Page 18 of Virelai’s Hoard (The Dagger & Tide Trilogy #1)

“He’s right about one thing,” Haddock said, watching the gunner descend through the hatch, then landing his gaze on Calla.

“I’m an old man, with no use for gold anymore.

But being by the side of the captain who found Virelai’s Hoard?

People will never tire of the stories. And if I die?

I couldn’t ask for a grander adventure than this. ”

With every pirate’s declaration of loyalty, Calla seemed to minutely shrink in on herself.

Eventually, she turned to Sable. “You never signed up for this,” Calla said, a surprising softness falling over her features, her guard down for the first time Riley had witnessed since setting foot on this ship.

“You could leave now.” The words were almost a plea.

For all of her challenging the captain at every turn, the first mate was now uncharacteristically silent. Her jaw set in a hard line as every eye fell on her. “If you go, I go.”

And that was that.

Calla met Riley’s gaze with a questioning tilt of her head.

Riley just shook her head. She’d made her decision when she first stepped foot on board.

Because Ignatius was right. More gold than she knew what to do with was worth whatever risk it took to get there.

And if the stories were right, and the Moonshadow was protected by the sea?

Trying to return to Vareth on a different ship might see her dead on the trip back.

Wouldn’t that be just hilarious? No. She was staying.

Resigned, the captain nodded. “Then we set sail now.”

***

Riley stared down at the blank scrap of paper with furrowed eyebrows, a quill held awkwardly between her fingers as it hovered over the page. A fat drop of ink slid slowly toward its tip and fell with a splatter as she thought. Riley’s frown deepened.

The task was supposed to be easy enough.

Just remember the letters Sable had taught her over the past couple of days and string them together in the sequence that spelled the word ship .

Sable herself stood behind her, staring over her shoulder with fraying patience.

At least Riley imagined it was fraying. She wouldn’t look back and check.

Already the feeling that she was just wasting both of their time made her every muscle tense as she pondered endlessly about the damn letters.

Even hauling buckets of sea water was better than this.

Eventually, the pressure became too much, and she just went for it.

Her quill met paper and the sound of uncertain scratching resounded through the silence in the hold.

At the last letter, the tip of her quill broke through the thin scrap of parchment and left another ugly dark smudge of ink, covering the end of her even uglier attempt at writing.

Riley tossed the quill on the overturned barrel and scoffed. “What does writing have to do with reading ?” she asked, frustrated. “This is just making me feel dumb.”

Sable leaned above her shoulder to peer at the paper.

Riley’s skin prickled at the proximity. “You won’t be able to understand what you’re reading if you can’t spell the words,” she said, and her tone held none of the impatience Riley had been picturing in her head.

“And practice is the quickest way you’ll get there. ”

The first mate’s hand rested on the back of her chair, lightly brushing Riley’s back as she leaned over to retrieve the tossed quill. A faint scent of sun-warmed leather and smoke enveloped her, reminiscent of campfires on rocky shores. Strong, all-encompassing, warm, surprisingly comforting.

“Take it.”

The words made heat spread across Riley’s stomach and thighs like a rash. She blinked at the quill held in front of her nose.

Ever since that card game, an undercurrent of something electric had settled between them, and today it doubled down with a vengeance.

She must be starved. They’d been at sea for, what, a fortnight now?

On land, she would’ve already sought the soft caress of a stranger by this point.

But Sable wasn’t a stranger, and they weren’t on land.

They would be seeing each other again the morning after.

Pushing the lingering thoughts away, she picked up the quill.

“Like this,” Sable instructed, sliding her hand over Riley’s.

Sable’s calloused fingers slipped between hers and changed the angle at which she was holding the quill until the object didn’t feel so awkward in her hand anymore.

Her skin was so warm it held the chill of the night at bay.

When Sable was satisfied with the position, she turned the parchment to a clean area with the other hand–her arms encircled her for this brief moment, and this had to be on purpose now–and moved Riley’s quill hand to it.

Applying firm, but gentle pressure, Sable guided her to rewrite the word the same way she’d written it, but cleaner.

Smoother. All Riley wondered about was what else those fingers were skilled at.

“Everyone feels dumb when learning something new,” Sable said, close enough now that the words hit Riley’s ear in warm puffs of breath, her hand still a steady pressure against hers.

“But you’ve been paying attention.” Not to the writing, but yes, she was certainly paying attention now .

“Try it with a little less smudging next time.”

With that, she retreated, Sable’s hand slipping from hers. Stealing the warmth away.

Riley remembered how to breathe. The not-quite compliment made her feel… strange, so she moved to fix that by throwing a playful smile over her shoulder. “If you wanted to hold hands with me you could’ve just asked.”

The comment didn’t quite land. Sable raised an eyebrow at her. “And get ink all over my fingers?” The corner of her mouth twitched in amusement as she said that, though, so Riley considered it a win.

She turned back to the parchment, hiding her smirk as she said, “If a little mess concerns you so much, maybe I could teach you to let go a little.”

This was bold, even for her. She really was starved.

Even footfalls resounded in the empty hold as Sable made her way around to lean against a beam, arms crossed as she stared evenly at her. Riley stiffened at the intensity of the gaze and tried not to look as if she was waiting for her reply with bated breath. Because she wasn’t.

“You talk a great deal for someone who barely knows how to spell ship,” Sable observed. “Let’s try sea next. And you’re welcome to talk about your progress over the past days while you think.”

Had it all been only in her head?

“You really like bossing people around, don’t you?” Riley asked, getting bolder despite her better sense telling her not to. “Is that what this is? Should I start calling you captain in private?”

Riley realized her misstep a moment too late.

The signs of it were subtle. A stiffening of the shoulders, a clench to Sable’s jaw. Deeper creases in the woman’s coat where fingers dug into her arms. But the words that followed weren’t subtle at all. “Careful. I could have you thrown overboard for that.”

Riley could believe it, despite the sudden shift in the air confusing her.

Why was Sable doing this if she didn’t want to overthrow Calla?

And why was she still here if she didn’t trust the captain?

Riley remembered the speech earlier, the way Calla’s voice had softened when she nearly begged Sable to walk away from this.

There was a story there, between the captain and her first mate, but now wasn’t the moment to ask.

“She’s still not giving me the time of day,” Riley said, brushing past both her misstep and Sable’s overreaction.

“Just staring over a handful of maps and scribbling in her journal all the time. I couldn’t make out anything yet.

Some of the maps seem old and… weirdly empty.

I’d expect an old map to be denser with information.

But other than that…” A useless lift of her shoulders.

“I even tried bringing her food once, but she didn’t touch it. ”

A strange feeling in her chest stirred as she mentioned that. Was Calla eating at all? She had to, didn’t she? But she hadn’t seen the captain taking her dinners with the rest of the crew either, ever since the storm.

“You… brought her food.”

It wasn’t a question. Riley tilted her head. “Yes,” she confirmed carefully.

Sable’s shoulders stiffened again, but in a different way than before. More guarded. “What did you bring her?”

Riley shrugged. “Fish.” Boarley hadn’t cooked anything else in days, much to Pip’s dismay. Something about a few barrels going bad and needing to use them up. She didn’t know what the kid was complaining about, as the food continued to be delicious.

The words that came from Sable’s lips next were stiff, as if she forced them out. “She doesn’t eat fish, that’s why.”

Riley blinked. “Oh.” Then, “Why didn’t she just tell me that?”

Sable relaxed into a long, suffering sigh, leaning more comfortably against the beam. “I suspect she’s not telling us a lot of things.” She gave Riley a pointed look. “You could take example. Less talking, more writing.”

You told me to talk .

Even in her own head, that sounded petulant, so she kept it to herself. She’d tested Sable’s patience enough for one day.

So she looked down at the paper again, her frown coming back as she pondered the new sequence of letters.