By the time he snatched Jeanne to his side and slipped the same blade he'd used to destroy their sail from his boot, the crew recognized he wasn't going easy. In a matter of seconds, there were four pistols trained on his forehead and four more cutlasses extended.

Silta raised her hands, silently ordering everyone around her to freeze. Archer backed Jeanne into the rail, his measly four-inch dagger not much of a barrier between them and the crew.

The wind breezed over the deck, ruffling the whisps of hair in front of Archer's face. "Don't touch us," he breathed. "Don't come any closer."

With an utterly blank expression, Silta took a step forward.

A test of his nerve, of his willingness to back up his bold demands. Don't let my death be in vain. Oh, he knew how to play this game. Wrenching back his arm in one sharp movement, he threw the knife at her.

He swore he heard the faint snap of a tendon somewhere near her neck as she leaned out of the way, far too fast to have reacted to his throw; no, she'd calculated it, predicted it down to the inch. Her gaze flicked to the far end of the deck, where his knife embedded in the starboard rail, wobbling slightly. She looked back at him as the entire deck felt silent.

"What now?" she asked, gesturing to his empty hands.

Archer reached for his other boot and pulled out the twin dagger. Someone behind her barked out a laugh.

"Next one goes that way," he declared, nodding towards the mast, where Bardarian had pushed through the crew once more to see the events unfold.

Silta didn't need to check to see who he was referring to. "Go on, then," she said.

Archer didn't take his time deciding if it was the right move. If they wanted a vicious killing soldier, then that's what he'd be. He couldn't show hesitation, couldn't show a weakness on which they could prey. He threw his second knife in the Captain's direction.

Silta stepped back a second before the blade left his hand, reached out to empty space, and caught it.

She twisted from the momentum of the lunge, dropping the knife as soon as she received it, curling her hand into a fist to hide the blood that had drawn. She turned slowly, lips curling into another one of those cunning smiles. "And now?"

Archer rolled his shoulders. "I've got hands."

"So do I."

He felt his options dwindling. She was pushing, taunting, testing to see which level of force he'd break under. Behind him, Jeanne's breath warmed the back of his neck. Please don't let my death be in vain. There would be times his physical skill would be outnumbered, as it was now. He had to exhibit a swift slip into a different game.

"And what about mercy?" he snapped.

"Mercy," she said, feeling out the word as if it were new to her.

"Mercy," he repeated. "You've heard of it?"

"I can't say that I have, love." Too quick to be reacting. Predicting.

Archer felt his opportunity stretch in front of him. "Show us mercy," he said, more demanding than begging. "I'll repay you."

"Repay us," she said. She was big on repeating, on forcing him to fluster.

"However you want." He formed his words like he was thinking of them, like he was coming up with them on the spot and not a year earlier in a strategy session with Farley. "We'll work for you—we'll crew for you."

Her brows raised as if this was the first she was considering the option. Her eyes flickered to Jeanne, a snake to its next meal. "One does not crew for the Avourienne," she said quietly, "without displaying a telling act of loyalty."

Surrendering your previous promises, Farley had told him that morning. Cutting all your ties, breaking you into pieces so they can build you back the way they want you. They force you to kill someone you love.

"I'll do whatever it takes," Archer promised.

"Whatever it takes," she repeated. She tossed a look back to Bardarian, who gave her a slow dip of his chin. "I love that phrase." She pointed a finger of her non-bloody hand at him. "We'll show mercy to you, Kingsley. But hers"—she slid her attention over his shoulder—"will be on you."

Archer reached back for Jeanne, holding her wrist as tight as he could. Had he not told her he loved her down in that rowboat? Had he not told her how brave she was, how utterly honourable a sacrifice she was making? He hoped she could feel it in his touch, for it was all he had left to give her.

"I don't know what that means," he said, confident but unsure.

"If you want to live," she clarified, "you're going to kill her."

He knew it was coming. He'd known since that morning, since his breakdown on the sandy beach. He'd had hours and hours to digest it, to let Jeanne convince him to do it. He'd known it was coming, but to hear her say it was unfathomable. It made it real, solidified it as a fact, as something that really and truly was going to happen.

He opened his mouth to protest, to say something, but nothing came forward except a weak, "But I—"

"But you love her, Kingsley?" Silta crooned, taking a long step forward. "But she's your everything, your reason for living?" She reached for his forearm—the one that led to Jeanne's hand. "Kingsley, love," she said, so purposely distracting in close proximity, every fleck of those hazel eyes, every sun-kissed freckle amid her golden skin. "It's both of you, or it's one of you." She closed her fingers around his arm, pulling it from Jeanne's hand. Step one: separate them, break their physical contact, create distance. "How badly do you want it to not be you?"

He felt the warmth from Jeanne's fingers drop from his, felt his feet take a step as Silta pulled him towards the rest of the crew. Something cold touched his palm, and he looked down to find a pistol being pressed into his hand.

"Does she know you, love?" Silta whispered, one hand on each of his shoulders as she turned him to face Jeanne again, standing so small by the rail still. "Does she understand all those internal quarrels you have?" Her words were dry and meaningless to his ears, but then she leaned a little closer, spoke a little softer, and said something that felt a little too real, "Does she know that behind your bravado, behind your wall of simplicity lies a far more sinister character? Someone who finds a future with her domestic—confining, even?"

She said the words so quietly, Archer wasn't sure if he'd heard them right, and he hoped to the angels that Jeanne hadn't heard them at all. It was manipulative, a well-practiced mechanism. Distance them physically, then push them apart in his head. It was a chess game with stunning execution, so Archer made his choice. Before that woman could say something dark—before she could taint Jeanne's last moments with serpentine twisting of the facts—he would put a stop to it. It would end now, while Jeanne was still the love of his life, while he was still hers. While they both still knew it. He raised the pistol.

A murmur of gasps chorused behind them. Shock, perhaps, at how easy he was to convince. Near the rail, Jeanne's eyes widened, pleading. To everyone else, she was pleading not to be murdered. To him, she was pleading to rest, begging for the pain and suffering to be over.

The bravery, the purpose. How he wished he could be as sure as her, as solid in his beliefs. He cocked the pistol, watching the light that had long faded in her eyes.

Silta's finger pressed down on the barrel, lowering it from Jeanne's forehead. "No mercy shots," she said.

Archer's jaw did not clench with anger, and his teeth didn't grind in frustration. Like hell he would give these people that level of viciousness. Like hell he would let them strip him of his mercy.

The murmurs rose as Archer's aim stayed on Jeanne's stomach, where she'd die in a few minutes from blood loss, in pain. They whispered about what he might do. Ten coins says he does it. Fifteen says he hurls his guts over the side of the rail the moment it's over. Twenty says he turns and aims for Silta instead.

For a moment, Archer considered it. He could turn, and he could shoot the Siren. He could aim for the Captain, too, if he moved quick enough.

But killing them wasn't some incredible feat of ocean-wide change. They were only moulds, only plastic versions of a role, easily replaced by the next immoral beings. To kill them would be to squash a single wasp instead of smoking out the nest. It wasn't the change Jeanne had asked to die for.

Archer raised the pistol back to Jeanne's forehead, where she'd be dead instantly.

"No mercy shots," came Bardarian's warning.

She looked so small, standing over there by the rail, so defenseless. But how could a woman so strong ever be any fragment of weak? Jeanne was nothing of the sort. She was a sacrifice, a person with honour and values far superior to anyone on this deck. Archer tilted his chin down, told her with his eyes how much he admired her.

She tilted hers up. Rebellious, even now.

A breath in.

And a breath out.

"No mercy shots—"

He pulled the trigger. Jeanne was dead before Bardarian even finished his sentence.

She slumped to the deck, blonde curls fanning out, covering her face. Something red pooled around her head, creeping out from under her hair.

Archer snapped his gaze from the red, refusing to see it. He played hardened and unaffected as he turned to Bardarian, eyes cold. But she was dead—right there on the deck across from him. She was dead she was dead she was—

The crew didn't murmur as they held their breath, waiting. The Captain glanced at Silta. Disobedient, he seemed to tell her. Incapable of taking orders.

Silta's eyes narrowed as she looked from Archer to whatever had come of Jeanne. She returned Bardarian's gaze. Defiant, she corrected him. Cunning and useful.

Bardarian pursed his lips. It was her conclusions, her research that formed his opinion, but it was his choice to make. He peered at Archer, still averting his gaze from the pooling red.

The crew waited in stiff silence to see what the consensus would be. Archer didn't bother to wonder if he'd wasted Jeanne's life—if they'd kill him and dump both their bodies over the rail for what he'd done. He knew strategy, and he knew these pirates. If there was one thing they valued, it was strength and originality.

"Welcome aboard the Avourienne, Kingsley," Bardarian said finally. "Do something like that again, and you'll join your woman." His voice was firm and solid, no longer the charismatic, grinning man who'd greeted them.

The crew kept silent as the Captain wove through them, going back to whatever list of things he had to do today. The first mate followed him, as did the helmsman, but the rest of them kept quiet, eyes following the important people as they left the deck.

And when they were finally gone, the remaining ranks erupted in celebration, breaking into action, shoving him around, congratulating him on joining the most esteemed collection of sailors in the ocean. They jostled at his shoulders, tried to lift him in excitement.

In the corner of Archer's eye, the blood pooled even further, drawing his attention. His thoughts won, and his gaze moved to see Jeanne, dead, facedown in that red puddle.

He pushed his way across the deck, shoving bodies out of the way as quick as possible. The red pooled, the nausea curled up in his throat, and those pirates kept celebrating this murder. He played hardened, played unaffected as he finally reached the rail.

He threw up into the roiling navy water below.