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‘Kennit!’ she cried after him, but he limped slowly away.

When he got to the short ladder that led from the raised foredeck to the main deck, he had to lower himself awkwardly to it.

He set his crutch flat on the deck and scrabbled his body around to the ladder.

It presented difficulties for a one-legged man, but he surmounted them without help.

Etta, who should have been at his side to aid him, was nursing Wintrow.

He supposed that she, too, now preferred the lad’s company to his.

No one seemed to care how his exertions on Others’ Island had exhausted him.

Despite the warm weather, he had developed a cough from their long and arduous swim.

Every muscle and joint in his body ached, but no one offered him sympathy or support, for Wintrow was hurt, the skin scalded from his body by sea serpent’s venom.

Wintrow. He was the only one that Etta and Vivacia noticed.

‘Oh. Poor pirate. Poor, pathetic, unloved Kennit.’

The words were drawled sarcastically, in a small voice.

It came from the carved charm he wore strapped to his wrist. He would not even have heard the tiny, breathless voice if he had not been climbing down the ladder, his hand still gripping the rung by his face.

His foot reached the lower deck. He held to the ladder with one hand as he tugged his coat straight, and corrected the fall of lace from his cuffs.

Anger burned in him. Even the wizardwood charm he had created to bring him luck had turned on him.

His own face, carved in miniature, flung mockery at him.

He thought of a threat for the beastly little wretch.

He lifted his hand to smooth the curl of his moustache. Carved face close to his mouth, ‘Wizardwood burns,’ he observed quietly.

‘So does flesh,’ the tiny voice replied. ‘You and I are bound as tightly as Vivacia is bound to Wintrow. Do you want to test that link? You have already lost a leg. Would you like to try life without your eyes?’

The charm’s words set a finger of ice to the pirate’s spine. How much did it know?

‘Ah, Kennit, there can be few secrets between two such as we. Few.’ It spoke to his thoughts rather than his words. Could it truly know what he thought, or did it shrewdly guess?

‘Here’s a secret I could share with Vivacia,’ the charm went on relentlessly.

‘I could tell her that you yourself have no idea what happened during that rescue. That once your elation wore off, you cowered in your bed and trembled like a child while Etta was nursing Wintrow.’ A pause. ‘Perhaps Etta would find that amusing.’

An inadvertent glance at his wrist showed him the sardonic grin on the charm’s face.

Kennit pushed down a deep uneasiness. He would not dignify the ill-natured little thing with a reply.

He recovered his crutch and stepped swiftly out of the path of a handful of men hastening to reset a sail that was not to Jola’s liking.

What had happened as they were leaving Others’ Island?

The storm had raged about them, and Wintrow had been unconscious, perhaps dying in the bottom of the ship’s boat.

Kennit had been furious with fate that it would try to snatch his future away just as he was so close to realizing it.

He had stood up in the gig, to shake his fist and forbid the sea to drown him and the winds to oppose him.

Not only had they heeded his words, but the serpent from the island had risen from the depths to reunite the gig with its mother ship.

He exhaled sharply, refusing credulous fear.

It was difficult enough that his own crew now worshipped him with their eyes, cowering in terror at his slightest remonstrance.

Even Etta quivered fearfully under his touch and spoke to him with downcast eyes.

Occasionally, she slipped back into familiarity, only to be aghast with herself when she realized she had done so.

Only the ship treated him as fearlessly as she always had.

Now she had revealed that his miracle had created another barrier between them.

He refused to surrender to their superstition.

Whatever had happened, he must accept it and continue as he always had.

Commanding a ship demanded that the captain always live a detached life.

No one could fraternize on equal terms with the ship’s captain.

Kennit had always enjoyed the isolation of command.

Since Sorcor had taken over command of the Marietta , he had lost some of his deference for Kennit.

The storm incident had once more firmly established Kennit as above Sorcor.

Now his former second-in-command regarded him with a god-struck gaze.

It was not the elevation in their regard that Kennit minded so much.

It was knowing that a fall from this new pinnacle could shatter him.

Even a slight mistake now might discredit him in their eyes.

He must be more careful than ever before.

The path he had set himself upon grew ever narrower and steeper.

He set his customary small smile to his face.

Let no one see his apprehension. He made his way towards Wintrow’s cabin.

‘Wintrow? Here is water. Drink.’

Etta squeezed a small sponge above his lips. A pattering of drops fell. She watched anxiously as his blistered lips opened to the water. His thick tongue moved inside his mouth, and she saw him swallow. It was followed by a quick gasp for breath. ‘Is that better? Do you want more?’

She leaned closer and watched his face, willing a response from him.

She would accept anything, the twitch of an eyelid, the flaring of a nostril.

There was nothing. She dipped the sponge again.

‘Here comes more water,’ she assured him, and sent another brief trickle into his mouth. Again, he swallowed.

Thrice more she gave him water. The last time, it trickled down his livid cheek.

She dabbed it gently away. Skin came with it.

Then she leaned back into the chair by his bunk and considered him wearily.

She could not tell if his thirst was satiated or if he was too weary to swallow more.

She numbered her consolations. He was alive.

He breathed; he drank. She tried to build hope upon that.

She dropped the sponge back into the pan of water.

For a moment, she regarded her own hands.

She had scalded them in Wintrow’s rescue, for when she had seized him to keep him from drowning, the serpent slime on his clothing had rubbed off on her, leaving shiny red patches, stingingly sensitive to both heat and cold.

And it had done that damage after it had spent most of its strength on Wintrow’s clothing and flesh.

His clothing had been corroded away to flimsy rags.

Then, as warm water dissolves ice, the slime had eaten his flesh.

His hands had taken the worst damage, but spatters of it had marred his face.

It had eaten into his sailor’s queue, leaving uneven hanks of black hair clinging to his head.

She had cut his remaining hair to keep it from lying in his sores.

His shorn scalp made him look even younger than he was.

In some places, the damage seemed no worse than sunburn; in others, raw tissue shone wet beside tanned and healthy flesh.

Swelling had distorted his features, rendering his eyes as slits beneath a ledge of brow.

His fingers were as sausages. His breath rattled in and out wetly.

His oozing flesh stuck to the linen sheets.

She suspected his pain was intense, and yet he gave few signs of it.

He was so unresponsive that she feared he was dying.

She closed her eyes tightly. If he died, it would reawaken all the pain she had schooled herself to leave behind.

It was so monstrously unfair that she was going to lose him so soon after finally coming to trust him.

He had taught her to read. She had taught him to fight.

She had competed with him jealously for Kennit’s attention.

Somehow, in the process, she had come to consider him a friend.

How had she let herself be so careless? Why had she allowed herself such vulnerability?

She had come to know him better than anyone else on board.

To Kennit, Wintrow was a lucky piece and a prophet of his success, though he valued the boy, perhaps even loved him in his grudging way.

The crew had accepted Wintrow, reluctantly at first, but with almost paternal pride since the mild lad had stood his ground at Divvytown, blade in hand, and voiced his support for Kennit as a king.

His shipmates had been eager for Wintrow to walk the Treasure Beach, sure that whatever he discovered there would be omens of Kennit’s greatness to come.

Even Sorcor had come to regard Wintrow with tolerance and affection.

But none of them knew him as she did. If he died, they would be sad, but Etta would be bereaved.

She pushed her own feelings roughly aside.

They were not important. The vital question was, how would Wintrow’s death affect Kennit?

She truly could not guess. Five days ago, she would have sworn she knew the pirate as well as anyone.

Not that she claimed to know all his secrets; he was a very private man, and his motives often mystified her.

Nevertheless, he treated her kindly and more than kindly.

She knew she loved him. That had been enough for her; she did not need to be loved in return.

He was Kennit, and that was all she required of him.