She stood on the main deck, off to the side with her newly-acquired sword held aloft. It caught the moonlight with a perfect silver arc, with the same delicate beauty of the misty morning, of the Lady of Desolation. Every swing felt perfect, with a deceptive grace and lightness. One who was not trained well in the art of the blade might not understand the deathly power that laid within the pale metal because of its beauty and lack of weight.

But Elodie did.

For how the sword lacked much real weight, instead being as easy to wield as her own hands or feet, there was a different weight to it. One that came from within her own heart, like an anchor dragging her down.

"Trying it out, are we?"

She didn't have to look to know that it was Kas, coming behind her. But she turned anyway, lowering her sword. He was a sight for her sore eyes, and a smile came to her face.

"Thought I might as well." She shrugged, and tucked it into her belt, as close to a sheath as she was going to get. The lack of one was another reminder of what came with the selkie's gift.

"You don't seem entirely happy about it." He slipped her hand into his, a silent reassurance.

"I like the blade, it's beautiful, one of the best swords I've ever had." She looked away, out to the sea. She wondered if there were other selkies out there, watching her. They weren't flying around them, or else Elodie would have gone below-decks.

Or at least, she would have before that fateful morning.

Now she was even more curious about them, and what might have happened had she leapt off the ship at their call. Would she have flown too? Would she someday be able to turn into one of the great flying narwhals in their pod?

"There's something else, isn't there, darling?" Kas prodded gently.

Elodie bit her lip as she looked back to him. "I've never been my mother's daughter, Kas."

She thought of the sea-caught pearls around her throat, the blade on her hip, the red hair whirling in the wind around her.

"I might be able to fight and I might have the desire for the sea like she did, but I'm still nothing like her." There was a time when there might have been triumph in her voice, to speak such a sentiment on the wind. But not anymore. "I don't enjoy bloodshed or destruction. I love the sea, I love the adventure, but I also love a home to come back to, dancing in a ballroom, and glittering parties. I don't want to be a harbinger of death and destruction."

"You're afraid of the selkie's prophecy." For once, Kas seemed to be at a loss for words. She could see it, the conflict in those golden-ringed hazel eyes.

"I am." She swallowed thickly.

His free hand reached up for her face, his fingertips grazing over her freckled face as he pushed back a tendril of red hair. Such an action was futile in all the wind, but Elodie could appreciate the sentimentality of the gesture all the same.

"For what it's worth, I think I have enough of a taste for blood for the both of us." The smile that followed was tinged with the bitterness of regret. "You don't have to be what your mother wanted. You're a pirate and a lady, you can be both things. And maybe it's better that someone like you has that sword."

He glanced down at it, for a fleeting second before meeting her eyes. "Someone like me, well, I would have caused far too many problems by now with something like that. You'll be nobler than most, with it."

Elodie's breath hitched. "I hope you're right."

His hand drifted down to her waist, and he drew her hand with his other toward his own waist, pulling them closer. All his bravado had returned with that gleam in his eye as he grinned. "I'm rarely wrong, darling."

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Elodie rolled her eyes and laughed.

For a moment, at least, she was just a girl, in love with a gentleman who was just as charming as she'd only dreamed.

That would be enough.

"You two are positively disgusting."

Elodie turned her head to see Jade, standing there with her arms crossed and shaking her own head, tossing her black waves over her shoulders. Her smile faltered for a moment when Elodie met her eyes, although she could not quite understand why.

"Where are we headed to next?" Kas let go of Elodie's hand and her waist, a reluctant disentanglement.

"The next key we're looking at should be somewhere near the colony of Veracruz." Jade glanced off into the distance. "Given how many are looking for Vance's treasure now, and how many ships the Black-Sail Fleet and Hawkins have sent on our trail, I wonder if some of the keys might have already been snatched up by them."

"Or by my brother." Carina appeared beside Jade, as quickly as the breeze came and went. "While Hawkins and his men have been the main skirmishers so far, they are not the only ones looking for Limuria or the powers held within."

Elodie frowned. "I wonder how we'd even know."

Jade shrugged. "I guess when we get to the business of all the tomb-raiding and whatnot, it'll all come clear."

She then looked back to Elodie, avoiding meeting her eyes entirely. "I suppose then we'll just have to go after Hawkins and the rest."

Carina crossed her arms over her chest. "We would if our goal were to revive Limuria. But we want to keep the city and its treasures away from the pirates and my brother alike."

Jade blinked, turning towards Carina. "You mean that we're just going to play keep-away for the rest of time with these keys?"

Uncertainty flickered across Carina's features. "Well, maybe we could hide them somewhere else, or until this all dies down, or. . . "

She trailed off, biting her lip. She then shook her head, tossing her white rope-braided curls over her shoulders. "That's a problem for another day, when all of the keys are accounted for."

Still, the lingering question in her blue and green eyes revealed that it haunted her.

"Veracruz," Kas repeated. "At least we'll be back in warmer waters soon."

He shuddered. "The cold is so horrid."

Elodie shot him a sidelong glance. "You complained about the heat of the Windward Isles and you complained about the cold of Thule."

"And I shall complain about whatever I like, darling."

"With all your usual theatrics, I suppose," Carina huffed. She looked skyward, probably starting to roll her eyes at Kas when she stopped, squinting at something up above.

Or more likely, someone.

"I do believe Ventus is up in the lookouts again." She reached for one of the stray ropes. "I should join him, keep him company."

With that, as quickly as she had joined the conversation, she had left it, scurrying up the rope with a strength and grace that still astounded Elodie. They watched up after her for a moment, before Jade spoke again.

"I suppose she is right that we shouldn't count our ships before they come to harbor."

"You should write poetry, Jade, you have a way with words," Kas mused idly.

"You really think so?" Jade tossed her dark hair over her shoulder.

"Next time we're at a civilized port, I'll get you a leather journal and one of the nice fountain pens, the ones the college boys use." Kas's smile softened. "It's the least I could do, considering. . . "

"You came home." Jade smiled, but her eyes flicked towards Elodie, and something sad returned in her green eyes. "Let's not leave anything to regret again. I think we forget how quickly the tides change."

"Agreed."

Elodie looked between the two, unsure of exactly what was occurring here.

"Well, I do believe I was interrupting something." Jade sighed. "I think I'll work on my star charts a little while."

With that, she also left Kas and Elodie alone on the decks once more.

"Should we go after her?" Elodie might not have understood entirely what had been lying beneath the surface of Kas and Jade's exchange, but she could see that something had changed, something that left the merry girl who rode the wind and seas sadder.

More like her mother, come to think of it.

"No." Kas frowned, also staring off at the direction in which Jade had went. "She believes she's done us a favor, and she wouldn't hear of us running after her."

"If you say so." There was a dread in the pit of her stomach, the underlying feeling that something she had done had hurt Jade somehow. But what was it? And why?

But she could also see the sense in what Kas was saying. Jade was independent to a fault, like a cat. When she wanted to be alone, she knew how to get that, and was better at evading all of them on the Albatross. A natural symptom of growing up on the high seas and low skies.

She was drawn out of her spiraling thoughts by Kas's hand on her cheek, as faint as a kiss.

"Now, where were we?" He whispered, his eyes narrowing.

She couldn't help herself, she smiled as she stood on the tips of her toes to kiss him and guided his other hand to her waist.

For now, at least, she could be a girl in love, a girl with the promise of a gentleman to marry her. The matter of the selkie blade and a destiny in the eye of the hurricane could wait.