Archer watched the moonlight dance across the wall of his room in the form of waves. He watched them twirl and jump, each water droplet a part of something bigger. His eyes were heavy and his body was exhausted, but he stared at those waves as if staying awake meant staying alive. In a way, it felt like it did.

He needed a redemption, a moment away from all the madness to refocus on his purpose. Still, he was far too antsy to simply sit and think. He needed to be out there, doing something that was helping to move his mission along. So when the moon was high in the sky, throwing those same dancing lights across the wall at the right angle, he sat up in his bed and pulled on his boots. He walked silently, opened the door and looked both ways quickly, but the hallway was dark and empty.

The walkway was quiet and so were the stairs. The common room above him was dead silent; the pirates often stayed awake into the late hours of the night, but it was past late, teetering into the early hours of the morning.

Jackson was the scout tonight, but Archer easily avoided him. After all, he didn't need to go on deck. He just needed to slip by the stairs. To the cells.

The Avourienne was nicer, for the most part, than even a king's ship—but the cells weren't as luxurious as the rest. Even the hallway that led to them was uncleaned and smelled of algae. The bars of the cells were rusting but still strong, the locks unbreakable. He wondered briefly where the key would be hidden, but he didn't need it tonight.

Kerian Kain, heir to the throne and Prince of the Cobalts, was slouched against the back wall of his cell, his neck bent at an odd angle as he slept. The floors barely glistened in the damp atmosphere, the moonlight just filtering down.

Archer pulled the stool out from the other end. He positioned it in front of the Prince's cell, unsure where to start, unsure of even what to call his former roommate, unsure how to wake him up at all. He settled for whirling a little piece of softened wood at him, which startled him awake immediately.

"Kingsley? Is that you?" Kerian asked, squinting in the darkness.

"It's me," he replied.

Kerian scooted forward so he could see better. He wrapped his hands around the bars, the undersides of his nails spotless and the pads of his fingers uncalloused. Everything about the Prince reminded Archer of something he'd missed, like those obsidian locks he brushed away from his face.

"Came down just to stare intensely at me, did you?" Kerian asked.

Archer leaned back on his chair, rolling out the kinks in his neck. "I want to talk."

"Of course," Kerian said. "Curiosity is a flaw of yours."

"What do you think I have to be curious about?"

He was met with a royal smile, full of those sharp teeth. "How I pulled it off."

"I know how you pulled it off," Archer replied. "Nobody expects an utterly useless and incapable man to be much of anything." He leaned back, watching the Prince carefully as he spoke, "Not the mention the fact that you didn't pull off anything. You're in a cell, and Silta lives to see another day."

Kerian tilted his head, then glanced over at the stairs. "Well, you are half right. I didn't pull it off quite the way I intended, but considering we're headed right back home, I would say it worked out in my favour. I believe I have you to thank for that."

"Me?"

"I heard you and Silta talking. She suspects you convinced Bardarian to head back to the Kingsland."

So Kerian had been eavesdropping, keeping tabs. An informant and an assassin.

"Answer me this," Archer began. "You're no killer—I can see it in your eyes, clear as day, yet you allegedly set out to murder your own sister?"

"She is not my sister," Kerian told him. He kept his cool, seemed to excel at emotional maintenance. "She is my half-sister, and not necessarily a half I'm proud of."

"Regardless. You're no assassin."

"I maintain a certain level of morality, as do you. Nevertheless, we find ourselves here."

Archer searched Kerian's eyes, dark and warm. The Prince was grouping the both of them together, implying they had similar tasks.

"Silta is no danger to your throne," Archer said. "She's illegitimate, so she has no right to the crown, and she probably doesn't even want it. Queens have no power."

"You jump to conclusions too fast, Kingsley. She has every right to the crown; she's older, and her heart beats royal blood regardless of her mother."

The bounty. The King needed Silta dead, had to ensure she didn't take his throne. All this time, it'd really been that simple.

Kerian smiled at his realization. "You are right, however, to assume she doesn't want the crown, but I think we both know who does."

It made Archer's mouth dry just to think about it. That pretty ring on her elegant finger, that matching one on his. Bardarian's next part of his insatiable quest for power: marry his queen, become the king.

"The people wouldn't have it," Archer tried.

"I believe they would," Kerian told him. "You only see the image my father curates; you do not see the uprisings nor the riots. The people are so desperate for change that they've lost the ability to care who ends up making it. A woman, another tyrant—at this point, Kingsley, they'll take anyone."

Archer shook his head, but it made sense. That man who'd saved Silta from a bullet in Port Marcel, those whispers of admiration in Port Kiver. Still. "Silta is not someone who gets roped into an entire kingdom simply because someone gives her a diamond ring for it," he pointed out.

Kerian laughed, shaking his head. "Everyone sees it but you. That woman is perfectly capable of killing Bardarian and taking the Avourienne for herself. She is effortlessly able of finding her own ship, training her own crew, then blowing the competition to bits. Do you not think that's her dream—power of her own accord? Don't you think it is the very thing her soul craves? Why do you think she does not have it yet, Kingsley?"

He was right. Silta may have needed Bardarian at one point, but that point had long passed. Any desire she possessed to leave had to be balanced by an undoubtedly powerful emotion.

"She's in love," Archer said.

"A life-altering, desperate kind of love," Kerian corrected. "I don't just know it because my father knows it, I know it because despite all her posturing and her attempted nonchalance, it's obvious. Why do you think Bardarian's incredible ego hasn't dissolved him from the inside out in her presence? It's because at the end of the day, he still has power over the most skilled person in the ocean."

It made perfect sense, of course. She was in love. Life-altering, desperate love just like Bardarian was. But how could someone so deeply in love turn to someone else, even for a night? Why get so riled up over the fact that Archer wasn't in love with her? It couldn't simply be ego, and he had to believe there was a definitive line between acting and reality, between faking and authenticity. He had to believe he could tell the difference.

Archer wanted to tell the Prince he might be able to change just how much power Bardarian had over her. He wanted to say that perhaps he could draw her attention away long enough for Kerian to be crowned, or at the very least put doubt in her mind concerning the ring. But first, he had to confirm something.

"Not necessarily the half you're proud of," he said.

"Come again, Kingsley?" Kerian asked, leaning closer to the bars to hear better.

"Not necessarily the half you're proud of," he repeated. "That's what you said about Silta's blood. You share a father."

Kerian narrowed his eyes. He had an air of authority they must've missed before, a predisposition to drawing attention.

"You don't agree with your father's principles," Archer pressed, hoping, dreaming that Kerian was the change they needed. The solution to the whole problem.

The Prince lifted his chin, regarding Archer with a stern, conspiratorial look, like he was debating for a moment if the truth could be said, here, in the depths of the Devil's ship, where the eyes weren't looking and the ears weren't listening.

Finally, he gritted his teeth, whispering the words, "My father is a tyrant, Kingsley, and I'd have put a bullet through his head ten years ago if politics were an easy thing."

Archer smiled. Because now purpose had been reborn. Now, plans were reforming. Archer could draw Silta away from Bardarian, forcing a rift between them while Kerian was crowned, forcing the Cobalts to stand by their new leader and never even know what might've happened.

"My father and I agree on one thing, Kingsley," Kerian said, "and it's that Silta and Bardarian need to be far from the throne. He wants her dead for his own egotistical reason; I need her dead for the people's sake. She is the kind of leader that cannot be stopped unless it's preventative."

Archer leaned forward. "I can pull her away. There's enough of a seed in her mind to make it happen, I think."

Kerian shook his head. "I understand you want to save her, but no one is getting her away from Bardarian. There's some sort of sick tether between them."

"I'm not saying I can rip them apart forever, I'm saying I can drive a wedge."

Kerian leaned back, his eyes glinting in the limited moonlight. "I'll tell you something, Kingsley. If you can make sure Silta never goes for that throne, I'll finish your mission for you."

That chilled Archer right down to his core. Kerian couldn't know about the mission; there was no way for it to get to him. It was possible for him to have been in contact with the King throughout their port stops, but how would the King know in the first place? Logic insinuated something else was going on beyond Archer's view—in fact, Silta had mentioned the King's knowledge of the Avourienne's plans, too.

"My mission?" he asked cautiously.

Kerian tilted his head. "Absolutely."

But it didn't make sense. No one else knew, no one in close connection with the King. Archer's mission was to kill the King and find his parents—half of which Kerian wouldn't even be able to do.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Archer said, standing. He'd wanted to make a deal with Kerian, but there was something off about the whole thing, something that just didn't add up. He'd rather sleep on it or simply handle the whole thing himself.

As he walked away, he heard Kerian, "You and me, Kingsley. We're really not all that different."

He didn't turn, but he wanted to. Shivers burrowed into his skin, chilling his bones. He was missing something, somewhere, something was not right. He kept walking, rounded the corner. He looked back, feeling as though he was being watched.

The corridor was dark, with only the sound of water dripping softly somewhere. He glanced around again, hairs raising on his neck. He could go back, insist Kerian tell him what he knew—but something else was here.

Something? Someone.

"Novari," Archer said to the darkness.

"Hi, Kingsley."

He looked around again, catching movement deep in the corner to his left. He'd called her out on a whim, some feeling in the back of his head—but he didn't truly expect her to be there until his eyes finally adjusted to her, just an outline in the dark.

He took a step closer. She was leaning there, amber eyes sparkling. She lifted her chin to the ceiling. "Floors are thin here," she said.

Archer looked at the ceiling as if he could see through it. He hadn't even realized the corner room was right over the cells.

"I could tell you," she said, "what it is you're missing."

He watched her there in the dark, so cool and collected. What did she know that he didn't?

"Then tell me," he said.

"I would," she replied, "but I'm missing something, too." She took a step closer, watching him carefully. "So you tell me what I'm missing, love, and I'll tell you what you're missing."

"I don't know what you mean," Archer told her. "I never do."

She smiled. "Tell me why you're on this ship, love."

He shook his head. So it was all just some ploy to get him to tell, all some incredible tactic to finally find out what gave her so much trouble.

"You misunderstand, Kingsley," she answered his thoughts. "I know why you're on this ship. You have to tell me why you think you're on this ship."

Archer was still shaking his head. Confusion was building, frustration climbing up into his head. "You don't know why I'm on this ship," he muttered.

"Listen to me, Archer." She took the last step and curled her fingers around his forearm. "I can only deduce what you're thinking, so I can only form conclusions based on what you know. If you don't know it, neither do I. I know the detail is missing, and I know it's in your motivation. So why are you on this ship, Kingsley?"

He couldn't have less of a clue what any of that meant. He was still shaking his head, pulling his arm away from her.

She held tight to it. "Stop making your deals to keep me safe, Kingsley. Stop reaching out at nothing to get Kip on the throne instead of Darian. Stop thinking about us at all—think about yourself. Tell me why you're on this ship."

"Don't tell me it's nothing," he whispered back. "Don't tell me that, Novari, please I can't take this psychological warfare anymore. I know it was something—"

"That, Kingsley, that's your problem," she snapped. "It's what you were supposed to do: divert your attention from what matters by obsessing over me."

"I'm not obsessing over you—"

She reached her other hand up to his neck and forced him to look her in the eye. "Kingsley, love, think. Not about me, I'm the distraction. Don't think about me."

Archer blinked. But her, the pretty eyes, the taste of her, the weight of her, it was all taking up space in his head. Why would she tell him to forget it? Wasn't his obsession what her ego craved?

"You want to please me, Kingsley?" she asked, curling her thumb around his jaw. "Tell me why you're on this ship."

Archer closed his eyes. Perhaps he should just tell her. What harm could it do at this point? He would, but he felt full, felt deceived.

"Kingsley, love, if you won't tell me, then figure it out yourself. Ask yourself how Kerian could know anything about this. Ask yourself who might've told him."

"I don't know," he hissed.

"Then tell me."

"To kill your father," he told her, to hell with the consequences. "That's why I'm here."

"No, Kingsley," she snapped back. "I need you to tell me why you're here. What convinced you to throw away your simple life for all of this? Tell me why you're really going to the Kingsland. Tell me how he convinced you."

He felt his control loosening. He could think a few steps ahead, but Silta could think an entire race ahead. She was planning different scenarios, working through them all, connecting numerous details and putting all the pieces together. He wasn't there yet. He couldn't think like that. He didn't know how she knew there was more, but the only safety he felt was in her mind.

"My parents," he said quietly. "I'm here for my parents."

He could see it in her face; the moment she figured it all out. The realization and the play-by-play to see if it made sense. The release of all that tension she'd been holding. The final piece to the whole thing. He could almost hear the relaxation of her muscles, the liberation of all that pent-up energy she'd been consuming to figure him out.

She dropped her hands away like she'd been burnt, took a step back. "Oh, Kingsley. Love," she murmured, and there was pity—pity written all over her face, clear as day.

"You have to help me here. Please," he pleaded. "I don't get what I'm missing."

"Kingsley, love, how could you be so naïve?" Her voice was far away and distracted; everything was falling into place for her, so much so that he wanted to reach into her mind and rip out all the parts he needed. He wanted her mind. He wanted her ability to think. He needed it.

She took a step away from him, down the hall.

He wanted to beg her, get down on his knees and beg her to tell him what it was she knew. Maybe just a clue, because he didn't even know where to start. He was so tired. Tired of the games and the intricacies of this whole thing. Tired of being him, tired of everything.

She was leaving, down the hall, muttering about fools and clues and some other third party he couldn't place. Off she went, leaving him with nothing but her cryptic words. He felt he could sit there for all eternity, searching for a realization that would never come. Perhaps it didn't even exist; perhaps this was another one of Silta's tricks, another ploy, another tactic.

The funny thing? Archer did get it, and he could see the whole picture just fine from where he stood; he just had to open his eyes and look. Only that would be so much more painful than simply accepting he wasn't clever enough to figure it out.

Tell me how he convinced you.

Oh, he knew.