Lila realized the room had gone quiet. They were all staring at her, the king and the captain, the magician and the priest and the prince. “What?”

“Where is it now,” said Rhy, “this map to anywhere?”

Lila shrugged. “Back in Grey London, I suspect, in a room at the top of the Stone’s Throw.”

“No,” said Kell gently. “It’s not there anymore.”

The knowledge hit her like a blow. A last door slamming closed. “Oh …” she said, a little breathless, “well … I should have figured someone would—”

“I took it,” cut in Kell. And then, before she could ask him why, he added, hurriedly, “It just caught my eye. It’s like you said, Lila, the map has a kind of pull to it. Must be the spellwork.”

“Must be,” said Alucard dryly.

Kell scowled at the captain, but went to fetch the map.

While he was gone, Maxim lowered himself into a chair, fingers gripping the cushioned arms. If anyone else noticed the strain in the monarch’s dark eyes, they said nothing, but Lila watched as Tieren moved too, taking up a place behind the king’s chair. One hand came to rest on Maxim’s shoulder, and Lila saw the king’s features softening, some pain or malady eased by the priest’s touch.

She didn’t know why the sight made her nervous, but she was still trying to shake the prickle of unease when Kell returned, map in hand. The room gathered around the table, all but the king, while Kell unfurled his prize, weighting the edges. One side was stained with long-dry blood. Lila’s fingers drifted toward the stain, but she stopped herself and shoved her hands instead in the pockets of her coat, fingers curling around her timepiece.

“I went back once,” said Kell softly, head tipped toward hers. “After Barron …”

After Barron, he said. As if Barron had been a simple thing, a marker in time. As if Holland hadn’t cut his throat.

“Nick anything else?” she asked, voice tight. Kell shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, and she didn’t know if he was sorry for taking the map, or for not taking more, or for simply reminding Lila of a life—a death—she wanted so badly to forget.

“Well,” asked the king, “is it a cipher?”

Alucard, on the other side of the table, nodded. “It appears to be.”

“But the doors were sealed centuries ago,” said Kell. “How would an Arnesian pirate’s cipher even come to be in Grey London?”

Lila blew out a breath. “Honestly, Kell.”

“What?” he snapped.

“You weren’t the first Antari,” she said, “and I’ll bet you weren’t the first to break the rules, either.”

Alucard raised a brow at the mention of Kell’s past crimes, but had the sense for once to say nothing. He kept his attention fixed on the map, running his fingers back and forth as if searching for a clue, a hidden clasp.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” asked Kell.

Alucard made a sound that was neither a yes nor a no, and might have been a curse.

“Spare a knife, Bard?” he said, and Lila produced a small, sharp blade from the cuff of her coat. Alucard took the weapon and briskly pierced his thumb, then pressed the cut to the corner of the paper.

“Blood magic?” she asked, sorry she’d never known how to unlock the map’s secrets, never even known it had secrets to unlock.

“Not really,” said Alucard. “Blood is just the ink.”

Under his hand, the map was unfolding—that was the word that came to mind—crimson spreading in thin lines across the paper, illuminating everything from ports and cities to the serpents marking the seas and a decorative band around the edge.

Lila’s pulse quickened.

Her map to anywhere became a map to everywhere—or, at least, everywhere a pirate might want to go.

She squinted, trying to decipher the blood-drawn names. She picked out Sasenroche—the black market carved into the cliffs at the place where Arnes and Faro and Vesk all met—and a town on the cliffs named Astor, as well as a spot at the northern edge of the empire marked only by a small star and the word Is Shast.

She remembered that word from the tavern in town, with its twofold meaning.

The Road, or the Soul.

But nowhere could she find the Ferase Stras.

“I don’t see it.”

“Patience, Bard.”

Alucard’s fingers skimmed the edge of the map, and that’s when she saw that the border wasn’t simply a design, but three bands of small, squat numbers trimming the paper. As she watched, the numbers seemed to move. It was a fractional progress, slow as syrup, but the longer she stared, the more certain she was—the first and third lines were shifting to the left, the middle to the right, to what end she didn’t know.

“This,” said Alucard proudly, tracing the lines, “is the pirate’s cipher.”

“Impressive,” said Kell, voice dripping with skepticism. “But can you read it?”

“You’d better hope so.”

Alucard took up a quill and began the strange alchemy of transmuting the shifting symbols of the map’s trim into something like coordinates: not one set, or two, but three. He did this, keeping up a steady stream of conversation not with the room, but with himself, the words too low for Lila to hear.

By the hearth, the king and Tieren fell into muted conversation.