?"
Seleste looked at him as if he had asked how she knew the taste of salt.
"You are a seafarer and you still ask me that?"
"I thought the Sword Isles were insular."
"They are," she said, moving ahead of him toward the buffet line. "That does not mean we cannot hear what cheerful fools are singing beyond our waters."
"Cheerful fools?"
"The generous kind." She took a plate and looked at him expectantly. "Hold this."
Roc accepted the tray.
Then another.
Seleste began selecting fruits, fish, spiced pastries, and a few bright sea-green sweets he was fairly certain had not been part of his breakfast plans.
"You are choosing for both of us?"
"You seem like the sort to spend so much time considering what to eat that breakfast would become lunch."
"I would have managed."
"Of course."
She placed another pastry on his plate.
Roc watched her.
Seleste gave him a sweet smile.
"You are welcome."
He decided, wisely, not to argue.
They found a seat near one of the gallery windows, where the morning light scattered across polished wood and painted the table with shifting patterns of blue and gold.
Breakfast passed in a rhythm neither of them acknowledged.
Seleste ate with a certainty that made even choosing fruit seem like an act of conquest. Roc, by contrast, finished quickly and quietly, his attention already pulled elsewhere.
Soon enough, his leather booklet lay open before him.
The opalescent spearhead moved between his fingers.
Seleste watched.
At first, she did so idly, one hand around her cup and her chin resting against the other as if she meant only to pass the time until he became interesting.
Then the silver lines began to form.
Thin, precise etches spread across the page where the spearhead touched it, not ink, not charcoal, but gleaming marks that seemed to reveal what already slept beneath the paper. The gallery window took shape first. Then the horizon beyond it. Then the soft curl of steam from Seleste's cup.
After that came her profile.
Not simply as she appeared.
Not exactly.
It was more like the impression of her voice as it joined the shanty, the way the morning had shifted around it, the way her presence seemed to gather and command even the light that touched her.
Seleste's fingers stilled.
Roc did not look up.
"You draw without looking."
"Not always."
"But now?"
"Now, yes."
"Why?"
His hand slowed.
Only for a moment.
"Because I remember what matters."
Seleste's gaze lifted from the page to his face.
There it was again.
That troublesome way he had of speaking plainly enough that one could not call it flattery, yet deeply enough that ignoring it became impossible.
Before she could decide whether to take offense, tease him, or ask what exactly he meant by that, the ferry was violently shaken.
The first impact came like thunder beneath the floor.
Wood screamed.
Glass shattered.
Cups and plates flew from tables, passengers cried out, and the entire gallery tilted hard enough that several people were thrown from their seats.
Roc caught the table with one hand and Seleste's arm with the other before she could strike the floor.
The second impact followed.
Heavier.
Closer.
This time, the sound of splintering wood tore through the ferry like the groan of a dying beast.
Screams erupted from above.
Roc released Seleste only once she steadied herself.
Her eyes were already sharp.
"What was that?"
He moved to the window.
Outside, another ship had crashed alongside the ferry.
Its jagged prow had bitten into the hull, while grappling hooks flew from its deck and caught against wood, rope, and railing. Figures moved across the invading vessel with brutal coordination, casting planks and chains between the two ships before the ferry's crew had time to organize themselves.
At first, the morning sun washed out the enemy's sails, turning them a dull brown beneath the glare.
Then the ship shifted.
The light struck fully.
And the true color bled into sight.
Red.
Not the white of standard sailors.
Not the blue of privateers.
Not the violet of knights, the purple of royalty, nor the black and gold of emissaries.
Red.
Blood sails.
"Pirates," Roc said.