“Uh, skipper? Vayne’s getting away!” Carter said. He pointed into the mystlight-filled room.

Charlie looked away from Twila’s face for a moment, eyes narrowing. “He’s not my problem right now, Carter. Twila’s hurt.”

Twila squealed in pain as the rough sleeve caught on her wound. The sharp agony pushed through her brain, pushing the thumping ache from Vayne’s boot away for a moment. All that was left was a single thought.

She’d lost.

But instead of taking over the Hourglass and leaving her here, Auntie Charlie was…just standing beside her, trying to clean up the cut on her brow. It didn’t make sense to Twila. The treasure was right here, and Vayne was gone. Twila wasn’t in any shape to fight, and Carter wouldn’t be much better against Charlie. There wasn’t anything left to keep the woman from taking what was hers.

Unless. Unless Charlie hadn’t come to the cave to take the treasure for herself. Twila looked away from the woman, blinking back tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You should be,” Charlie said, tension bleeding from her voice. She continued dabbing at Twila’s brow until she was satisfied. “There. You’ll have a scar across your brow, but you’ll be fine. That was stupid, Twila. You can’t rush into a room with a pirate skipper like Vayne. You’re lucky he didn’t take you seriously, or you’d be dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Twila sniffled again, her voice tight with pain and embarrassment. “I thought you were going to take the treasure for yourself.”

The woman turned to Carter, her lips tight. “Get me some cloth. Not the selkie coat. It’s far too valuable. Cut off some of your own coat if you have to. Then go keep an eye on the entrance. Your skipper and I have to have another talk.”

Once Carter coughed up a few strips from his shirt and stood a few yards away, Auntie Charlie started wrapping the cloth around Twila’s head. Then she sighed. “A decade ago, you’d have been right. I’d have killed you both or left you here to die. I’d have taken the Hourglass and your special watch and been after this treasure alone. I might not even have waited until we got here to do it.”

“Why not now?” Twila asked. Carter’s shirt rubbed against her brow, and she sucked in a pained breath.

“I’m older. Taking all this treasure?” Charlie looked around at the rest of the room, gesturing. “It’d solve some problems with the Gibson Company, but I don’t need it all to be comfortable. And that much would just make me a target for every pirate and thief in the Principalities. Sometimes, less is more.”

“What problems–”

Charlie held up her hand to cut Twila off. “I’m not big on talking about myself. You get two questions, Twila. Think it over.”

Twila thought it over. She could ask about Charlie’s childhood or her trouble with the Gibson Company. Was that related to the heist or separate? She seemed to remember that Charlie had had an arrangement with Governor Hart. That had to have something to do with her troubles.

Or she could focus on how she could trust Auntie Charlie. She thought back–the woman had manipulated, negotiated, and been half-truthful with her and her crew since the moment they’d met. But she’d also saved Twila’s life just now, which had to count for something.

“I’ve thought it over,” she said at last. “I want to know about what Vayne said. Why didn’t you tell us you flew with [Pirate King] Kerr? You knew we had his map, or at least part of it. You could have said something.”

“When I sailed with Kerr,” Auntie Charlie waved her hand in the air, seeming to try to grab at something. She locked eyes with Twila, and her volume dropped. “When I sailed with Kerr, I was with him for a month before he cut me loose at Broken Rock. I sat around with two other ship rats getting drunk off the pay he gave us, then jumped onto Skipper Tanner’s Revenge. I learned three sword techniques from Kerr, and that’s it. “

“But why didn’t you say anything?”

“What was there to say? That I’d sailed with the man thirty years ago, and I’d never seen the map or pocket watch? That I’d been a pirate for two decades before I cut myself loose and got my pardon? That I’d never heard anything about the mystmazes beyond a few legends here and there?” Charlie closed her eyes and rubbed them. “It wouldn’t have helped you at all. What’s your other question?”

“But…” Twila stopped. Charlie wasn’t going to tell her more right now. “Why did you sign on with the Hourglass? We’re a bunch of ship rats. We never had a chance at–”

“That’s easy. The Gibson Company and I made a deal a year after I cut myself loose at Shimmertower. In the last few months, things changed with my contacts, and I couldn’t hold to my end of the deal. Governor Hart doesn’t have much love for those who go back on their word. I needed a way out of Shimmertower before he lost his patience, and you were it.”

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“We just happened to be there?” Twila frowned. Something didn’t sit right, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

“To start with, yes. I’d planned on asking you for passage somewhere, but I overheard your plan to steal the [Long Fives]. Taking something from Gibson on the way out felt like the right thing to do, and I wanted to get their copy of our contract out when I left. I planned to cut myself loose again in Three Peaks, but the treasure map and the watch changed my plans.”

Twila watched Carter pick up a handful of coins. The mystwall jumped up. He put them back down; the moment they touched the ground, it disappeared again with a tick.

“This is so weird,” he muttered as he tried it again with a silver cup. “The whole room does this, huh?”

“Yes. At least the cup he had and the coins he scooped up did,” Twila said.

“The myst mechanisms for that must be under the floor. We can’t do anything with them, and it’ll be hard to find our way out if we let the myst that guided us in fade too much.” Charlie shrugged and scooped up a few assorted bits of silverware. She threw them at the mystwall and watched as they bounced off. It wasn’t until all were on the ground that the wall faded away. “There’s gotta be a key somewhere, but it won’t be in here.”

“What about sliding the treasure through the door,” Carter asked.

“Won’t work. See how there’s a gap between the treasure and the mystwall?” Charlie pointed. “If the treasure gets too close, it’ll close up. The good thing is that the treasure is safe here. Vayne couldn’t take any either.”

Hearing Vayne’s name brought Twila back into the fight–and how unbeatable he had seemed. The memory of his sword flashing lazily out and barely slicing her brow; of flames filling the room as his gizmo activated; and even how casually he’d started the fight and how his pistols had stayed unused the whole time. She started shaking–she’d been outmatched the entire time and gotten lucky. Just a cut was a small price to pay for her life.

“How…how do I fight someone like Vayne?” Twila asked. Her voice quivered, and she felt herself starting to sweat, even in the cool cave.

“By actually learning how to fight. From what I could see through the wall, you used that sword like a kitchen cleaver. I’ll teach you the basics of rapier fighting. That way, you'll have a chance if you have to fight someone without your pistols. And I’ll teach you ways to help with your size problem. You’re small, even for a girl ship rat, so you’ll need to use some of Kerr’s techniques.”

“But right now,” Charlie grabbed Twila’s wrist and pulled her to her feet. “We should move. Carter, let’s get back to the Endeavor. You’re in front.”

Twila grabbed for the gray fur coat. As she scooped it off the ground, part of her expected a tick of myst, or a spark of…something. It was Coatless’s coat, and the seal woman’s obsession with it had convinced Twila that it was magical. But there wasn’t a spark. There wasn’t a tick. Even when she shoved an arm through a sleeve, There wasn’t anything.

“I wouldn’t put that the rest of the way on,” Charlie said as they walked toward the exit. “Your selkie friend will know if you do. And, from the legends, you don’t want that. Unless you want a vengeful selkie looking for a chance to drown you.”

[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.33 (Myst 1/15, Hit Points 1/1)]

[Head - Empty]

[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]

[Chest - Ship Rat’s Harness (lvl. 0)]

[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]

[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]

[Gizmo #1 - Loaded Dice (lv. 2) - Roll the Bones (active, 1 myst/roll) - gain a random myst enhancement; Skill - Trickery]

[Gizmo #2 - Anton’s Pocket Watch (lvl. 4)] Redo (active, 5 myst/5 seconds) - redo the last five seconds of time, with knowledge of what’s happening (1 minute to reset); Skill - Piloting]

[Gizmo #3 - [Pocket Condenser (lvl. 1) - Condense Myst (passive) - Condenses 1 myst/5 ticks; Skill - None]

[Gizmo (Belt) - Mystwork Lantern (lvl. 2): Mystlight (active, 25% failure chance, 1 myst/attempt) - start the light; Adjustable Light Aura (sustained, .5-2 myst/tick) - light a variable area; Skill - Perception]

[Myst Battery - Myst Battery Mk. 2 (lvl. 1) Myst Storage (passive) - 15 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill]

[Weapon/Pair - Anton’s Paired Pistols (lvl. 2) Smoothbore Myst-Shot (active, 1 cartridge/shot) - fire a ray of heated myst; Rapid Shots (active, 2 myst/shot) - fire twice/tick; Skill - Marksman]

[Weapon #2 - Heatblade (lvl. 2) Heat (active, 1 myst/tick) - cause the blade’s edge to superheat; Skill - Acrobatics]

[Weapon/Pair - Empty]

[Skill #1 - Trickery 2]

[Skill #2 - Perception 2]

[Skill #3 - Piloting 4]

[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]

[Skill #5 - Acrobatics 2]