The Pirate's Wish

“Too bad,” I said.

The secondary room is the one where the whores go when they ain’t working, and men don’t usually venture in cause there ain’t no one to wash ’em and flirt with ’em and make ’em feel wanted. I stripped over in the corner where no one would pay no attention to me, and then I slipped in the soft warm bathwater, bubbling up from some spring deep in the ground. It was my first proper bath in ages and I stayed in for longer than I normally did, dropping my head below the water and watching all the ladies’ legs kicking through the murk. Nobody said anything to me, which was exactly how I wanted it.

I met Naji in the garden after my bath. He came out with his hair wet and shining in the sun, his dirty clothes out of place against his gleaming skin. I was sitting underneath a jacaranda tree that kept dropping purple blossoms in my hair.

He sat beside me.

His presence still gave me a little thrill. We sat in silence for a moment, and I enjoyed it, his closeness and the warm sun and my clean skin. Felt nice.

“Do I look like a pirate captain now?” he asked.

“No.” I didn’t look at him. “You need new clothes.”

“Ah. Of course.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I didn’t quite know how to go about doing this. It wouldn’t do to have word spread around about some man going shopping, then turning up in those same clothes at the Starshot drinkhouse as the Pirate Namir yi Nadir. Cutthroats are a gossipy bunch. Gotta be; it’s how you find out the best schemes and stratagems. Nobody wants to get caught unawares.

It was hard to think out there in the warm sun, all clean and bright, with Naji sitting beside me, but an idea came to me anyway, a big flash of an idea.

“I know what we can do,” I said, straightening up.

“Shopping?” Naji asked. “Or stealing?”

“Neither.” I stood up and led him out of the garden, away from the whorehouse and the fresh steam of the baths. Paid a carriage driver a couple pieces of pressed copper to take us out of town, down to the rows of little ramshackle shacks that sprouted up along the oceanline like barnacles. Naji didn’t say a word the whole time. I figured he wanted out of those rotted clothes more than he was letting on.

The house looked the way I remembered it, a little wooden shack with banana trees out front, the backyard sloping down to the ocean. I jumped out of the carriage. Naji stared at me.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“Getting you some clothes. Come on.”

He stepped out of the carriage like I was setting him up for some kind of con. I stomped through the soft seagrass in front of the house and rapped my fist against the door.

“Where are we?” Naji asked.

“You got a headache?”

“No.”

“Then you know I ain’t in danger. Stop asking questions.”

He frowned and I thought his eyes looked kinda wounded, but he didn’t say nothing.

The door swung open, and Old Ceria, my old sea magic teacher, stuck her head out, squinting in the sunlight. She looked at me and then she looked at Naji.

“What happened to his face?” she asked. “Looks like what happens when you let Lady Starshine in charge of the roast at the dry season festival. Charred on the outside, bloody on the inside.”

Naji turned to stone, his eyes burning with anger. Before the kiss, I might’ve warned him.

“He got hurt a long time ago,” I said. “Ceria, we need to borrow some clothes, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“You mean take some clothes.” But she held the door wider and let me and Naji step inside. It was dark in there, with heavy curtains pulled over the windows. Dried-out seaweed hung from the rafters, and all ma

Old Ceria was a seawitch, like Mama, and Mama would always bring me to see her when I was a little girl, to try and extract magic out of me. Ceria lived on Bone Island cause she couldn’t abide Empire rule, but she didn’t have no love for the Confederation neither – for pirates in general. She barely tolerated Mama, truth be told, but she was willing to put aside differences far as magic was concerned.

I hadn’t seen Ceria in years, but she looked the same as she did when I was younger, as dried out as her seaweed and her dead crabs.

“He the reason you ran off from the Hariri clan?” Ceria asked me, jutting her head toward Naji.

Shit. I didn’t think she would’ve heard.

She gave me a narrow, sharp-toothed smile.

I didn’t answer her, didn’t even move my head to shake it yes or no. I could feel Naji staring at me, staring at her.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, gri

I went hot at that.

Old Ceria chuckled and even though she was an old woman and I knew that meant she deserved my respect, I kinda wanted to hit her.

“You two wait here,” she said. “I take it you want the clothes for him? You’re looking awful dapper in that Empire cloak.” A little curl of her lip when she said Empire.

She disappeared into the back of the house. Naji and me stood in silence, and I listened to the waves rolling in to the beach behind us. Naji was still fuming over Ceria’s comment about his face – I could see it in the way he kept balling up the rotted fabric of his shirt in one hand.

I tried to work up the nerve to apologize to him.

Naji said, “Captain Namir yi Nadir will cover his face.”

“Marjani won’t like that.”

“Marjani can dress up as a man if she wants a captain so badly. I’m covering my face.”

Old Ceria came into the room, a tattered brocade coat tossed over one arm, some trousers and shirts tossed over another.

“I should be getting you a scarf, then,” she said.

Naji sneered at her and she threw the clothes at him.

“Ain’t scared of you, blood magician. Got nothing but seawater in these veins.” She nodded at me. “You best watch out, girl.”

“He won’t hurt me,” I said.

“Seems to me he already has.”

Naji stalked outside with his new captain’s clothes, but I stayed in the house for a minute or two longer, staring at her, thinking back to those horrible afternoons as a kid, digging up sand on the beach for her spells.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“I’m a witch, darling,” she said. “I saw you coming two weeks back. I know his story too, the curse and all. The kiss.” She winked at me.

I scowled at her, then jumped up and pushed out of the house before I said something I’d regret. With a jolt, I wondered if she would tell the Hariris that she saw me, but then I remembered she’d always hated the Hariris more than other pirates. Maybe she’d just tell Mama.

Still, it was a reminder that I wasn’t in the north anymore – I was back in the parts of the world where the Hariri clan had plenty of eyes, and no doubt they’d still be looking for me, even if I’d mostly forgotten about them over the last few months, seeing as how I had bigger problems on my mind. I’d have to come up with some excuse for not dawdling in port. Threaten to feed some Empire man to the manticore. I felt sorry enough for her as it was, having to eat fish bones and sea birds again.

Naji stood at the side of the road, pulling his hair over his scar, the clothes lying in a pile at his feet.

“You’re getting ’em all dusty!” I shouted.

“Who cares?” Naji asked. “They’re just going to rot once we make sail.”

I picked up the clothes and shoved them at him. He yanked them away from me, his hair hanging in curls across his face.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

“To get you clothes.”

“You knew she would–” His face twisted up with anger. “You knew she would say something. You wanted her to.”

I looked away from him, cheeks burning.