Elisa was no less taken aback by the question. Marco watched her open her mouth to explain just how it was known, and what kind of person knew it, then snap her talking parts shut again without saying a word. It was a few seconds before she really did talk.

“You know, it’s odd.” Elisa’s eyes had a far-away look. “I’ve read just about every book on the island. Histories. Storybooks. And I’ve never actually seen a mention of someone with an evil class doing truly evil.”

“Maybe they catch them too quick?” Marco suggested.

“I thought of that, Marco, but these histories go back centuries, to when the islands were barely settled, let alone well-governed. There would have been at least some evil classes that slipped through the cracks. But all the evil anyone ever did was just, you know, normal evil. The class doesn’t matter for that. All sorts of people do bad things.”

“So what does that mean?” Riv asked. “This entire thing is a scam?”

“I don’t know. I do know that the captain they sent after us was more than enough to take care of our ship all by himself. Marco is getting strong faster, but it will be years before he can take on someone like that. Maybe years and years. If they have ships like that on their side, why would they ever be afraid of someone like Marco?”

“I wonder.” Marco was thinking hard now. “Elisa, did you ever see anything about where they actually take people with a class like mine? Where they go? What they do? Garrick and my foster father seemed to think it would be bad, or something.”

“That might be. If it were things like farming, we’d have met people who were being suppressed that way. We’d meet these classes in a random fish processing plant. I never knew anybody like that.”

“Maybe they take them to another island. Where their friends can’t get to them as easily,” Marco said.

“Maybe. Riv, did you ever meet anyone like that?” Elisa asked.

“Me? No. Just normal classes in my town.”

“See? And we never got any of his. Wherever they go, it’s not back into normal circulation. I figured maybe they just killed them. Tatric showed me a grave that he figured was meant for me. It could just be that.”

“Or something worse.” Elisa wobbled her head indecisively. “Or maybe we are overthinking things. In any case, I don’t think we should let that captain catch us.”

Marco’s reflexes got the better of him and twisted his body around to take a good close look at their wake. For as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but blue water.

“You scared me. He can’t catch up now, right?” Marco asked.

“We have miles and miles of lead,” Aethe said. “And we’ll have more by the time they get out. If we take some unexpected angles and they don’t get very lucky, they might never find us. Mostly we just have to keep moving. We can’t stop for anything unnecessary.”

That set the priority for the crew over the next few days. Elisa drew a map that showed the furthest any ship could see in normal circumstances, then added any landmasses or islands Aethe knew about to the mix. With enough food to go for days or weeks and Riv pulling up fish with a stolen pole, they didn’t need to stop at any of them.

Marco picked a random spot in the cone Elisa had drawn and started maneuvering there, making a series of sharp turns to make sure they weren’t on an expected straight-line path very often. After the first day was done, it actually felt unlikely that the other ship would ever find them.

In the meantime, Marco added Aethe to the crew with her assent. After debating between the different positions, he chose Gunner for her.

By the second day, even Elisa had stopped watching the horizon with quite so much suspicion. The ship settled into a rhythm, as much as it could. Riv kept cooking and making minor repairs, Elisa scribbled away in her notes, and Aethe stood on the prow at dawn and dusk, her eyes always scanning, always working. Marco started to feel like a real captain, responsible for keeping everyone safe.

They slept in shifts, but no longer with a sword at hand. That first edge of peace was starting to return. And then, just like that, it was shattered.

“Ships in the distance,” Aethe said. “And it looks like they’re having a fight.”

Marco reached the side of the ship before the sentence had fully landed. It took him a few moments to locate what Aethe had seen, but soon enough he could see the two specks in the distance. Two ships, neither of them the one that had chased them before, were locked in some kind of slow-motion naval duel. Cannon smoke drifted like fog, and between blasts he could just barely make out figures scrambling across the decks.

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“Pirates?” Riv guessed.

“Maybe. Or maybe both are pirates. Or neither. Hard to say from here.” Marco ran back to the wheel. “We probably don’t have the power to interfere. But we might be able to learn something. Let’s steer that way and see if anyone’s still afloat by the time we get close.”

“Are you sure?” Elisa looked at him hard. “We were running. This is a delay. And it’s not any of our business.” Marco froze. It was true. If they were really running, really maximizing every second of advantage, they would go around this. It was the safest thing. The wreckage of the battle would be a sizable opportunity for them, but they could find there opportunities elsewhere if it came to that.

It was really a question of who they wanted to be. The freedom of the ocean meant they could be anyone. They could be the type that ignored trouble and stayed on the fringes. They could also be the type who knew right from wrong and changed the world for better in their wake. Being a captain was supposed to be about doing good, in Marco’s mind, or at least it was when he was still young and innocent. Staying as safe as possible no matter what was one choice, but there were others.

“It’s not just my call. You can all have a say. But I think if it were us, we’d at least want someone who had a chance of fishing us out of the ocean. And if it’s me, I want to get closer to understand what’s going on even if it brings us more risk. That’s how we grow, right?”

Aethe nodded almost instantly. “That’s the right answer. Or it’s the brave one, at least. And that’s the kind that tends to work out better, long-term.”

Riv gave a noncommittal grunt, but he was already moving to secure the gear he didn’t want sliding around in the event of sudden maneuvers. Elisa sighed and put a fresh spark into her palm.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll do it your way. Let’s just make sure the next risk doesn’t eat us whole.

They approached at an angle that Marco hoped would make them less noticeable, tracing a large circle as the two ships continued to engage. It became more and more clear as they approached who the aggressor was. The larger of the two ships was chasing the smaller ship, firing its cannons endlessly as it picked the smaller craft apart. The smaller ship returned fire where it could, but there was only so much they could do. They were outgunned and would be badly outmanned if they were boarded.

As The Foolish Endeavor got even closer, they saw figures on the surviving ship running along the rails, trying to stamp out small fires or drag others to safety. Most of them appeared to be on their feet, which Marco took as a good sign. What was worse was just what kind of survivors he was looking at. None of them, outside the few obvious official crew, seemed to be combatants. They were normal people, from what he could see, a lot like the average person on Gulf Isle looked.

“Marco,” Elisa said with a cold voice. “There are children.”

There were. The other ship’s rigging was now clearly visible, and though they were white, there was nothing about surrender in them. They had a large, crude drawing of what appeared to be a whip on them, flapping in the wind over a crew of rough fighting types.

“Pirates,” Riv said. “Real pirates.”

“Yup. I think that makes our decision for us. Are we agreed?” Marco asked.

The rest of the crew nodded. It was going to be a fight.

As they approached, the smaller civilian ship made an all-out effort to fight back, twisting in a tight circle before ramming the enemy ship. This worked, to an extent. It got off a few devastating cannon shots before crashing into the pirates, rocking their ship and putting a very temporary end to the enemy’s cannon fire. It also hurt the smaller ship, which had already been hurting. Cracks rang out through the air as boards splintered and broke throughout the hull. There wasn’t much time now.

Marco launched his own big, dangerous attack himself. He changed course to go more directly towards the pirate ship, nodding at Elisa and Aethe as they moved towards their new ship’s armaments. Moments later, the cannons were hissing with power as the prow of the ship bashed hard into the enemy’s hull. Neither ship was damaged much, but the prow of The Foolish Endeavor did bind up with the other ship by means of poking a hole straight through the upper hull, chaining the two craft together temporarily.

The cannons fired then, sending out cannonballs that arced with lightning and splashed the top of the enemy ship with shocking force that took the crew from a state of reeling disorientation to a full momentary paralysis. As half of them fell down, Riv and Elisa leapt from one ship to the other. Riv landed first and harder, bringing his club down on an unfortunate gunner and knocking him unconscious. Elisa hit the deck swinging her now much improved elemental powers, whipping lightning out from each hand a good two feet as she swung her body in a circle, disorienting a good three crewmen in the process.

Marco let go of the ship’s wheel and jumped over himself a few moments later. Elisa had managed to keep the fighters off balance to an extent, giving Riv room to either crack them unconscious or to, in a few cases, knock them off the boat entirely. He was getting good with the club and it showed in every swing. They would have been in trouble still if it wasn’t for Aethe’s covering fire, which managed to pick the right target every time and take out whatever archer or cannoneer was closest to drawing down on the two.

The quickest of the enemy forces to recover was the captain, followed by two warriors who appeared to be his personal guard. The rest of the crew was either handled or falling fast, but if the captain got to Elisa and Riv, Marco suspected that would change quickly. By the time he made it over the rail to the enemy ship, the captain had unfurled his weapon, which looked to be an honest-to-goodness whip if a little more studded with razor-sharp shards of metal than Marco was used to.

The whip cracked out, carving a line in the deck between Riv and Elisa. It was aimed to kill, Marco realized, but it had a second purpose in separating them. The reason became clear as soon as his crew moved forward. The captain was trying to wedge enough space between them for his crew to weave their way in and cut down one, the other, or both of them.

The other captain was big, bald, and, in Marco’s learned opinion, just begging for a beating. If attacking what appeared to be a civilian ship hadn’t been enough, the fact that the captain and his men were striking to kill were certainly signal enough. The captain’s guards flanked him like guardian spirits. The one with twin hatchets looked mean enough, but Marco’s real worry was the one beside him wielding a long spear tipped in something that glowed faintly green.

“Captain,” Marco murmured. “A real pirate captain. Fine. Let’s see who’s better at that job.”