"Get your head out of your arse, Clikk!" Mr. Bentley snatched my book away and cracked me over the head with it. I had considered myself entirely hidden away behind the stacks of luggage and cargo, but now I saw most of it had been dissembled and cataloged, leaving me exposed.

"Sorry, Mr. Bentley! I was appraising it. Turned out to be a harder task than I thought."

"Oh really? What's it worth?"

"Upon further inspection, nothing, I realize."

"Turn it into privy papers. Now get to work on those padlocks, boy. You should have been done ages ago."

The dead captain's steamer lay before me with padlocks across four latches. I stuck my betties in the locks, tripping them, one by one. Baker came by to watch me work.

He said, "What great treasure do you think Dirk's got in his cabin for the emperor? I'm thinking it might be the original crown jewels of the dead king."

In addition to our raids, we were to sell some precious heirloom to our nation's hateful usurper, an heirloom so precious, the man was willing to negotiate with pirates to get it. Captain Dirk had not provided us with any details, but Mr. Bentley assured us the deal was sound.

"Could be anything," I said, struggling to focus with Baker in my ear. "Only thing I'd ever give the emperor is a dagger in his gut."

"Treasonous thoughts, Clikk."

"We got reason for treason."

"Regicide, though?"

"He ain't no king! He's a usurping mongrel."

A smile tugged at the corner of Baker's mouth as he shook his head at me. He nudged me. "What you plan to do with your share?"

A bitter feeling stewed in my gut as I thought of accepting the emperor's coin. It would be one thing to steal it, but trading with him was enough to make my blood boil. I did not want to get into any of that, so I shrugged and said, "I don't know. Got any ideas yourself?"

"The usual. Wine, women, cards, a hot bath. And if I'm not dead after the first week, I'm going to gather all my girls in Amaranthia and set them up in brownstones as kept women."

"Really?"

"Really. Then I'll take some mansion on a city block and host a séance twice a month."

I laughed outright at him. "I never took you for a spiritualist."

"I ain't one, but I've always wanted to be one of them eccentric aristocrat types. I'll walk with an ivory cane, even though I don't need one. My home will be decked with priceless artifacts, a fireplace in every room, a pantry fully stocked with Skye and the finest cricket fudge in the world."

"Cricket fudge?" I trembled with a mixture of humor and utter revulsion.

"Have you never had it? It's the best."

I covered my mouth, sure I would be sick. "That's foul, Baker."

"Don't rag on something you never tried. They sell it on the street in Locwyn. Taste of home, that is."

I popped the last padlock and slid it from the latch, opening the steamer. A musty odor lifted as I unloaded it. I was pulling out velvet frockcoats and tailored shirts when a spider the size of a cat slipped out and crawled up my arm. I flung it away, shrieking.

"Don't hurt yourself, Fledgling!" jeered one of the cousins as they both passed me. I hated the cousins. The cousins were the only men on the ship related by blood, and one could always count on them to make scornful comments at every opportunity. Whatever one of them said, the other would laugh.

"Don't mind them," said Baker, scooping up the tarantula and cradling it in his palms. "Everybody's afraid of something."

"I'm not," I said. "It surprised me is all."

"Not afraid of anything? Not afraid of lightning? Fire? Falling?" He spoke softly as if he worried the fates might hear him and get ideas. He offered me the tarantula. "Do you want to hold it?"

"I'm fine, thanks." In the bottom of the steamer, I found a paper bag. I opened it, and inside were a bunch of dead crickets caked in powder. "Look, Baker. A snack for you."

"I think this spider might have been the captain's pet."

I started packing up the steamer. "What kind of person keeps a spider as a pet?"

Baker frowned, turning his hand as the creeper crawled over his fingers. I could tell he was considering it.

"Oh, no, Bakes. That thing ain't coming in the sleeping quarters. Toss it overboard."

"We can't. It's too beautiful. I'll give it to my girl in Briarton."

Seeing him so enamored, I conceded to his will. Baker had been my first real friend, one I held dear to my heart. My life had been filled with fatherly types, allies, acquaintances, and one truly reprobate lover, but never before had I known a true friend.

Sometimes I would feel a twinge of guilt for perpetuating the great lie of my sex. But it pleased me how, even as time went on, Baker was never the wiser to my ruse. People generally assessed gender based on one's silhouette. My natural silhouette being boxy, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, I had an easy time standing in as a boy. And once the framework of masculinity was established, men never suspected I was anything else.

I stood quite tall for a girl, tall enough to meet the eye of most men, even to look down on others. At sixteen, I considered the widening of my hips to be the greatest of my body's betrayals, but life was always hard, food always scarce, so this development turned out to be somewhat stunted.

One of my greatest advantages, which I suspected was a result of malnutrition, was bleeding only once every four to six months, and for no longer than a day or two. My lover Mikhail told me this was unnatural for a girl. He said a girl should bleed every single month, and if she didn't, it meant she was in trouble.

I still remembered going with Mikhail that first time to the midwife to have her take a look at me. She laughed at us and sent us away with a lambskin.

"You aren't with child, dearie. And thank your lucky stars for that. With those hips, you would likely die a violent and miserable death."

"So why don't I get my monthlies?" I asked.

"Your humors are imbalanced. Too much bile in your gut. Eat more fruit. But don't get yourself up the duff." Her laugh was shrill and jarring. It rang in my memory.

A boy without a pillar and a girl without her monthlies, I was not one or the other, but rather something in between. I accepted it and got on with my life. But when I played the boy to join Dirk's crew, it hardly seemed a lie. I could say with pride that I was not a girl—and to do anything like one was humiliating.

I continued to study men, the way they rolled their cigarettes, the way they spit, adjusted their trousers, or occupied space with confidence. And I could laugh with all the rest at girls' expenses; women and their hysterics, their silliness, their squeaky voices and little minds. And yet each time I laughed, I hurt inside, thinking of my mother and how much I still missed her.

She wanted so many things for me when she was alive. She used to speak of weddings and lineage. This dress will be yours someday, Mona; but perhaps you will want your own wedding gown.

"Everything all right?" Baker asked me, noticing that I had been staring at the ledger of goods for several minutes.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Thinking about a girl or something?"

"Or something."

"Get your head out of the clouds, mate."

He tugged the strap of my flight cap and wandered off toward the bow. It was then I noticed a dark shape suspended just beyond the veil of cloudsea to the North.

The sight of her jarred me out of my thoughts. I stood erect and called her out to my brothers. "Ship! Passenger vessel!" My call echoed across the deck as others saw her too.

She was no ordinary ship. She hung motionless in the air, as still as a speck of black mold. To see such a thing in the sky gave me a chill.

"Approach with caution!" commanded Dirk. "Prepare to shoot her down if she makes trouble."

His voice could not conceala layer of concern. A feeling of deep foreboding stewed in my gut as we nearedthat menacing shadow.