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“I had heard of the Ghost by then,” he continued, “and so I abandoned that crew when they made port and I followed rumors until I found the Ghost in Cartagena. I told Captain Boukman about what I had done and why he might not want me on the crew because of it. He took me on. Said that I could make up for it by stopping as many slavers as possible with him.”

“And save yourself in the process.” She didn’t mean it biblically. She meant that she could see his soul had been torn into tatters on Calliope . If a person didn’t repair such a wound, they couldn’t live. They could only wake, eat, work, sleep, and so forth, until the day they died.

He took it as a religious comment. “I don’t believe in any of that. But I’m a villain, I know that much, and you deserve to know it, too.”

Rebecca took the hand that had withdrawn from her and held fast to his fingers.

“That frigate that is approaching bears no love for pirates, and because I was on Calliope , I understand why. The ones who harm others just because they can, those are the ones who deserve to be strung up. Captain Boukman? I’m not sure he deserves to be hanged.

But I think our only hope is to hand him over in exchange for our own immunity. ”

She understood now. This wasn’t some deathbed confession, and she was not his priest to give him absolution in his final moments.

Chow had a plan, and what he needed was permission to do it.

Permission from her. His not-wife. Because he wasn’t saying farewell to her at all.

“Would they do that? Let us all go free in exchange for Boukman?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

But there was a chance. A better chance than they had fighting with their half-full store of gunpowder and seventy-three-person crew.

“We’re all pirates, at the end of the day, whether we think we’re doing it for good or not.

We take from others without any right, and we do it knowing the risk.

Captain Boukman is no different.” Rebecca pulled her not-husband’s hand to her heart.

“Let’s see if we can save seventy-two of the seventy-three of us. ”

E ven though the frigate drew closer, Chow felt lighter for having confessed to Rebecca. The more of the story he had unspooled, the more it had felt like a weight dragging him beneath the water, and if Rebecca had whirled away in judgment, he would have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Now he had cut that line free, and the terrible past disappeared into the waves like the soft rain after a hurricane.

He gave the orders. Boukman was retrieved from the brig and, still tied at both the wrists and the ankles, deposited in the longboat.

Rebecca, her goat, and Chow got in the vessel with him.

The rest of the pirates would stay behind under Jack Davies’s command, a white flag flying in place of the Jolly Roger.

That way, if the captain of the frigate decided the deal wasn’t worth it, the Ghost would have a fighting chance.

Chow would have gone alone, except Rebecca hadn’t yet let go of his hand, and he didn’t particularly want to ask her to.

Julio de la Cruz muttered a prayer to the Catholic god in farewell as Chow helped Rebecca into the longboat.

Long Tale Lee offered her a special rope star for protection.

Fearsome Fred shook Chow’s hand and said, “Good luck, then.” There were murmurs from the rest of the crew, but mostly mute gestures, like Liberty Johnson’s nod as he started lowering the ropes and Fuego’s crossed fingers.

And then it was just Chow, Rebecca, Boukman, the goat, and the sea.

Boukman tried to speak through his gag. Chow ignored him.

He focused instead on Rebecca rowing behind him.

Each stroke pulling them that much closer to their fate.

A pirate confronted death frequently, and Chow had often imagined his own: drowning in a storm, bleeding out from a gunshot wound, a knife spearing his back.

Always, he had pictured it as brutal. Always, he had expected to be alone.

If this was the day he died, then at least he would do so beside Rebecca. If he had to sacrifice his life now to pay for all his past deeds, at least she was here with him, praying for his reprieve.

He wished he could spare her this fate altogether. If only she had listened when he had tried to send her back to shore on Fortune Island. But then they never would have known each other—she would have been just an anecdote, one he quickly forgot—and he never would have loved her.

He loved her deeply, he realized as the longboat drew within firing range of the frigate.

It surprised him, because he had never expected to fall in love.

He had pictured a wife in some far-off future when he finally made it to China; even then, he had expected he would respect and appreciate her—but love?

Let his heart be stolen away to belong in someone else’s body?

Let his days feel bigger and his nights feel fuller by sharing them with someone else’s soul?

Chow had never imagined that.

A swell rocked their boat, spraying saltwater into his eyes and carrying them within the lines thrown down by the frigate to lift them up to the deck.

Rebecca walked carefully to the stern of the boat while Chow headed to the bow, taking care as he passed Boukman that the man could not push him over the side.

The goat bleated. They tied the lines to the longboat, and the sailors above began to haul them up.

The safe thing to do was to stay in place so as not to rock the boat.

Chow climbed over the benches to reach Rebecca in the back. She watched him come, confusion in her eyes, but when he held out his hands, she accepted them into her own. He pulled himself into that sphere of her body so that he could smell her skin and feel her energy and hear her breath.

They only had a few moments left together. He wanted to make them count.

“I love you, Rebecca.” He kissed her, one heart to another, to ensure she understood. He didn’t need to hear a response. He only wanted her to know that, if she could count nothing else towards her fortune, she had his love.

With a jerk, the longboat reached the frigate’s deck. And it was time to meet their fate.