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“Something like that,” he answered, careful to keep himself between Corayne and the tabletop.

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen a Rhashiran sigil before.” She tried to step around him, but Charlie moved with her, using his broad frame to keep her back. “Teach me?”

He chortled, shaking his head. “I’m not going to tell you my secrets. You think I want to give your pirate mother free rein throughout the Long Sea?”

Corayne all but rolled her eyes. She pursed her lips, huffing. “You assume I’ll see her again, and if I do, I’ll tell her what you teach me.”Certainly not after she left me to rot in Lemarta.

“Bitterness is unbecoming, Corayne,” Charlie replied. “I should know,” he added with a wink.

“Well, Sorasa did turn you into live bait. It’s warranted.”

“On the long list of things I have to fret over, Sorasa Sarn dangling me in front of my own personal bounty hunter is not one of them,” he sighed, turning back around.

It was a tactic Corayne knew too well. Charlie was trying to hide the sadness welling in his eyes. Her natural curiosity flared, but her sense of propriety won out, and she let it be. She was no fool either. Charlie wore the look of heartbreak. Though Corayne had never felt it herself, she saw it in the sailors of Lemarta, and in their families left onshore. Charlie was the same, going distant in the quiet moments, his mind and his heart elsewhere.

Slowly, he slid the parchment away, leaving the work unfinished.

“Teach me how to cut a seal, then,” Corayne begged, weaving her fingers together in a mocking prayer. She didn’t bother batting her eyelashes, knowing full well Charlie had no interest in her—or any other woman, for that matter. “Just one.”

A corner of his mouth lifted. He was a man defeated, a castle overthrown. “Just one.”

She jumped with glee. “My choice?”

“You are a Spindlerotten littleimp,” he snapped, poking her with the quill. Then he reached for his pack. “Yes, your choice.”

Delighted, her mind whirred with possibility.A Tyri seal would be most useful, but Ibalet is more valuable—

“Sail!” a voice shouted from above.

Charlie shaded his eyes, turning his face up to the mainmast, where the lookout kept watch. Corayne didn’t bother, more focused on the forger’s wares. It was not uncommon to spot other ships in the Long Sea. The Strait of the Ward was positively crawling with them. Her mother liked to joke they couldn’t raise an oar without striking another ship. And they were in Sarian’s Bay now, only a few days from the coast. Other ships would be common, heading for the port as they were.

The Ibalet sailors scuffled up and down the deck in a flurry of activity. There wasn’t much cargo to secure—Isadere’s galley was no trade ship—but they checked it over anyway, tightening ropes and rigging. They muttered to each other in hurried Ibalet, too fast for Corayne to catch.

But not for Sorasa Sarn.

“They don’t like the look of it,” she said, sidling up to Charlie’s workbench. She listened to the sailors and watched the horizon with a cruel, keen eye.

Corayne barely glanced at her. She weighed a set of seal dies in her hands, both wooden cylinders with silver ends. They were heavy, so well made she suspected they’d been stolen from a treasury. One held the emblem of Tyriot, the mermaid brandishing a sword, and the other was the Ibalet dragon. Her mouth watered at the prospect of either.

But Charlie plucked the seals from her grasp, stuffing them back into his pack. “Let’s put those away until we know we aren’t being boarded by pirates,” he said, offering a tight smile.

“Sarian’s Bay isn’t a hunting ground,” Corayne scoffed back. She knew better than anyone aboard where the pirates of the Long Sea stalked their prey. “No pirate with sense hunts in these waters. It’s just a passing trader.”

At the rail, Andry pointed to the horizon. A dark smudge bobbed in the wind, almost too small to make out.

“Purple sails. Siscaria,” he said, squinting into the distance. “They’re a long way from home.”

The waves rolled beneath the deck and Corayne’s stomach rolled with them. She raised her eyes to the horizon. Her heart leapt and sank in equal measure, as if torn in two.

“Where’s Dom?” she hissed, crossing to the rail.

“Sharing his lunch with the sharks,” Sorasa sneered, jabbing a thumb in his direction. The Elder hulked at the bow, head over the side. “I’ll get him.”

He’ll know. He’ll see what the ship is—and isn’t,Corayne thought, her lip caught in her teeth. She braced her ribs against the rail, leaning forward as if a few more inches might reveal the shape on the waves. Andry stood at her side, torn between watching the ship and watching her.

“Do you think—” he muttered, but Dom shouldered between them, his pale face whiter than usual. He swayed a little, unsteady, and Sorasa rolled her eyes behind his back.

The Elder gripped the rail, using it to straighten himself. “What are we looking at?”