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Ellie tried not to be stung by his reply, but some part of her reaction must have shown on her face.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Bates quickly corrected. “I meant, this isn’t stuff youcanfind in books. I had no idea what I was doing when I first got out here. I learned from other people who were nice enough to teach me hownotto kill myself. Like Cedric Barrow, who you met back in town. Andy Gordon—he was a great guy. Passed away a couple years ago. I got some of my best tricks from Tadeas Chan, a K'iche'Maya grandpa who went on a couple excursions with me. A few things, I figured out on my own by doing something stupid and getting lucky enough not to die. Every now and then, I keep that fine tradition alive—like today, when I threw our boat over a waterfall.”

“Your boat…” Ellie began with a pang of guilt. “Had you had it very long?”

“Pretty much since I got here,” Bates replied.

“I’m terribly sorry it went over the waterfall.” Ellie amended her words with a quick burst of guilt. “I mean that I am sorry thatmy expeditionled to your boat going over the waterfall. You would not have been out here at all, if it weren’t for me.”

Bates watched her quietly as the firelight flickered across his features. He picked up the bottle of rum and handed it to her.

Ellie had another drink. This time, she didn’t have to think about it quite so much.

“You didn’t have to twist my arm too hard to get me out here, Princess,” Bates noted.

“I landed on you whilst bound and gagged,” Ellie retorted skeptically.

He chuckled lowly.

“Yup,” he agreed. “You sure did. Dropped right out of the damned sky.”

Ellie’s mouth firmed as she struggled to hold back the bubbling urge to laugh at the absurdity of it.

Instead, the stifled impulse came out in the form of a snort. Horrified by it, she clamped her hand over her mouth.

At the sound, Bates let out a clear, happy bark of laughter.

“Gimmie back my bottle,” he ordered, grinning at her.

Ellie realized that she was still clinging to the rum. She handed it over, and he took another generous swig.

“I would’ve been back out here on my own one way or another,” Bates continued. “Ilikeit out here. And it’s always been a matter of sheer, blind luck that I avoided disaster to this point.”

Ellie thought of how he had easily, confidently built their camp out of nothing but a machete and a piece of mosquito net.

“I don’t think that is quite an accurate assessment, Mr. Bates,” she said quietly.

“Adam,” he corrected her. His eyes were a bit shadowy in the gloom that was deepening around them.

“Adam,” Ellie tried carefully.

The name felt strange on her tongue… but not unpleasant. It reminded her of the taste of the rum.

He proffered the bottle. Ellie took another drink.

Her insides were beginning to feel nicely warm. The temperature had dropped with the falling of the sun, making the air around them more comfortable. The smoke and Bates’s salve kept most of the bugs at bay.

Adam’ssalve, she corrected herself inwardly.

“And as it turns out, it’s starting to look like there might actually be something to that treasure map of yours.” Adam nodded back in the direction of the black pillar.

The monument was lost in the shadowed darkness. The visible world had shrunk to the circle cast by the orange glow of their fire. Beyond it, strange hoots and chirps rose to fill the silences between their words. Leaves rustled and insects buzzed as the dense tropical growth came to a darker, richer life.

The setting was both intimate and intimidating, though Ellie still felt reasonably safe here by the fire with Adam. She was a little surprised to realize that she trusted he would know if there was any real danger. He wouldn’t have been comfortably sprawled out and drinking his rum if there was.

That feeling—trust—was quite foreign. The enormity of it made Ellie feel a bit solemn, even as the rum still danced in her veins.

“I know we… discussed this earlier,” she said carefully. “But would it be a mistake for us to press forward? Now that we’ve more or less been shipwrecked.”