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Laggart calls the afternoon watch down for dinner so they can wait out the stilling. Not wanting to draw the captain's eye any more than she already has, Tress keeps her brush moving while the rest of the Crow's Song sits down to eat. The narrator pauses to undercut the cliché of thoughtfulness as a double-edged sword — most swords have two edges, he points out, and have not in his experience proved any more dangerous to their owners on that account. It is the sharpness of the *wielder* that does the cutting.

Tress is sharp tonight, and that is the trouble. While she is working out the route to her escape, she cannot help overhearing Ann lean against the mast nearby and tell Laggart that no, it wasn't the Dougs who loaded his cannon's spore-pouches, it was the new girl. She thought he should know. *Please don't stick up for me*, Tress thinks, *please don't remind me how nice you are.* Night comes; the seethe begins again; the ship slides back onto its course for the port.

Hoid ambles up and informs her, brightly, that her inspector's coat would look better with half of it painted orange. *Orange?* Tress manages — that would clash. *Clashing is good fashion, trust me.* Also, Fort says go see him for food. He winks; he is going off to nibble his toes, he says, which taste like fate. Tress tries to ignore the summons, but then Huck comes bouncing up insisting that they are both hungry. With a sigh she lets him onto her shoulder and goes down.

Fort sets another plate in front of her at his counter, by the light of his small lantern. It tastes less awful than last time, perhaps because her tongue has not yet recovered from the apocalyptic breakfast. He insists in writing on his board that this is a trade and not a kindness, but he refills her cup with the same bronze tumbler from earlier when it gets low, and quietly saves her a crusty bit of cake for after. The thought matters more than the cake. And then Ulaam saunters in to bargain, fondly, with Fort over the gull-bones from dinner that Fort has put aside for him. The pleasure of the haggle is the thing. It is a family, Tress realises — a doomed family with a mother who does not love them. She cannot just walk away.

*Fort*, she says, looking down at her plate. *I don't think Captain Crow has the crew's best interests at heart.* Fort freezes over a pewter mug he had been polishing. *I listened in on her*, she presses, *when she and Laggart — That's enough*, he writes; *anything more will get you tossed overboard, Tress. No speaking mutiny.* She tries to tell him about the cannonballs. He slaps the counter, then writes in large letters: NO MORE. Then, privately, glancing at the door, fingers shaking on his stylus: the captain had visited him about his nosing around the cannonballs; he shouldn't have said anything; *don't you say anything; it's too dangerous; SHE'S too dangerous.* He shakes the board to clear the words. *Why are you all so scared of her?* Tress asks. *She's just one person.* His eyes widen. *You don't know*, he writes. *Of course you don't. And I won't say; not my place. But she could kill every one of us, Tress. Easy as that.* Then he puts the board down and turns his back.

So much for warning the crew. Tress forces her last bite down and walks lethargically back up to the deck, her feet dragging as if chained. *Moons*, Huck whispers from her shoulder, *we need to get away from here before this turns nasty. How are we going to escape? You never told me.* She raises a finger and points. Ahead, beyond the green glow of the spores, lights dapple a large shadow on the water: Shimmerbay, and freedom. Huck points out that they will surely set guards on her. *Ah*, Tress says, sick, *but they won't.*

Crow orders the crew to quarters with a flogging promised to anyone caught sneaking off, and sets Laggart on the night watch. Tress sleeps on the deck as she had the night before — and with no sailing to be done, no one is going to trip over her where she lies. Around midnight Laggart clomps loudly down the steps to the privy, taking care to wake her. Tress, who has not been asleep, gathers her little sack of cups and crosses the empty deck. *Huh*, Huck notes drily, *if they didn't want anyone getting off, why'd they run a gangplank down to the dock?* Because, Tress tells him quietly, Crow *wants* her gone. The captain wants the crew bound to her by being deadrunners in earnest, and that requires a survivor to tell the story of the Oot's Dream. Tress is the survivor. So the gangplank is down.

She hesitates at the top of it. Shimmerbay is a long way from Kingsport but she could make her way there, and from there go on with what she had set out to do — figure out what the Sorceress wants for Charlie and find a way to free him. *Tress*, Huck says, *I can't help noticing that you aren't moving.* *I should stay*, she whispers. *And help the crew.* He objects — she barely met them; she owes them nothing. She points out that he was a stranger she barely knew once, and she helped him. He rubs his paws. *Yeah, well… huh.*

She cannot save Charlie from where she stands tonight; his pain, though hers, is not something she can stop here. These people are. *Maybe if I help the crew*, she says, *they'll take me to the Midnight Sea for Charlie.* *They're pirates.* *They're a family.* A plan is forming — a way to stop Crow from inside the ship. She tells Huck he should run; he will not blame him. He clicks his teeth at her in something like a shrug. He has a good feeling about her, he says. *But are you sure about this?* Of course she isn't, Tress thinks. She has not been sure of anything since she left the Rock.

A match flares in the dark. Crow is sitting on the steps to the quarterdeck, lighting her pipe; her face flickers orange and then goes back into shadow against the bright moon-filled sky. She has been watching. *You should run, girl*, she says. *You've proven yourself, and I judge you worthy of life. Slip away.* Tress takes a breath. *I want to join your crew.* Crow laughs — earlier today Tress was cursing the Crow's Song for killing her family. Tress admits the lie: she had wanted Crow to pity her, and Crow's kick had told her it hadn't worked. She had been a stowaway on that ship and did not belong there; she does not belong in Shimmerbay either. She thinks she might belong here.

Crow takes her time with the canteen and turns toward her cabin. *Run along anyway*, she says. There is no place on her ship for a scrubber she keeps as a punishment for the rest of the crew; a sailor with no proper role is an anchor. Tress almost goes — but the part of her that hated the duke's bullying of Charlie and the inspectors' bullying of the dockworkers hates being bullied here too. *You don't have a ship's sprouter*, Tress says. Crow freezes at the cabin door. Weev is dead, Tress presses; the Dougs won't do the job — otherwise Crow would have pressed one into it. *And you aren't afraid of spores?* *Of course I am*, Tress says. *But I figure a healthy respect for them helps a sprouter stay alive.*

Silence. Then: *Aye, that's right.* Crow supposes maybe there is a place for her here after all — she did walk across the spores on foot, she did take a zephyr-burn to the face, she is still willing to handle them. The captain might, in fact, have the perfect place for her. *Welcome to the Crow's Song, ship's sprouter.* Tress will forfeit her share of the first three plunders, take an officer's portion after; she cannot eat with the crew (sprouters being a strange lot, and the captain not wanting spores in the food — she'll go to Fort for leftovers); and she had better never lie to Crow again, or they will discover together what happens when a person swallows a pouch of zephyr spores. Ulaam has always wondered. The cabin door closes.

Tress sits down on the deck, knees gone soft, and pulls her red coat tight. She is terrified of what she has just done, and certain — somehow — that it was right. For better or worse, she is a pirate now.