Jack looked up from the chart spread across his desk as Windjammer responded to a gust of wind, picking up speed and heeling further to starboard. He held out a hand to keep a short stack of books from sliding across his desk and onto the floor. All around the cabin his belongings shifted and settled with Windjammer's motion. He half expected to hear his name shouted down a hatch, summoning him onto deck for a sail change, and was glad when the shout didn't come. Although he loved a brisk sail, he had gone nearly two nights without a proper sleep; as a result, deck work lacked its usual appeal.

Jack finished plotting their position by printing the time and date beside the point. He took a moment to secure the items strewn about his desk from future gusts before exiting his cabin, giving Mizzen a scratch behind the ears on the way out. She let out a little chirrup in response, one eye slitting open just in time to watch the door slide shut.

Although Jack intended to stick his head up on deck and see if the watch needed any help, he was waylaid by the sound of muffled cursing in the galley.

"I hope that has nothing to do with the biscuits you said you were making," he said, poking his head around the corner to investigate.

"I should have known it'd be you, nosing around for baked treats," Ehrin said. "Haven't lit the stove yet."

"I can see that."

Ehrin narrowed her eyes at him, dropping a sodden book of matches onto the countertop. "Yeh, and it's because whatever scoundrel raided the larder and made off with my mangoes also knocked my matches and a bundle of herbs into the washbasin. Don't suppose you'd know anything about that, would you?"

Callum's daughter was a pretty woman – dark eyes, full lips, a narrow waist – but not the sort he'd dare trifle with. Jack held up his hands, turning his head to hide his smile. "I'm an innocent man, my Lady of the Galley."

"I don't buy that for a minute. You only give me the 'my Lady' bit when you're up to no good," she muttered, picking out another match and striking it with little success.

He cocked his head, fixing his eyes on the slit in the bottom of the oven, just wide enough for a match to fit through. A moment's concentration, a push outward from his breast and there – the flame caught, and the oven came to life. Ehrin, for all of her bluster, was no shrew: a wide smile bloomed across her face at his small kindness. Beneath it all he could see that ever-present wonder that accompanied the use of his enchantment whenever he was around one who had none.

"First choice of biscuit?" he hedged.

Ehrin gave him a smack on the arm for his cheek. "Is that where all those brown spots on yer nose came from?"

"Didn't Lars once say it's because Oreler sneezed on me as a babe?"

"That's disgusting."

He grinned, dropping his elbows on the divider between galley and companionway. "Anything else, my Lady of the Galley? I'm keen with my offerings, so long as you favor me with a corner piece."

Her eyes dropped to his talisman: the pinched silver loop of a Seer. "I s'pose I'm starting to understand why Illen's blessed carry on about your signature."

"I'm not quite what I seem."

"Are any of us?"

It was a fair point. They called Ehrin their cook, their surgeon, or the Captain's daughter to outsiders – but she was as much an officer as he was.

The thunderous trod of feet announced the approach of another one of their crew. He was unsurprised when Jonah turned the corner; unless they sailed through the hush of a night passage, Jonah's exuberance didn't lend itself to careful stepping.

"I'd about kill for a cuppa," Jonah said, jumping the last two steps of the companionway ladder. He gave them a once-over before slumping against the galley doorframe. "Looks like you could use one too. Have you been up this whole time?"

"I haven't slept well since we reached the Mounds. That's not to say I don't trust Callum's course around the deep edge of the reef, only—" Jack shrugged. He didn't need to voice the source of his worries. His crew understood well enough.

Ehrin began bustling around the galley again, putting a kettle on and standing up on her tiptoes to fetch the coffee jar from its place on the shelf above the larder. "I haven't gotten a wink since we saw the creature. Three in a month when we usually see no more than one in the space of a season? It's unnatural."

"But a blessing we didn't see anything more sinister," Jack said.

Jonah snorted. "A blessing? It would have sent us to the locker if we hadn't been at the ready."

He shook his head. "You rubbed elbows with Spindrift's deck crew. You heard stories about what they saw. Giant-type squid are nothing to scoff at, but neither are they a rarity. Other creatures of the deep—"

"Oi, mate—" Jonah, ever-superstitious, held up a hand to stop Jack mid-sentence, "don't be summoning the thing."

"They're animals. They can't be summoned – at least, not by anyone other than—"

Jonah elbowed him in the ribs. "And don't bring demons and the like into this, either. Not when whatever Spindrift saw is still out there."

As he spoke the deck shifted beneath their feet. The thunderclap of flogging sails drowned out a shout Jack knew was meant for him – his name, no doubt, or orders for a sail change.

"Best come back for that coffee later," he said, "we're crossing the shoals."

Jonah groaned, peeling himself off of the door jamb and following Jack towards the companionway. "Kettle's almost boiled, mate—"

"No tarrying. These shoals have taken many a vessel over the years and I'm not about to add to that number."

"It'll be here when you get back," Ehrin said, shooing Jonah away with a roll of her eyes. "Give a holler if you lads need a hand, yeh?"

Jack pushed through the double doors leading out to the quarterdeck, squinting against the late afternoon sunshine. Windjammer swayed beneath his feet once more, finishing her swing through the eye of the wind and settling into a port tack with her sails trimmed close on the starboard side. Callum stood at the helm, a broad grin splitting his weathered face.

"Hope you got some shuteye, lad. We'll be in by sundown, set to come on the dock with the onshore breeze."

Jack turned to see land looming large before them. The arms of Anaphe's bay encircled them already, the shoals that closed off its entrance receding behind Windjammer's stern. Anaphe's beachy leeward coastline stretched out far to starboard, a strip of white separating reef-dotted shallows from the dense green shoreline. Around the mouth of the bay to port the sand gave way to rocky rubble, stacked with great boulders that had once been a part of the reef, all bleached grey and white by sun, surf, and the passage of time.

The city rose high above the windward shore, towering above them even at such a great distance, a glint of gold just visible above its whitewashed walls. Jack took a sharp breath. The city was at once so like and so unlike his home, a similarity that tickled at his enchantment and filled him with restless unease. When he looked upon Anaphe a part of him would always see Armathia, would always call his father's face to mind, would always wonder where his brothers were and how they fared. Then he'd see the temples – renovated to resemble houses or government buildings, though their lines told no lies – and such relics of Dramorian rule reminded him that he was as far from his family as he'd ever been.

"Not a bad place to be for your Day, yeh?" Jonah asked, bumping shoulders with him. "Not to mention the holiday. The tavern'll be a right treat."

"We'd be better off in Kilcoran, but Anaphe beats staying out at sea," Callum replied.

"Don't I know it? But then, if we can get a few rounds from a superstitious Anaphean sailor on account of our Mate being born so close to Ranael's Day..."

Callum laughed. "It's like I've always said: whatever our Jack is he was meant to be a sailor, born at the advent of the Season of Storms."

Jack smiled, a twist of his lips that failed to crease the corners of his eyes. Callum meant it for a compliment, perhaps – but he still had the wrong of it. Jack hadn't been meant for the sea at all.

He often told Ehrin that he wasn't what he seemed, and though she read his words well, she missed what he meant to say. He wasn't a young man with a weak talent. He wasn't born to the sea. His father was neither a mercenary nor a tradesman.

Armathia was his home, yet he hadn't set foot within the inner city in over twenty years. Of late he found the distance wearying, and his thoughts turned northward more and more. He had left so long ago, and had long thought his return would be unwelcome. Yet with each passing year the pull grew stronger, and he had begun to wonder – could he ever make amends? Could he ever take up the role he was born to?

Each year he stalled, indecisive, balanced on a knife's edge. He was desperate to make his next move, but couldn't imagine when or how he would manage it. He was loath to leave Windjammer and her crew. Sailing into Anaphe, into the city that made the bottom of his heart drop out with how well it resembled Armathia, would ever remind him that he stood at a crossroads. Whether it was enchantment or intuition that told him so mattered little.

He wasn't born to the sea, but here on Windjammer he was needed. What use was he to Armathia, to his father, as the youngest of three sons in a family that had only ever needed two?

"Cat got yer tongue, mate?" Jonah asked, nudging him with an elbow.

Jack opened his mouth. He could tell them. He should tell them, after so long—

"What else can I say?" he asked, voice rough to his own ears. "If I told you I was woman-born, it'd only ruin the mystique."

Jonah laughed, clapping him on the shoulder before wandering off to claim his coffee from the galley. Jack could feel Callum's eyes on him, heavy, considering. He turned away, lowering his eyes to the white water of Windjammer's wake.

Not today.

...

A/N: What do you think of Windjammer and her crew? Does Jack's backstory pique your interest? Comments & crit always appreciated!