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My hands are slippery with blood again. My front is covered with it from all the blood spatter. I dodge a swinging cutlass on my way to deliver an attack to another pirate. He blocks my first strike but doesn’t expect me to deliver a second one so quickly. It pierces his heart.

I spin as the man I dodged comes charging at me with his sword raised; I leap aside but land atop one of the fallen bodies, and my ankle rolls. When I land on my good leg, I pivot in place, ducking a slash and stabbing the man in the gut. I finish him with another slice to the throat.

Then the mansion is perfectly silent.

I rise, take a look around at the carnage. A throbbing pain lances up my leg when I try to put my full weight on my ankle. It slows me down as I retrieve all my daggers and find unmarred cloth to wipe them clean on. I scrub at my hands, though they’re still red when I’m done. Dried blood has worked its way into the creases of my skin. I sheathe my rapier and daggers into their respective holsters. I pull my braided hair out of its loose ponytail and redo it.

Then I search through the mansion until I find the servants’ quarters. Most have barricaded themselves in their rooms or hidden under their beds.

It takes some time, but I finally locate Miss Nyles’s room.

“These are for you,” I say, and I drag the two unconscious men from the kitchens inside, one at a time, ignoring the shooting pain in my ankle. Thankfully, the servants sleep downstairs; otherwise I wouldn’t have managed transporting them.

I pull out one of my daggers and hand it to Miss Nyles, hilt first.

The young woman looks between my dagger and the two unconscious brutes tied up on the floor of her bedroom. She takes the weapon offered to her.

“I suggest waiting until they’re awake,” I offer. “It’ll be better that way.”

Then I put the mansion behind me and sail home.

Chapter 2

THE SEA BREEZE ISwarm against my skin as the ship lowers anchor just off the tropical shores of Queen’s Keep, an island gifted to the pirate queen by her siren mother. Initially, Alosa had wanted to name the island Alosa Island.

“I’m the queen. Why not name it after me?” she asked.

“Makes you sound just a tad conceited,” Niridia, her first mate, answered.

“Whatever. If a man named an island after himself, no one would bat an eyelash.”

“You’re not a man.”

“No, I’m far better.”

“Which means you’re too good to name an island after yourself.”

Alosa glared at her.

“Why not something more subtle?” Mandsy, Alosa’s best healer, offered. “Like Queen’s Keep?”

Alosa grimaced as though she tasted something sour in her mouth before turning to me. “What do you think?”

“Name it Queen’s Keep.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

I’m rowed to shore in a dinghy by a blessedly silent party. When I step foot on the beach, a gun fires somewhere in the distance.

It’s not necessarily a sign of danger. Someone could be at the firing range. Still, my instincts beg me to check it out, so I make my way toward where the sound originated. Palm trees line the sandy shores, but a well-worn path leads to the island’s center, where Alosa is still in the process of having her stronghold constructed. Builders are hard at work, hammering and sawing. I pass them by and hear another shot fired, this one followed by a whimper, and I pick up my pace.

When I arrive at the firing range, a peculiar sight greets me. There’s a man tied to a dummy some twenty paces off from where Alosa and Riden stand. A crowd has gathered, and I push through it to get myself a better view.

The queen cocks back the hammer of her pistol, takes aim, and fires. A bit of straw just above the man’s right shoulder explodes, raining down upon him. He shrinks away from it.

“That was the closest yet,” Alosa taunts, turning to Riden.

The smile he gives her makes her own grow, and I refrain from frowning. I liked Alosa better before she had a consort. Now she’s all dove eyes and too much laughter, and I have to put up with Riden at all hours of the day.