Vallin went to Britter. He couldn't go to Everson for obvious reasons, and Rusher wouldn't get it. He had to go to someone with a brain.

So he wandered about the balcony for a moment, his fingers bleeding from the glass bottle he'd thrown across the room. The last time he'd thrown something out of anger was when he was fourteen. A teenager.

He took the steps. It was beyond early, but it didn't matter to him. He jogged belowdecks and pushed open Britter's door. Her corner room was eerily silent next to him.

Vallin snapped his fingers at Britter. "Wake up."

The strategist rolled over in his bed. "Captain?" he asked.

"No," was Vallin's reply. "It's Vallin."

"What?" Britter grabbed a shirt from the spot at his feet and pulled it over his head. "What happened?"

"Guess what I did, Liam?" Vallin began. "I slept with Silta, but that's not the good part."

Britter could tell from the sarcastic tone that something wasn't right, but his mouth still twisted with excitement. "Was it good? It had to be good."

Vallin laid down on his back and frowned at the ceiling. Oh, it'd been good. Until...that.

"What?" Britter leaned down to him, placing a childish hand on his shoulder. "Oh, Captain...did you...I mean, could you...?"

"Yes," Vallin snapped.

"Then I'm confused," Britter said, drawing out the words. "You should be up there, with her, not down here, with me. I'm a handsome man, but Silta's more your type—"

"I told her I loved her."

There was a long pause in the darkness. Then, "No you didn't."

"I did."

Britter laughed, but it was hasty. "No you didn't. Oh by the Devil, Bardarian, please tell me you didn't."

"I did."

Britter covered his mouth. "Why?"

"Because it's true. She's mine, Britter—she's mine and everyone knows it. And she came to me. She told me she came because I gave her a cat—"

"The cat was an exceptional move. Brilliant man you are."

"—and she made it sound like it wasn't just lust, that it was more than that, and I couldn't tell her to leave; she seemed terrified that I would."

"Could've meant she was mildly interested in you. She's not in love with you."

"You're so smart, Britter. I never could've figured that out myself. How do I fix it?"

Britter shook his head. "You can't fix this. Silta has these rules her mother taught her. Rules one through seven. Rule number five is against falling in love. Sneaking it up on her would've been an option, but blurting it to her? It'll freak her right out."

Vallin rubbed his hand over his eyes and let out a long breath. "Should I have stayed?" he asked. "She didn't say anything. I left. Do I go back?"

Britter shrugged. "Did she stay in your room?"

Vallin listened carefully around him. He heard soft, almost non-existent footsteps down the hall. The door next to them opened and closed, softly.

Britter's gaze shot to him. "Is that her?" he whispered.

"That's her room!" Vallin whispered back.

Britter's eyes darted. "I don't know. I don't know what you should do. Angels, this is such a mess. This is so not the way it was supposed to happen."

"Focus. Do I talk to her?"

"No. If she wanted to talk, she'd have stayed in your room or tried to find you. Just—in the morning, I guess? When it doesn't feel so fresh."

Vallin closed his eyes. He couldn't believe he'd done this. He couldn't believed he'd ruined this.

*

Novari was out of shirts.

She'd ripped one, left one on a girl in port and abandoned her last one in the captain's quarters. When she kicked the wall between her and Britter's rooms three times to get him to bring one of his, there was no answer.

So she wore Bardarian's shirt. It was too big, and the sleeve had five pips and a crown, which was most definitely not her rank. She pulled her coat on over, hoping no one would notice.

Nothing was hers. Not her clothes, her hair, not her skin. She could still smell fresh linen somewhere in the vicinity, could even taste something like wax in her mouth.

She glanced at her reflection in the copper mirror on her dresser, watching the hollow circles under her eyes cast shadows on her cheeks. She didn't look nor feel as she should, but she shouldn't have to hide. He'd stepped over the line, not her.

She jogged up the stairs and pushed open the door to the common room. Maybe he wouldn't be there. Maybe he'd be upstairs.

But he was there, and he did look as he should: eerily calm and still, leaning back in his big chair, dark eyes steady on Rusher as the navigator spoke. He looked like Captain Bardarian, slick and debonair. He didn't look the kind of man that fell in love with anyone, much less blurt it out like he had.

Novari didn't move for a moment. Everson was beside him, laughing. Britter was there, Rusher was there. All her friends were with him, leaving her nowhere else to sit.

She found Lyra's gaze on the other side of the room. Novari could sit there, but she'd have to walk right by the corner of Bardarian's table. So what? She'd walk fast. She set her gaze forward, set her path, and almost made it past them.

Someone snatched her wrist and pulled her back, leaving her to do a less-than-graceful stumble back into Rusher, who'd been the one to grab her.

"Silta!" The navigator pulled her closer, making it impossible for her to escape to Lyra. "You're the most attractive woman I've ever met," he declared. "We need you."

Novari couldn't help it; her eyes snapped up to Bardarian as if she had no control of them. He glanced up at her, just for a moment. His face wasn't blank, exactly, but it was difficult for her to read without making a scene to get closer.

She looked at Rusher, then down to her wrist in his grasp.

"Thank you," she told the navigator. "You need me for what?"

"You need to settle a debate for us," Rusher insisted.

Novari kept her gaze on Rusher's blonde hair, but she could feel the presence over to her right, calling her gaze. "Is the compliment related to the debate?" she asked.

"Yes. Sit."

Bardarian sighed loudly, shaking his head, not looking at her again. "You don't need a woman to answer this for you, lad," he told Rusher. He ran a hand through his hair as he spoke, a nonchalant, typical movement for him, but to Novari, it felt like he was taunting her.

"You're just terrified of what she's going to say," Rusher insisted.

Bardarian gave him a look. "I haven't even included myself in your absurd little discussion."

Rusher snorted. "Silta, sit. Cap is deflecting an early loss. Promise to be honest?"

Novari sat down next to him. Britter had moved over, putting her between them. Bardarian blew out a long breath across from them, and it ruffled Novari's hair a little.

"That depends what you're asking," Novari said.

"Oh, right." Rusher scooted forward like a giddy child. "We need you to tell you who's the most attractive."

Novari glanced up at him, making a face. "You're kidding."

Britter leaned in, tapping her forearm a few times. "Not even a little," he said. "Everson says it's him. Rusher says it's him. But it must be me. Right?"

Novari leaned back in her chair, catching Everson's gaze. He smiled. Sickly, malicious, charming, whichever one fit his history best.

"Spit it out," Britter prodded. "It's me, right?"

Novari rolled her gaze to him. "They really let you children hold knives?" she asked.

"Oh, this is mild," Rusher said, grinning. "You should see us after a port night. We bring out the scorebook and everything, pros and cons and such."

Novari glanced up at Bardarian, panicked. What if he'd told them all already? What if they'd all laughed over it as he picked her apart into pros and cons to his friends?

Bardarian was already looking at her, still slouched, still unreadable. He shook his head, a silent confirmation. He didn't look embarrassed, didn't look broken. His gaze said, No, darling, of course I didn't tell them all. Relax.

Novari broke his beautiful gaze. "Who's it between?" she asked.

"Britter, Everson and I," Rusher said, "obviously you've got to put the Captain in there, but we're thinking he's not nearly as irresistible without his hat on."

Novari let out a loud, startling laugh. She caught it quickly, pursing her lips to stop herself. In the process, she cut her lip on her tooth, tasting iron immediately.

The table was quiet after her reaction, so Rusher continued on, "Then you can include Bates and Starle, if you want, but you probably don't need to."

Novari shrugged, controlling herself. "It depends," she said.

"It depends?" Everson said, leaning in.

"It depends."

"It depends?" Britter repeated.

"Confidence," Novari said. "The way you move, what you say. You could have dull looks and still be ridiculously attractive. It makes a difference."

"Does it?" Rusher inquired doubtfully.

"Very much," Novari replied.

"Fine," Rusher said. "But for now, scratch all that. Who's the most attractive, simply based on looks?"

"Impartially?" Novari jutted her chin to her left. "Britter. By a long shot."

Britter grinned, throwing his fork at Rusher, who caught it and threw it back. "I told you," he taunted. "It's the light eyes. Silta, I knew you'd back me up. By a long shot." He leaned forward to smack Everson's shoulder.

Bardarian glanced off to his left, distracted. He leaned back even further.

"No, no," Everson said, holding out his arms to fend off the attack. "I don't want impartial. Who cares if you're conventionally pretty, Liam, you're not actually the more attractive individual. Give us the real one, Novari," he said. "The whole deal."

"Yes, the whole deal," Rusher pushed.

"It's not going to be you," Britter said, annoyed.

Novari tried to see what Bardarian was looking at off to the side. She leaned forward, but there was nothing there. She leaned forward so far that her hair dipped into the water glass in front of her. Bardarian glanced back at her, then nodded down to her glass. She looked down, then pulled her hair out of the water. His nonchalant nod, as if he were just a man, not anything to her, left her feeling flustered.

"Who is it, for angels's sake?"

"What?" Novari rung the water out of the ends of her hair.

"The whole deal," Britter pushed.

"Oh." Novari leaned back. "Bardarian."

At the mention of his name, he glanced back at her, but only for a moment. He went back to tapping his knife against the table.

The other boys broke into yells, mad about her choice.

"You're just sucking up. She's just sucking up," Rusher said.

"Sycophant," Everson agreed. "Trying to get strategist."

Novari's head snapped up. Strategist.

She'd been so confused and tired last night that she hadn't thought about how she could use this. If Bardarian really did love her, he'd give her that position if she played it right, wouldn't he? How did she not think of this?

Novari cleared her throat. "Captain," she said. "I'd like to talk to you."

Rusher and Everson continued to argue, but Bardarian finally seemed to focus. He met her gaze for a long moment before he spoke.

"You can go up," he told her, voice low and beautiful as ever. "Give me a minute."

Novari stood and went to the door, glancing behind her. Bardarian had leaned forward to talk to Britter.

She jogged up the stairs again and went to the captain's quarters. The morning was windy, so he'd closed the windows. She saw the book he'd been reading last night, still sitting on his desk without a bookmark. She looked in his room, her feet silent against the cold floors. The sketchbook was on the nightstand still, the pillows imprinted from her, the blankets the way she'd left them. He hadn't been back to sleep.

The door opened behind her, and she spun around a little too fast. She needed to regain her control, calm herself down.

"I think your rank's a little high," he noted, leaning against the wall behind him, keeping the maximum distance.

"You kicked my shirt under your desk," Novari replied.

"Sorry," he said, eyes stone cold.

Novari broke his gaze. She ran through the possibilities in her mind, the angle she would have to shoot this bullet from. She took a step forward and ran a finger along his desk.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked. She'd start with professionalism; he liked that kind of thing.

"Sure," he said.

"Would you disagree that I fit in here?"

He searched her face, trying to understand what was happening. "I wouldn't."

Novari nodded. "I'm the best combatant on the ship, but we both know that's not what I really do best." She took a deep breath, but it was more for him to catch up than for her own collection. "I want to talk about strategist."

His brows furrowed a little, and he glanced down at the floor. "You want to talk about strategist," he repeated.

"I could be an asset. I know women are considered dead weight, but I don't retain any of the qualities that make them a weak link."

He said nothing in response.

"I deserve that position." She took a step closer, her heart fluttering. She walked like it was nonchalant, but he watched her carefully. "We both know it."

He sighed, seemingly realizing she really wasn't here to talk about what he'd said last night. He shifted over to that simple professionalism. "I can't give you that position, Silta, no matter how much you want it. Your gender is a problem, yes, but you're also too young. I can see us there one day, in the future, perhaps."

"I'm too young?" she summarized. "Britter's my age."

"Britter is not your age, he's a year older, and he was born on a ship. You started sailing this year. I hate to throw that insecurity around, but your age is important to our image."

"Like hell it is," Novari snapped, and his lack of a reply only fueled her rage. She didn't like that he knew that her youth was an insecurity to her. She didn't like how he used it as a way to soothe her, some form of comparison. Maybe he was just telling his truth, but to the maze of theories in her mind, it looked like he was reminding her that yes, she was pretty, she was talented, but she would never quite live up to his big, audacious experience. After all, she'd crumbled into some useless girl at his fingertips, and he'd stayed his solid self. Until, of course, those words.

She still had those words to use against him. She wanted to point out she hadn't used it as a first resort, she wanted to bring out the scorebook and insist she get a point for trying to ask the right way first. But what did it matter now? In the end, she would use them against him. She was sure he saw it coming.

"Give me strategist. I'll tell you what you want to hear if you do." She was Silta, after all, and this kind of maliciousness was simply her brand.

He looked at her for a long time. Time stretched forward and back, came to rest around him like some hazy glow.

"What I want to hear," he repeated finally. He broke her gaze and glanced to his left. "You'll tell me you love me if I give you more power? Is that what you're saying?"

Novari searched his eyes, not quite sure what he thought of it yet. "I'll do more than that," she said, taking a step closer. "I'll tell you whatever you want—I'll give you whatever you want. You want me to wear your ring? I'll do it." She took another step, but he shook his head, made some gesture with his hand that made her stop.

"I pity you, Novari," he said, dark eyes firm on her. "I pity your brilliance, because it steals from your normalcy. I knew you would do this."

"Do what?" she insisted, taking another step. She didn't like this turn, didn't like his pushback.

He held out a hand to stop her from moving any further. "This," he said, gesturing to them. "You're self-sabotaging under the guise that it will get you something. You're making a mess of something good."

"Being yours is not good," Novari insisted. "They'll call me your doe-eyed deckhand, your decade-younger fling. If you give me strategist, I can live with the reputation they'll give me."

"And then what? You'll tolerate me, lie through your teeth every night to keep me happy?"

Novari gave an exasperated shrug, trying to calm herself down, bring the ground up to steady her. She softened her voice, tried to resonate with him, "It's not like it would be torture."

"It's unbelievable," he muttered. "You hate your mother for using you as incentive, but it's the first thing you resort to when things get hard. You're trying to sleep your way to power. Your mother is not forcing you to, no man is asking you to. You're your own villain here."

Novari didn't care. She didn't care what he thought about her; she deserved strategist, and if she had to resort to less-than-ideal methods to get it, then so be it.

"If you loved me, you'd give it to me," she snapped.

"You misunderstand the entire concept of love, Novari," he told her. "This plan of yours to climb the political latter won't work for the very reason you thought it would: Someone who loves you doesn't see you as a form of payment. I've tried to show you that every step of the way; I told you you'd gain nothing by sleeping with me, I waited for you to be done with Everson, I comforted you, gave you solace every chance I had. Last night, I was patient. I didn't take more than you gave. I let you know that I would be different from them—and yes, I got caught up in it and said something too soon, but by the Devil, I did everything I could to fix it. I haven't slept yet; I've been with Britter all night and all morning, figuring out what to say. I had it all worked out, my big speech, how to calm you down. How am I supposed to say it to you now, knowing I am nothing more than a means to gain from?" He shook his head, that heartbroken conflict swirling in his eyes. "The most attractive one in the room, isn't that right?"

Novari watched the despair play out on his face. He really was in love. Captain Bardarian had fallen in love with her, and she'd shattered his heart. Edward, Sam, Keira, Milia, Adrian, Bardarian, the cat—how much longer would this go on?

"I didn't mean for this," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to make you love me but now that you do, I have to use it to my advantage. It's all I have." She begged him to understand. "Can't you see that?"

"You know what I see?" he asked, that unusual edge building in his voice. "I see your constant indifference. I see you picking another man over me time and time again. I see your brilliant mind, your long game inspired by your power obsession. I see you forcing tears on my doorstep to make me think you weren't all that invincible—that you needed me. I see you lying to me about coming last night because I gave you a cat, knowing it would get me into that room. I see you having come to me to make me fall in love so you could bring it all down on my head the next day by asking for strategist. I see myself being blind to it all, because I just wanted you to want me."

No, no that was not right. Novari had come to him because she'd wanted him. She had not forced those tears. Everything she'd done had been completely innocent of some bigger scheme, and she hated being accused of manipulating things the one time she hadn't.

"That's not what happened," she told him carefully, trying to showcase her sincerity.

He didn't listen, eyes overcast. "You're destructive, Novari," he said. "Everson can't make you stay, neither can I. The Avourienne doesn't meet your expectations, popularity among the most popular doesn't satisfy you—nothing does. Your infinite scoreboard is exhausting to everyone else, but it never gets old to you. The obsession with turning men to boys, the power struggle, the dysregulated need to win regardless of who you're cutting down. Aren't you tired of this?"

"I didn't do any of this for a bigger reason," Novari insisted, taking another step forward. If she could get close enough to place her hands on his shoulders, calm him down, force him to see the truth, maybe this would all be okay.

"I don't believe you," he said. "I believe you played me like the Siren you are, just like on Canale. I'm so easy, aren't I?"

Novari was losing her patience. She held out her hands to him slowly. "Listen to me—"

"I won't give up my self-respect for you, Novari, I won't. I don't beg, not even for you." He shook his head. "Leave, go complain about how unreasonable I am to Britter—you've already taken everything else, so you might as well have my best friend, too. Take your orders and stay away from me. That's all I—"

"Vallin—" she began to plead.

"No, Novari, I'm done. You're back to square one. Don't call me by my first name, and don't cut me off. I'll let you stay on the ship because I don't have the heart to kill you. Don't ask me for anything, don't ever come up here again."

Novari felt that unfamiliar sting of tears again. Why wouldn't he believe her? She lifted her chin, trying to blink away the rising powerlessness. Perhaps he didn't believe her because it made no sense to. She was manipulative, and she'd been that way to him before. Why should he believe her? She might feel like she was crumbling, but he still saw the version she'd tried so hard to present. Cutthroat Silta. Power-hungry Silta.

She had to accept that it was better this way. She knew what this was turning into, despite her ignorance of it. The reaching for him in the middle of the night, the comfort she felt in fresh linen and wax, the blissful wanting. If she didn't take this out while she had it, she'd never get another one.

"Fine," she said, searching the cracks in the wooden floor. "You've figured it all out—brawny Bardarian, not quite as stupid as he pretends to be, isn't that your game?" She shook her head. If he wouldn't believe her, she'd do her worst. "Yes, it was a plan, and yes, you fell for it."

He merely lifted his chin to the door. He was so calm, so composed. Why couldn't he scream or hit her? Those things, she could counter. The maturity, though, she couldn't. She couldn't stand his perfect poker face. She'd make him lose it.

"You know what the worst part of all this is?" she asked. "It's not that you won't give me strategist, and it's not that I can't trick you. It's that I had to do all this in the first place for nothing in the end. I had to endure you for weeks—I had to sleep with you anyway, and it still got me nothing after all this time."

He did not abandon his face. "Leave," he said.

Novari gritted her teeth. He was winning. She was proving him right with her continuation of this emotional battering, but she couldn't help it.

"You think you're a king," she told him, "but your success boils down to mere luck. Your rock-solid reputation—the confidence, the charisma, the nonchalance—I see through it all. You are nothing more than a boy who just wants to be loved, a man playing at power. You'll never be half of who they think you are."

As she slammed hisdoor behind her, as she nearly tripped from her blurring vision, she realizedthat even though she'd got the last word, even though she knew it pained him tohear those things, even though she'd done everything right to be the winner,she'd still lost.