Goodbye, darling Mina, for I must leave you

And away from Sheyflie my course I will steer,

Don't stay up waiting and mourning my dear

For as long as we're married, you never need fear.

I am your captain and my ship steers to you

As all the doors are closed, count me your friend,

When nights grow dark, dear, when the selkie is singing

Come and meet me for I will be wait for you then.

- A letter addressed to Mina, author unknown

Everyone knew it was serious when he invited them into an impromptu meeting and closed the door to the storage beside him. First he explained the name of Alez's husband, how he'd checked the notes and how he was very certain that the senior Wyne was still living in Byhill. Ralphye and Robaus were silent all throughout this, Giersa looked both torn and disbelieving while Perre seemed nonplussed. Though when he told them they would have to go hunting for this item in the Wyne manor without him because he was going to accompany Alez, this resulted in several exclamations.

"You're going to a dinner party?" Giersa's mouth was so wide he wondered how many freshly baked rolls he could stuff into it to stop whatever question would be hurled his way. Next to Giersa, Ralphye sighed and deftly dodging the elbow thrown his way.

Jori decided to ignore her and focused on the plan of the manor as Alez had inadvertently told him. 'All the manors were built by the same man,' Alez had said, 'they all wanted to hire him'. It was nice of Alez to draw it out as well, very nice, Jori thought as he eyed the drawing he suggested Alez do on a paper that was definitely not normal parchment. In the moonlight it revealed itself to be the Goddess's skin, blue-green like the sea and smelling faintly of seaweed and salt. It revealed a location to whoever wrote on it, given that the person had already been there before, which, in the case of Alez, worked well in Jori's favor.

At night any lines on the map would fade, so which was why he called the meeting, and it was under the light of the sun shining through the portholes that he examined the manor. It was big, exactly as he thought it would be. There were several ways his rag-tag crew could enter, though he suspected Giersa would disguise all of them as servants and sneak them in through the servants' entry. But Perre had disagreed, pointing that the Head Butler or Housekeeper would recognize any new faces and it was best to just climb up and then through a window.

As he so put it, "No one looks up."

"So you want us arrested again?" Ralphye raised an eyebrow. "You enjoy the jail cell food that much? I thought that was the driving force behind you breaking us out?"

Jori sighed and massaged his temples, sitting down on a crate with a thud. He thought the schematic would help, not lead to arguments on how one should go about the plan. Giersa claimed one of the empty barrels as a seat and was balanced precariously on it, examining the map of Byhill's coastline. Robaus, Perre and Ralphye were more busy passing around the last of the rum than looking at any paper Jori showed them.

"I'm sure the Captain only wishes to see how they eat in Byhill," Robaus said brightly, adding with disgust, his accent deeper with every drink he took. This meant he dropped all his H's, "Horrible, I'll tell you. All the spices in the world and they undercook everything they eat." He gave Jori a baleful look, "You're not missing much, no?"

"If anything it's a refreshment on manners," Jori said cheerfully, accepting the bottle Giersa passed to him. "There's nothing I love more than seeing all the cutlery lined up in a row." He supposed he would be tempted to pocket one or two, the craftsmanship of silver was lost on the people using them but it wasn't worth getting some poor scullery maid in trouble.

"A row?" Perre blinked, nearly dislodging his straw hat, grey eyes wide. "There's more than one?"

"Five at most," said Raphye, clinking his bottle with Robaus who nodded solemnly in agreement.

"Five! Why?"

"Why not?" Giersa shrugged, then gave Jori a pointed look. "Where is this thing anyway? How are we supposed to find it, o enlightened one? We don't have Olysa's touch." Giersa punctuated the end of this sentence with an eyebrow at Ralphye. It was, to Jori's surprise, returned.

He decided to pointedly ignore the two. It was odd certainly, he'd never expected Giersa to show interest in Ralphye, what with Ralphye's former business in King Harmund's navy but who was he to ponder the depths of Giersa? He shuddered, shaking the thoughts from his head. No, whatever Ralphye or Giersa wished to do in the debatable privacy of Plucky was none of his business.

"You said it was horny," said Ralphye, straight-faced and firmly shaking Giersa off of him when the latter nearly fell off the barrel.

Jori slammed his hand upon the table, "A horn! I said it was a horn, weren't you listening?"

"Well, yes, but you're the only one that feels these things," Giersa said, "the last thing you got was a pocket watch! How was it supposed to be a piece of Olysa to us mere mortals?" Giersa pointed the bottle head at Jori, "We weren't taking it in the light of the full moon, so you tell me."

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"It had a heartbeat!" He exclaimed, and refused to be swayed on the matter. Everything of Olysa's was alive somehow, and the watch was the least unsettling about the things he'd recovered.

The watch looked nothing like a watch, it was slimy, red and pulsed in Jori's hand like a beating heart. He hoped it stopped when he'd tossed it as far and deep as he could into the sea. It had whispered things in his ear, or he had heart things, he didn't know, but it sounded like the Goddess was everything at once, anger and fear and hate. He had murmured apologies to it, hoping the Goddess could hear his words and dearest wish that she would just release his father. But the sea was silent, as was she. So he'd gone to a basin and tried to wash her blood off his hands, he'd scrubbed and scrubbed until his skin was raw and the basin water was tinged with his own blood until Robaus pulled him away.

"Is there a way for you to signal to us?" Robaus spoke up. "Considering you're at this fancy party? We wouldn't want the same thing happening again, no?"

"You'll have to be more specific," said Giersa.

He had to begrudgingly conclude that Giersa was right. Robaus had to say exactly what he meant considering so many interesting things happened whenever he tried to recover one of Olysa's artifacts. Maybe the things just attracted the wrong sort, maybe the Goddess was playing a trick on him. Either way, he'd learned it was best to throw the recovered item back to the sea instead of keeping it on his person.

"You know," Ralphye said, tapping the map and frowning, "all these rich men live next to each other. How much of a ladder-climber is Alez's sister?"

"Very," Jori said grimly.

She'd married Alez's husband herself, Jori suspected, if the woman hadn't been already married. Going by what Alez had told him she was married to a merchant, and a good one at that. However, after the passing of Alez's father, she'd been the one arranging the marriages and for some reason they never had quite smooth sailing as hers. Jori had bitten his tongue to stop himself from inquiring if sinking these ships were part of the woman's plans. He had no sister of his own but he'd rather set her up with her own ship than marry her off to some blundering oaf. It was rare he agreed with Giersa, but he could only guess that the flinching and the servile way Alez spoke wasn't natural. No, he didn't guess, he knew. It was not natural for men to behave as craven beasts, and if one were to act as such then it was merciful and decent to treat said man as one.

"I got it!" Giersa snapped three fingers together, "I'll find a window and wave it at you! Or a balcony, they always have fancy balconies don't they? You just lean up against a window and peer out or light a candle twice or something and signal to us!"

"Could just bribe a servant to give him a message," Robaus muttered, downing his rum, "you'll just fall off said balcony and give me grief to no end in the sick bay."

"You could dress in your fancy uniform," Perre suggested, "and just say you've got a fancy letter for Captain Jo— wait no, Edmund? Right?"

"I hate that uniform," Ralphye muttered.

"But I've seen you wearing it with—" Perre blinked. "Oh!"

There were many times Jori was served unsavory and downright vile dishes. One being a fermented fish on board Olkvardr Stigeson's ship. Shark, the Viribyr man had proclaimed, only the best for our esteemed visitor who came so far north! The Viribyr did not have such sophisticated ships but they made up for it with their navigational skills. Olkvardr Stigeson in particular had something else. A seer, but not just any seer, my seer, he had said, and motioned to the pretty dufois sitting next to him. The younger man had Jori's mother's brown eyes and the smile he gave Jori was very familiar to Mina's. But before Jori had a chance to think over the connection, Olkvardr had gestured towards his own crew who held their cups in a toast to Jori. Well, there was nothing he could do about it so he willed his throat to work and his nose not to smell. It took all of Jori's control not to run to the privy. He had made what he could only guess was a pained face as the Viribyr man threw back his head and laughed.

But it wasn't Giersa that laughed, it was Ralphye.

"Oh, Captain, why are you so surprised?"

Jori refused to dwell upon the wink Ralphye gave him or the arm he slung around Giersa's shoulders. He thought about that time on the Viribyr ship again, and how the dufois had waited for him afterwards outside Jori's tent. Even among the Viribyrese this man was odd. He had a pelt thrown over his shoulder of no animal Jori was ever familiar with and he had circles upon circles painted a dark red on his cheeks instead of the straight and geometrically equal shapes the Viribyrese favored.

'Your mother has taken to the sea,' said the man.

It had been dark out, Jori remembered, and the moonlight made the paint light up an eerie red, like blood. If it had been intimidation the seer was going for, he had it in spades from Jori, who had to stop himself from running away into the night like some frightened girl.

But he would not run away from someone who wished to tell him news of his mother, no matter how dire said news were. It had taken him several moments to properly understood what the man was saying, the last time he had seen his mother Mina had warned him not to follow Amard's wild quest but had said nothing of despair or of herself going to find Amard. 'What?'

'Your mother has gone where your father is.'

The man's face had been a mask of calmness all the while Jori's heart was racing. 'How did she go?' His mother could not sail, did not want to sail in fact, in all the years that he knew her. Why would she go— who would she hire— what ship was she even on? Would he now have to find her as well?

His thoughts had raced through his head and at that the seer had stepped in to place both hands on Jori's shoulders in what Jori suspected was supposed to be a comforting manner. 'She has gone to meet her kin. Your kin, Jori Amardson. If you embrace them, you will find your father.' Olkvardr's paramour had smiled then, and his teeth were a bit too sharp for Jori's liking. 'Well, you will have to embrace them, sooner or later.'

Before Jori could demand more, the man had wandered away, humming under his breath. When he had recounted this to the trusted among his crew Giersa had simply shrugged, 'What did you expect, Olkvardr said he was a seer. They're always a bit odd in the head.'

'Says you.' Jori huffed.

'Says me.'

The next day when he had time to sleep on the whole strange matter he ordered everyone back on the Plucky. 'I want to chart a course back home.' It was better safe than sorry, he had reasoned, besides he did miss his mother, and would like to be absolutely certain she was alright.

Most of the crew had not been pleased to go, the Viribyr had great parties, especially when the mead and cider started flowing and no doubt he was interrupting some great fun. They had all boarded the ship in the end though, when Jori had simply gotten up and left the Great Hall after announcing twice that he would be leaving. The crew that had sailed back with him was the most morose he'd ever seen them, and no one hand wanted to reassure him that Mina was alright.

All except old Hari, who had forgone his place in the sailors' quarters to stand by Jori on the the bow. 'I am sure Mina is fine,' Hari had repeatedly said, clinging to the banisters as the ship sailed in a mad rush back home.

But Hari had been wrong, because when Jori threw open the doors to his childhood home his mother was nowhere to be seen. She was not in the inn he had built either, nor was she in the village and the surrounding farms. The entire crew had gone looking for her as well, when they saw the manic look that had no doubt been on his face and confirmed for themselves that Mina was not at her house or the tavern. It was Robaus that found a woman who had last seen Mina. Jori had not remembered her name, just that his mother used to invite her to their house on occasion for tea and biscuits. The old woman had been rambling, and it took awhile for him to understand that one morning she had seen his mother wandering up the hill and slip into the cold water below.

'Why didn't you stop her?' Jori had demanded, and resisted the urge to shake her shoulders back and forth.

To which she had clasped her hands in front of her in a prayer before meeting Jori's eyes and saying, 'My dear, you do not stop selkies returning back to the sea.'