Alexander tossed a bottle, and Archer caught it. He'd always gone back and forth with drinking, but then again, his life was in tatters enough to drink. He deserved to drink. Drink and talk to his friends who weren't really his friends for one of the last times.

Rusher and Britter didn't seem to mind Archer's freakout. Apparently, to their minds, it was perfectly reasonable. The moment he came back up from the cells, they gave him a pat and went on their normal way. Alli was a tad more flinch-y around him, and Marquis was a little more distant, but that made sense. They didn't understand who Jeanne was, and they didn't understand what happened. Silta, for her part, had gone on as normal, holing herself up in the captain's quarters with a chessboard, moving pieces around and never sleeping.

Archer wondered if he should go up there, talk to her, try to figure out Everson's move, but he truly didn't have any more thoughts to give. He also considered going up because he knew she might sleep if he were there, but he wasn't ready to cross that line again.

"Kingsley?" Liam asked. "Do you have any cons to add to the list?"

Archer rolled his eyes. "I'm not participating."

"Oh, come on. It's fun. And helpful."

"Don't think she finds it fun," Archer pointed out, nodding to Alli beside him.

Alli had curled herself into Liam's side, but her face was irritated. She mumbled something.

"Oh, I've got another," Alexander said. "You can't sleep with other women."

Liam pointed to him. "Good one. That's a con."

Harvi butted in, "But we only dock a handful of times a year. This way, your girl will be on the ship. You can sleep with her whenever you want."

Liam pointed to Harvi. "Good one. That's a pro."

Archer made a face, finally intervening. "That's not really a guarantee."

Liam scrunched up his own face and pointed to Archer. "That's also a good point. I have to deal with the emotional shit. I don't like that."

"She'll deal with your emotional shit," Alli insisted beside him.

Liam elbowed her away. "You don't get to make points."

"This list is about me!"

"Any more cons?" Liam asked, ignoring her.

Alexander raised his bottle. "I have one. Laurier is just generally kind of annoying."

Liam nodded. "She's kind of...pitchy."

"I'm not pitchy."

Alexander covered his ears. "But she's pretty," he said. "Despite the pitch."

Liam looked back at Alli for a moment. "Yeah, okay." He paused. "We're up to, like two pros and eighteen cons."

"Because the four of you are players," Alli argued. "You know nothing about relationships."

"Says the woman that ordered me into one," Liam told her.

Alexander pointed at Archer. "Kingsley does relationships. Ask him how they work."

"I shot one with a pistol and put a knife through the other," Archer pointed out.

"Still," Alexander said. "He's bad at them, but he still does them. What's the point?"

Sighing, Archer took a sip. "Silta likes to learn people, know what they like, what to say, what to do. They do the same to you, so you don't have to keep repeating what you want. That's a pro, no?"

Liam nodded, glancing down at Alli. "You got that one?"

Alli tapped her head. "It's all up here," she said.

"The memory is probably a pro," Harvi pointed out.

"Or a con," Alexander said. "Because she'll remember all the shitty things you do."

Liam nodded again. "Memory is both a pro and a con. Cancels out."

Alli placed her head in her hands. Archer knew right from this moment that her and Liam were never going to work, but he figured it was better to let her figure that out herself.

"She's a little soft," Harvi said. "She might get mad when you kill people. Which you do a lot."

Liam nodded, then turned back to Alli. "Will you get mad at me for that?"

Alli sighed and looked up at him. "Yes? If you kill someone for no damn reason, I'll be mad."

Liam frowned and looked back at Jordan. "Yeah, okay. Put it under cons."

Alli put her head back in her hands.

"You could fall in love," Archer pointed out, attempting to help out Alli. "That's a pro."

Alli looked up and nodded eagerly. "Good. Thank you, Captain. That's a pro."

"You're from different ships," Alexander said. "That's a con for sure. You're not ever going to see her."

The conversation dipped to a slight silence. Everyone wanted to know what agreements Silta and Archer had come to, and if they were going to make some sort of deal after this was over—or go back to navy versus pirates. Archer hadn't provided any information to his crew, and Silta hadn't provided any to hers.

He suspected Alli thought they'd be parting on unfriendly terms. Because of that, he assumed she might ask Archer to stay on the Avourienne. She was so obsessed with Britter that Archer thought she might—plus, since Silta saw her as a prodigy, it was entirely possible she'd let Alli join.

But Alli didn't react the way Archer thought she might. "That's a con, I guess," she mumbled.

Britter patted her on the head twice. "I think there's more cons than pros," he said. "What's the final count?"

"Nine pros, thirty-two cons," Alli said. "Although, almost twenty of those were you guys repeating yourselves in slightly different ways."

Britter made a humming noise. "That's a big number."

"I say ditch her," Alexander said.

"I say keep her," Archer said.

"Thank you, Captain," Alli said to him, eyes sparkling. It was all just some show—Britter and Alli were completely different people, from completely opposite sides. But if they wanted to live like that for a few weeks, no one was going to tell them not to.

Britter turned to Archer. "Since I'm not longer in the loop whatsoever, would you tell me what the plans are when we find the chest, Kingsley?"

Archer sighed and leaned back. "We take out the heart that's in it."

"And do what with it?"

"Give it a few good stabs."

Liam tilted his head. "I like it. What about the other heart?"

Archer frowned. "The other heart?"

"Jeanne's, Archer. Do we stab that one, too?"

Archer considered this. "What happens to her if we kill Everson and she stays alive?" he asked. "Does she go back to normal, then?"

Alexander cleared his throat. "My understanding of it is that if you kill Everson, that won't break the loyalty Jeanne has for him. She'll just mourn him forever, get depressed—might end her life, too."

"Okay, we'll get rid of her, too," Britter said before Archer could reply. "There's no sense in her living like that.

Archer looked up at him. It made sense, of course, but Jeanne had been given a second chance at life. She used to be sick and deathly, and now she'd just die a second time, even though she was healthy.

He didn't answer as he glanced over at Harvi. Silta hadn't been planning with anyone, and Britter just mentioned he was being kept out of the loop. Perhaps he should go up there. Just figure out what was going on.

He excused himself to leave the common room. He passed by Eiler, who waved and gestured for him to come over. Reluctantly, Archer went over. Eiler, as always, was playing a round of darts with Valour and Diver.

"Evening, Captain. How's your finger?" the boy asked.

Archer smiled. "It's fine. Bit painful, but that's that."

Eiler smiled back. He didn't know the truth of how Archer had broken his finger. For some reason, the story that had spread around was that Archer had been helping with some barrels and dropped one on his hand. In fact, outside of the crew that had been there, no one knew about the fight, and since Silta hadn't been out of the captain's quarters other than the one time to talk to Archer in the cells, no one had seen her damage, either.

"Well, look, Cap. Vikki's been saying that she was supposed to have a talk with Silta about Cravern, the place where the map is. Apparently it's got a bunch of sneaky things to it and this star pattern that has to be followed, but Silta never called her up to discuss it. You know anything about that?"

Archer shook his head as Vikki poked her head into the conversation. She handed Archer a stack of papers. "I drew these up—they should have all the info in there. If you're on your way up, would you mind dropping them off up there?" she asked.

Archer nodded. "Sure. Anything else you needed?" he asked Eiler.

"No, sir. That's all. Hope you have a good night." He took Vikki with him just as she was about to say something else.

Turning away from them and thumbing through the papers, Archer left the common room and jogged up the balcony steps. He rapped on the door a few times, but no response came. He knocked once more before he pushed the door open himself.

"Novari? Valour has some papers for you—" he cut off. The room was a complete mess—most of Bardarian's things scattered across the floor. But the closer he looked, the more he realized that there was, in fact, an order to the chaos. The objects were all about a foot apart, placed in the middle of their own square, lined by rope.

She'd drawn up a life-sized chessboard.

"Put them on the desk," she said. She was walking methodically around the side of the board, watching the pieces carefully. Her hair was down but unbraided, which he'd never seen before. Her eyes were calculating as she moved.

"You're—playing chess?" Archer asked, maneuvering around the board to the desk. He placed the papers down, but there were so many strewn about the surface that it was doubtful she would ever see them.

She hummed in agreement. "Come look at this."

Archer glanced back at her. "The game?"

"Yes. Come."

Archer walked carefully around the back of the board to where she was standing. "Couldn't you do this with the regular chessboard?" he asked.

"What are you seeing here?" she asked.

Archer glanced down at the board. "I don't know what any of these pieces are, Novari."

"The ship mock-ups are pawns. Those two things with the chips are the bishops, that's the rook and that—"

"That doesn't make any sense."

Silta sighed with frustration. She turned around and pointed down at the coffee table, where the actual chessboard was laid out, the pieces already engaged in a full game.

Archer sat down on the chair in front of it, gauging the board. "How does this make any sense to you?" he asked. "I mean, I understand the metaphor, but how does it actually translate to chess?"

"Can't explain everything to you," she mumbled, walking around the life-sized board again. "Tell me what you see."

Archer sighed, looking at the pieces. "White's in check."

"Right. How do they get out?"

"Move, block or kill," Archer said. He gestured to the pieces. "Doesn't look like they can kill, they can't move, so they have to block."

"With what?"

Archer placed his finger on the tallest piece. "The queen. That's all they can do."

"But then they lose the queen."

"Better than losing the game."

"But how are they supposed to win with no queen?"

Archer leaned back in the chair. He'd seen Bardarian sit here before, and there was still the faint smell of wax in the cushion. "What is this helping?" he asked.

She sat on the arm of his chair, watching the board. "Humour me, Kingsley," she said.
"After the block. How can they win that game without a queen?"

Archer turned his gaze back to the pieces. "I don't think they can. You're white, aren't you? You're afraid of losing your queen somehow?"

She placed her arm over the back of the chair, used her fingers to turn his face. "Just look at the board, Kingsley."

"Who's the queen?" Archer asked. "You?"

"No," she said. "I'm not on the board. I'm me."

"Right. Then who's the queen?"

She spun around. "Tell me how that game is won by white, Kingsley."

"I don't think it is won by white, Novari."

"You're not thinking."

"If you know the answer, why are you asking?"

"Because I'm going to forget the answer. I'm going to forget this all in a mere matter of minutes, and someone else needs to remember."

He looked back down at the board. "I don't see a way white wins in the near future, and they're going to lose the queen. But this pawn here—it's close to the far side. A few more jumps and it gets to be traded. If I were white, I'd sacrifice the queen, play some sort of distraction while that pawn moves, then trade the pawn back for the queen."

She snapped her fingers, looking over at Archer. "Exactly."

Archer watched her walk the rim of the board. He glanced over at the real chessboard. Black had lost all their important players, but white had nearly all of them. However, almost all of black's pawns were on the far side of the board. Archer frowned, then said, "But he has a lot of pawns over on your side, too. Does that mean something?"

She continued to walk around the rim of the lifelike board, eyes searching a metaphor that didn't makes sense to Archer.

"Everything means something."