Trankee was counting the balls he had bought, one by one, and moving them from the paper vendor’s bag to his leather ammo pouch. Delaware respected the man’s need for diligence and kept his silence as they walked. He was just glad he’d found a tight gauge for the marine’s gun.

“Sixty–nine!” Trankee said. “She overpacked the bag by nine balls.”

“Brotus,” Delly grinned.

“Brotus,” Trankee nodded, tying off the ammo pouch. He patted it, then patted two other ammo pouches on his belt. Being bad at shooting, he wanted a lot of opportunities. He crumpled the paper bag and tossed it into the street. Delaware grimaced at that. He swallowed the complaint.

“Maybe they’ll improve your accuracy.”

Trankee ran his hand through his hair.

“With any—” he slowed in his tread and kissed the knuckle of his thumb. A sailor’s blessing. “She who doesn’t like to hear her name.”

Delaware nodded at the reference. Among sailors, speaking the name of Luck was to invite bad luck. The marine had almost said, “With any luck, it will.” He’d stopped himself and blessed Luck by kissing his thumb in apology at the almost-offense.

“Now,” Delly said, “She’ll have Her hand on your barrel.”

“Don’t tempt Her,” Trankee said. He clearly took the superstition more seriously than Delaware.

“Okay,” the navigator said. He considered how to rephrase it. “Now, you won’t have small balls bouncing around in your long gun.”

“That’s fair,” Trankee said, adjusting the musket on his shoulder. “But, that’s not why I’m a bad shot.”

Delaware was weary of trying to encourage the man on this point. Trankee was resigned to being a terrible shot. Delaware wanted to change the subject, maybe back to their future plans.

“Tell me, kid,” the marine said suddenly. “Aren’t you ever worried you’re going to bring us to the wrong island?”

“What?” He was lost.

Trankee waved his thick fingers in the air, trying to figure out a new way of coming at it.

“Aren’t you ever worried that you’ll make a mistake in navigation and bring us up on some Union territory, that we’ll all be blown to bits?”

Delaware winced and nodded. “Not really. Not until just now that you mentioned it. Now, I’m worried.”

Trankee laughed. “Sorry.”

Delaware chuckled and shook his head to say he was half-joking.

“Okay, you tell me,” Delly said. “Aren’t you ever worried when you go over the breach?”

Trankee was suddenly sullen. He settled his eyes on Delaware and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“I’ll tell you, I hate going over the breach.”

Delaware realized he had stepped over a tripwire.

“I didn’t mean—”

“No,” Trankee said. “It’s okay. I asked you first. It’s just that…”

They were walking along Main Street, booths set up to sell cloth, leather work, and skewers of food. The people along the street were mixed, locals dressed very finely and largely keeping to themselves, sailors more roughly adorned and gathered around the booths to spend their sea-won coin.

Delaware could tell that the marine needed a moment to gather his thoughts. In the lull in the conversation, he glanced down Ballard Street toward the wharves. He could see his own vessel, the Sunrise, docked between a bark he did not recognize and the Trouble, a bark out of Columbia.

“I don’t like what I’m really good at,” Trankee finally said.

“What?”

“Do you like navigation?”

“I do.”

“I don’t like killing men,” Trankee said. “Although I’m good at it. With a knife, anyway. Not so good with a long gun.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“No,” said Trankee. “I asked you first. I opened it.”

“You regret it?” Delaware said. “You wish you’d gotten into something else?”

Trankee shrugged. “I wish I’d been better at shooting.”

“So you could kill from a distance?”

Trankee’s shoulders sank. “Maybe.”

Delaware stepped in front of Trankee and stopped him, hands up on his shoulders. The mans’ bulk pressed forward, but weakly.

“You could’ve been more than a marine.”

Trankee shook his head.

“Of course,” Delaware said. “Your skill at killing men could’ve been put to a better use. Maybe as a guard?”

The man huffed. “Guarding whom?”

“Whom,” Delaware said, grinning at the proper grammar. He tapped the man’s chest with one finger. “That’s what you have to figure out.”

Trankee leaned his head from side to side, considering it. He shrugged.

“Dinner?” he ventured.

Delaware squinted.

“It’s early.”

“Shopping makes me hungry.”

It made no sense, Delaware knew, but that just meant Trankee was trying to change the subject. And, knowing Trankee, he’d latched onto something real, but unrelated, in order to change the subject. So, he probably really was hungry.

“Someplace out of the way?” Delly offered.

Trankee nodded, looking down at the navigator.

“You don’t want to bump into Erisk and Scavvy again.”

Delaware felt his face flush.

“I’m a dick,” Trankee said, his own face flushing. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“They’ll be at someplace local,” Delaware said, trying to turn it into a tactical conversation. Something a marine could appreciate.

“Ah, yeah,” Trankee said. “To avoid sea-mates. There is a place where the sea-mates gather. Our mates definitely won’t be there.”

Delaware stared up at the marine blankly.

“There’s a place? What place?”

“The Cotton Market.”

Delaware scowled. “That’s a tavern?”

“It’s a cotton market,” Trankee chuckled, “but also a tavern where mates like us meet.”

Delaware was amazed. He suddenly felt out of place.

“How do you know this?”

“Marcio told me,” Trankee said. “But, he won’t be there. The Ronin is in Boston, I think.”

Delaware nodded. He was baffled by the idea of mates gathering, not in secret.

“Duwall Davis might be there,” Trankee said. “He’s a mate of the Trouble, which is in port.”

“Dudu Davis?” Delly said, incredulously.

Trankee grinned and nodded. “Oh yeah. Duwall is one of us.”

Delaware nodded, taking it in. Duwall Davis was brash and confident. He seemed like a man without a secret.

“He plays both sides,” Trankee said, trying to guess the navigator’s line of thought. “Most do.”

“Wait,” Delaware said.

Trankee shook his head.

“Not like Erisk. Dudu plays your side, he plays my side. Both sides of our side.”

“Ah,” Delly said, understanding.

“You’ve really kept to yourself,” the marine said. “Mostly, just sticking to the stars?”

Delaware shrugged. He was a nerd. Scaveland was only his second relationship, and Scavvy had taken the initiative in that. Trankee was right. He had so little knowledge outside of navigation.

Trankee put a heavy arm on his shoulder.

“Also from the Trouble,” he said, “Battery Chang. But, playing your side.”

“Okay,” Delly grinned. “That, I might have guessed.”

Trankee hugged the smaller man to him and laughed.

“Maybe,” he said, “seeing that the Steampunk is in port, Cornbread Patrón, Art Hally, and Tom Mitchell might be there. All playing both sides.”

“Really?” Delaware said. “Cornbread?”

An alarm bell rang out. It was soon met by another, and another, until the entire town was ringing. The people in the street had frozen in place, glancing uphill and toward the river, trying to figure out where the threat was from.

Trankee and Delaware instinctively looked downhill, toward the water. There were a half dozen vessels sailing up the York river: one full-rigged ship, two barks, and three sloops. They flew the blue flag of the Union of the Door, with a yellow hammer-and-sickle in the upper left corner. Above the murmur of the street, Trankee and Delaware could hear sailors at port and soldiers at shore batteries shouting orders.

“I guess the Union’s not just patrolling the capes any more,” Trankee said.

Delaware glanced up at the man and was moved by his calm.

The Union vessels burst forth a volley of light and smoke, firing into the town and ships at port.

“We have to get to the Sunrise,” Delaware said.

Trankee pointed downhill toward the wharves.

“There she is.”

Delaware followed the man’s finger and saw the Sunrise. Two of her masts were toppling to the deck.

“Fuck,” Delly said.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Trankee said, “except to the bed of the river.”

Another volley beat the air. The corner of a grocer’s nearby exploded in a spray of brick and wood. The people in the street were screaming and running in every direction.

“All my books are on—”

“You’ve got your head,” Trankee said. “That’ll have to do.”

Delaware nodded. He knew those books cover-to-cover.

“It’s inland for us,” Trankee said. “Let’s get our things from the inn before those bastards come ashore.”