There wasn’t much privacy on a ship, even on one as large as the Paso Fino. There was no chance the other officers wouldn’t know the five of them were intentionally sitting down together to chat, but as Grey saw it, it couldn’t be avoided.

  Grey, Callum, Finnian, Lotti, and Nessa all sat around the command table in the great cabin. The sun had set many hours ago, and this was the closest they would get to a private conversation.

  There were only a few days left before they would reach Saphir, and it was time to make some hard decisions. The captain was waiting on an answer from around half of the officers, and he needed it to officially announce his plans to the rest of the ship.

  It was out of the ordinary for the five of them to gather around a table without a bottle of rum, a mahogany pipe packed with herbs and dream, or, at the very least, a bottle of sorrel honey wine. Even Finnian looked sober, which was a rare occurrence outside of a work night.

  Lotti sat on the far side of the table, looking confident and at ease. Her demeanor annoyed Grey, but she would not want to have this conversation without Lotti present. The other’s opinions on the matter did not carry the same weight, and the fact that she felt that way pissed her off even more.

  Lotti started with her pitch, “You all already know where I stand, so I’ll get my piece out of the way. To put it simply, I’m ready to take a risk. I’m ready to do something great with my life. The job itself may not amount to anything more than a difficult undertaking, but if we’re successful, the pay out after will change our lives.”

  She wasn’t making eye contact with Grey, which was the only clue so far that she felt any remorse.

  The group was silent as she continued, “It could be that all of you are happy with the way things stand, but will you be in ten years? What about twenty? Riptides and ebbjacks typically end up dead before that many years come to pass. Nessa and I may survive longer, but as we age, our crew opportunities will be fewer. We are not on a path to teach at Mystveil or Moonroot, and are not positioned for a political future.

  I may have given you the impression that my head is in the clouds and that my eyes are only for riches, and while that is certainly always a driving force for me, I also want to impress upon you the practicality of my position. Moving Dream out of Mayacar is a risk, but a greater risk is doing nothing to secure our futures.”

  Lotti turned to look at Callum. “I don’t want to see any of you three dead, and that’s almost a certainty with your professions.” Grey was used to Lotti prioritizing her in group conversations, so choosing Callum only added to her irritation.

  With a shrug, the sage continued. “More importantly, Nessa and I are too beautiful and charming to continue rotting away in a ten-by-ten cabin.”

  Nessa pulled her long raven hair off her shoulders and twisted it into a knot at the crest of her head, emphasizing her graceful neck and Lotti’s point. She was a few years older than Lotti, and beginning to be handsome in a way that only came with age. Where Lotti had young sailors following her around like puppies, Nessa had sea-hardened merchants forgetting how to speak.

  While some might be under the impression that Nessa followed Lotti’s lead, Grey knew that wasn’t the case. Lotti was simply louder. Nessa spent her time generally annoyed at the people around her unless they had her respect, and then the attention was like a wave. It was very possible Nessa sold Lotti this whole angle first and was waiting to see where the cards landed.

  It seemed she had decided it was time to play her hand, “I think you all must know I agree with the wind sage. It’s already past time for me to consider leaving the ship to try and leverage what future I can. That, in itself, is a huge risk. Our team is stronger than most, and I trust Akula. If he feels this will work for us, then I intend to see it through.”

  Her position wasn’t shocking to Grey, but she did think it was interesting that she was the first to bring up the captain. Before tonight, Grey hadn’t known that Nessa considered him at all.

  Callum, likely boldened by Lotti’s attention, took his turn to speak, “It’s no shock that the sea and the wind have chosen to traverse the Known Seas; it’s in their nature. I may die as a riptide, or I may live to captain my own ship, as some do. What I know for certainty, is that I will die on a foolish errand across the world. The riches aren’t a boon if they would never end up in your chest.” Lotti appeared a little shocked at his response, but no one interrupted as he continued.

  “Every free-enterprise crew we know that has attempted has eventually perished crossing the border to Mayacar on trade. I’ve heard of none that have crossed from Umbra to Talcot with goods on board. We are not a military vessel, and we don’t have a diplomat’s papers, an embargo pass, or noble’s seal. There is no reason for a larger ship not to eat us alive as soon as they learn what we carry.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Callum paused before landing his argument. “This ship making it to Sablehaven is about as likely as me Influencing this command table through a porthole.”

  Nessa’s composure didn’t break, but Lotti was now clearly displeased. Finnian continued playing with a mechanical frog Lotti had fixed up for him. Grey was a little surprised at Callum’s absolute position. He was a generally confident person and didn’t necessarily avoid risks in training or combat.

  Lotti still didn’t want to meet Grey’s gaze, and being ignored was going from irritating to flaring her temper. “Well. Where do you land, Finnian?” Lotti asked.

  Finnian looked up. Grey was sure he had been listening, but, in her experience, a man who would send a knife through a stranger’s throat without blinking was always a little detached. Ebbjacks were notoriously distant. Finnian was not distant, and he was the opposite of cold. Instead, he was often aloof.

  “I will go wherever Grey goes,” he said, returning to his frog.

  Grey wasn’t expecting the show of loyalty from him, but she also knew he didn’t put a ton of weight in these types of decisions. He had laughed at Grey on many occasions when she worried over one thing or the next. His opinion was that none of them could change much at all about their fates. She thought this made sense for someone in his profession, and lately, it had been making a lot of sense to her.

  Lotti audibly huffed at his response, and that was the final straw for Grey. She glared at the sage, crossing her arms. She hoped she looking intimidating.

  Lotti noticed and asked, “You’ve yet to voice your opinion Grey, do you have something to say?”

  Though the words sounded normal, the tone did not. The entire table grew still. Even Finnian stopped winding up the frog, glancing back and forth between the women.

  Grey thought through her options. She wanted to explode at Lotti. Embarrass her in front of the group and turn Callum and Finnian against her. Perhaps she could even sow some distrust in Nessa. It would be an appropriate revenge for Lotti’s betrayal, and it would certainly make her feel much better.

  But as she aged, she tried to put more thought behind her impulses, even when her temper tried to take the reins. She needed to isolate her issue with Lotti. These were her friends, and her decision would affect their lives. It seemed she would control the majority decision here, and while everyone was free to do as they wished, Lotti was correct that no one wanted to disband.

  Even Callum might be persuaded to stay on the Paso Fino if he was the only one holding out on leaving. On the other hand, if Grey voiced an opinion to leave, Callum and Finnian would leave with her. She had to consider his fate as a riptide and Finnian’s fate as an ebbjack, not just as their leader, but as their friend. If the three left, they were unlikely to even obtain positions on the same ship, and even if they did, Grey knew Lotti was right about the survivability rate of their professions.

  But was her impulse to lash out incorrect altogether? There was now some truth in the fact that Lotti couldn’t be trusted. Did she have ulterior motives for persuading the group? Did Nessa? Maybe she should let her temper steer after all.

  No, that was an overreaction. Lotti and Nessa had always been on their side, even with their divide in professions. She trusted them both with her life, and though they made some questionable decisions, they had always been reliable allies.

  Her train of thought had led her to at least one obvious conclusion: at the end of the day, her personal preference didn’t much matter to her. She would be making the decision she thought was best for the group, even Lotti.

  So she spoke. “When Akula originally revealed this idea to me, I felt the same way Callum does. There may be a few ships that make this work, but they are so few, none of us can even recall their names or last we saw them.”

  Grey paused and then smirked. “Lotti’s initial conversation with me sounded like selfish, vain, gold-mongering.” The sage’s emerald eyes sharpened to points. Grey coughed and continued, “But I’m worried my impulse to choose the safest option might be short-sighted.”

  “I say I believe in us, in the captain, and in our ability to assemble and maintain the best crew in the world. It’s something that I live by. I trust my life to this belief every time we engage with our enemies and every time I go to sleep at night.”

  “How can I believe this and not believe we could be one of the few free-enterprise ships that trade across the known seas?” Callum’s face fell, now knowing where Grey would land.

  “I will deliver my decision to the captain and the grounders that I intend to sail with Akula. Opportunities like this don’t come without pitfalls, but every single one of you has pulled me out of a pit before.” She looked around the table, trying to convey that her decision was for the group, not herself.

  After a moment, she laughed. “Besides, I hear in Talcot they age their rice liquor in smoked bamboo. I don’t want to go to my funeral pyre without trying at least a glass.”

  With that, Finnian smiled and pulled a San Coralino dream cigar out of the inner pocket of his ebbjack tunic. The group relaxed, save Callum, who was deep in thought. Lotti smiled at Grey, and though Grey didn’t think she meant to be smug, it still only served to rub her the wrong way. They would bury the hatchet, but Grey had no intention of doing so tonight.

  The clack of the mechanical frog on the command table continued into the early morning, along with the calm lapping of waves on the hull and the laughter of the five sea-hardened sailors.