PART I: THE MAP

The sound of the cork popping made every crew member in the common room of the Kipperly flinch. All but one; Archer didn't flinch much anymore.

Lyra bumped his arm with her elbow. "Champagne?" she asked.

It took him a moment to realize she spoke. He shook his head, for he hadn't touched that soul-stealing liquid in a year.

She rolled her eyes and got to her feet, telling a few seamen to clean up the spills—hardly a job for the second-in-command, but she never liked to stay in the same place for long.

Archer glanced back to where he'd been looking before Lyra interrupted. Past the crowd, the smiling officers, all the ranks of the navy he wasn't yet accustomed to, was someone who didn't belong. She wasn't wearing the cool blue uniform of those who worked for the King but rather sharp, rebellious black with a crimson red line under her collar. She leaned against the frame of the common room door, chin pointed down but eyes tilted up in a familiar eerie look. She lifted an elegant hand and gave him a conspiring wave, lyrical eyes speaking volumes. Oh, how I adore haunting you, love.

Archer blinked, once, twice. The more he focused on the details of her, like the individual strands of her hair or the ink on her skin, the less real she became. She'd break down into a million little pieces floating around, not something he could touch or feel.

That was what dead people were, after all.

"I got you some anyway." Lyra sat once more, offering him a cheap flute of champagne. She briefly looked over to the far side of the room, following his gaze, then held the glass further for him to take.

"Thank you." He set the flute on the table.

She huffed as she leaned back. He could pinpoint the exact moment she decided to stop fussing over him and start listening to whatever whoever around them was saying. It was Officer Birkman talking this time, but it was always one of them. Officers—more qualified for their positions because of some sort of education from some academy. A navy hierarchy for a navy ship. They'd insisted Lyra couldn't be second-in-command without such a prestigious education, but considering Archer didn't have it either, it had been let go. In the end, she had one more pip on her shoulder than any of those officers, and Archer had two.

A few deckhands—seamen, here in the navy—howled with laughter from across the room. He'd passed by the same two boys in the hallway earlier, and they'd tripped over themselves on their way to salute, no laughter in their eyes.

He brought up the saluting thing to his crew officer—the educated man serving as a link between the high and low ranks—and asked for the deckhands not to salute, especially if they were working. The officer advised him that rank in the navy was more rigid than the piracy he was used to, and saluting was only a form of respect he deserved. Oh, and sir? It's seamen.

"Captain."

He glanced up to see that same man now. Officer Gladstone was all breezy condescension, clearly wounded by his placement with a captain half his age. Archer, in turn, had taken to imagining all the messy ways Gladstone's pompous white collar could be stained.

"The scout just informed me of an incoming ship, sir," the crew officer said. "Pirate flag, he believes."

Lyra's posture straightened. "He believes?" she snapped. "That's hardly a thing to be unsure about."

Hardly a thing to be unsure about was hardly her way of speaking, but that was navy Lyra, no more made-up words or double negatives; she adjusted from piracy to royalty much better than he had.

"I glanced myself, ma'am," Gladstone said. "It's a pirate flag."

Lyra glanced over at Archer now, face pale. Relax, he wanted to tell her. Are you so terrified of made-up horror stories?

"It's dark," he said instead, which was essentially a shorthand version of saying if it were them, we'd already be dead.

Lyra's fingers gingerly tapped his arm. "We should still check," she said cautiously.

It was nothing but an irrational fear, one Archer had long ago stuffed down, but he rose from his seat all the same. As he left the common room with Lyra and Gladstone in tow, he caught sight of her over there across the room again, gemstone eyes shining. Maybe it is us out there, Kingsley. People aren't the only kind of ghosts.

She would have loved the grand stories they told of that ship these days: sunk in a fiery squabble for control only to be resurrected by the Devil to ride the waves once more. The ghost ship for the ghost crew.

In reality, Archer guessed it had never gone down in the first place, but rather the ranks simply shuffled around to accommodate the losses. They'd move on, but revenge was not a luxury they could afford without their most powerful people.

"Seaman Gray was the one to spot it," Gladstone said as he led them out on the dark deck. He gestured to a young boy by the rail and whispered, "Remember your salute, boy."

Archer resisted the urge to smack the boy's hand out of his salute. He pulled out his spyglass, then handed it to Lyra so she could calm herself by confirming that it was not, in fact, the ghost ship coming to haunt them. "You see a name, Gray?" he asked as Lyra stepped forward to have a closer look.

Gray was blinking quickly. "Yes, Captain. The Forlorn, sir."

Archer turned to Lyra, giving her a look. She pursed her lips and glanced back at the deckhand. "You're sure about that name?" she pressed.

"Yes ma'am. Officer Birkman says I've got the eyes of a bat. In the dark, of course. Since bats can't see well in the—"

The crew officer cleared his throat, nudging the deckhand to stop speaking. "Thank you, Gray. Captain?"

Archer kept his eyes on the black water and the approaching ship. "Do we have a scout up?" he asked.

"No, sir. Do you know of the Forlorn from your pirate—"

"I'd like to see what colour they're flying," Archer interrupted. "Send him back up."

The crew officer nudged Gray, who raced back to the mast.

"No need, Cap!" Marquis called from the topdeck, where he'd been handling the wheel. "White, sir." His eyesight, Archer trusted.

Lyra lifted her brows. "White flag from the Forlorn," she summarized, because they did know the Forlorn. From their pirate days, of course.

"How the times have changed," Archer noted. "Let's tether them and see what they want. Have the combat team on standby."

"Yes, sir. I'll send it down, sir." Gladstone disappeared.

"I thought they retired," Lyra said carefully, looking out through his spyglass again.

"Perhaps not. They never got their bounty," he pointed out.

Marquis passed off the wheel to his second-in-command. He jogged down the steps, spry even at his age. "Captain, what could they want?" he wondered.

Archer glanced over. "The Forlorn is an old ship with an old crew. I wouldn't worry about it." He was more comfortable around Marquis than most of his officers, for the helmsman had been handpicked by Lyra.

As the crew began to disperse into their places, the ship's two main strategy officers, the Rodriguez twins, came to the rail. They had been picked by Archer himself, but he'd only taken both because one wouldn't come without the other.

"White flag from a pirate?" Eric Rodriguez wondered, glancing out at the water. He was the one they had to settle for so they could have Isabella, the truly cunning sibling. She hadn't been allowed to go through the navy as a woman, and every school she'd tried had rejected her on the same basis.

To Archer, all that mattered was her near-perfect logical scores and the fact that if they didn't snatch her up and put her on the good side, the pirate crews would turn her familiar darkness into something even more familiar. She was silent most of the time, only opening her mouth to mention something essential or offer him some unprofessional innuendo to really drive home the fraternizing-with-strategists reputation.

"They're here to pillage?" Eric guessed.

"Probably not," Archer replied.

Isabella took a step forward, cold fingers grazing his on the rail. "The Captain of the Forlorn walks with a cane because of you," she said evenly, looking out at the approaching ship. "I'd say revenge is a possibility."

Archer watched her. So she'd done her homework, but she fell short sometimes. She and everyone else was just a step below the mastermind he'd once been acquainted with.

"He does not walk with a cane because of me," Archer corrected. "He walks at all because of me."

"Quite the gamble," she noted.

"Caper doesn't want revenge," Lyra interjected. "If anything, he wants protection."

That could be a possibility, but it didn't feel...right. Archer trusted that feeling in his gut more than anything else. If it told him he shouldn't be afraid—as it had the past year—then he believed there was no danger in sight.

The Forlorn drew up to the Kipperly, far smaller and less equipped than Archer's monstrosity. They placed hooks to stabilize their position for a few moments before they heard the Captain speak up.

"Archer Kingsley! My, my. As I live and breathe." Captain Kernite took a step across the plank without asking for permission, black cane in hand. He grinned, rotting teeth on full display.

"What can I do for you?" Archer asked blankly.

Kernite gave him a slanted smile as he took the final step onto the Kipperly. "Last I saw, you were crewing for Bardarian. Hell of a man to overthrow."

"I didn't overthrow him," Archer said. He did not say it with malice, but the implied words floated into the air regardless. I killed him.

Across the deck, some of the crew shifted their weight, uncomfortable. Kernite's expression changed too, but Archer had trouble reading it in the darkness. "Fact remains, Captain," he said steadily, "you've come a long way."

"Thank you."

Kernite took a deep breath. Perhaps he remembered Archer differently, or perhaps he was right in assuming that whatever happened on that evil ship simply changed him.

"I have some information for you," Kernite offered. "In the name of peace."

Archer gestured to the captain's quarters. He did not have a beautiful balcony to address his crew on insatiable quests, but he had quarters all the same. He did not help Kernite up the stairs, only glanced at his crew officer. "Tie them off. Don't let them move."

Lyra came up the stairs after Archer, but Kernite gave her a solemn look, panting heavily from the exertion of the stairs. "I'd like to discuss this alone, if you don't mind."

Archer closed the door behind him, leaving Lyra outside. He pulled out his chair and sat down, not dragging one over for Kernite. He might be permanently injured, but Archer chose not to forget the hundreds Kernite had murdered in his own peak days.

Kernite placed both hands on his cane. "The Forlorn was attacked last night."

Archer frowned, leaning back. "Hardly my concern."

"My scouts didn't report anything," Kernite continued. "But then suddenly we were under attack. They came from nowhere. Like ghosts."

Archer did not show concern nor terror, but there, deep in the depth of his gut, was an unfamiliar tug. Perhaps now, Kingsley, is the time to feel fear, it said.

Kernite gave a haunting smile, his eyes like pits. "My scouts were dead by the time I was on deck. Half my crew, too. Tied us up and tossed us belowdecks while they scrounged the ship. It was dark and disorienting.

"They searched the ship all night. Didn't take anything, as far as I can tell. They left as the sun rose. I dragged myself over to one of the portholes to watch them sail away."

Archer had begun to tap the desk in anticipation despite his best efforts.

"It was the Avourienne," Kernite confirmed.

Archer stopped tapping. "Exactly how sure are you of that?"

Kernite glanced to his side, then hobbled over to the chair in the corner and settled down. "You think I don't know the colour of that ship?" he asked. "The smell of death? I know the hands of that crew, and I know the Avourienne. I'd bet my life on it."

Archer leaned back again. So they were out there, just as he'd assumed. "What were they looking for?"

"I'm not sure. What's more confusing is why they left me alive."

Archer shook his head. That wasn't confusing at all. "Dead men don't talk."

Kernite raised a grey brow.

"Attacked in the middle of the night, but sailed away at dawn so you could identify them?" Archer offered. "Attacked in the middle of the night, in close proximity to my ship? This isn't about you, Kernite."

"Ah," the old man said. "A message."

"A threat," Archer corrected. "Do you have any clue what they'd be searching your ship for?" he repeated, because that was the puzzling part.

Kernite shrugged. "I've been known to come into possession of a few valuable things. Since I used to align with the Avourienne, many chose my ship as a place to store their riches for a price. They could've been looking for anything."

"Who was captaining it?" Archer asked.

Kernite closed his eyes, resting his head on the back of the chair. "The navigator was giving orders, but his friend, that strategist with the bright eyes. He was the one in charge."

"Britter," Archer clarified. "He had on the hat?" Both Rusher and Britter had come up in Archer's list of people who might've asserted control of the Avourienne. Britter was by far their best and only option, despite how young he was.

"No," Kernite said. "But he was the boss. Capable and deadly as ever. I thought they'd go down in flames losing Bardarian and Silta."

There it was, those names. So fluid, so heavy, just like he remembered.

He kept his thoughts bundled up. The Forlorn had been attacked as a warning, a reintroduction to the world. That was part of it, without a doubt, but why do the search? What were they looking for?

"If you see the Avourienne again," Archer said, getting to his feet, "you can let them know I've received their message."

"Anything I should pass on to them?" Kernite asked, if not for the sake of novelty.

Archer glanced at him, opening the door as Kernite stood. "Sure," he said. He had the entire navy fleet behind him. Had a ship three times the size with a crew five times the size. And above all, he had his own personal skill that none of them had ever held up against.

"Tell them they're welcome to come get their fight."