“You killed them?” I ask.

She snorts. “Who did you think? Heron says it goes against his gift to cause harm, and Blaise doesn’t like to get his hands dirty unless it’s necessary. He likely would have if I’d asked it of him, but…” She trails off.

“But you like doing it,” I finish.

Her eyes flash and her smile is grim. “It feels good,” she says. “To take something back.”

She opens her mouth and I ready myself for a pointed comment about how I couldn’t kill S?ren when I had the chance, but it doesn’t come.

“I can teach you,” she says instead, surprising me. “How to use a dagger, I mean.”

I look at the weapon at her hip and try to imagine myself wielding it—not like I did in the tunnel with S?ren, with shaking hands and paralyzing doubt, but like someone who knows what they’re doing. I remember the Kaiser’s breath on my neck, his hand gripping my hip, inching up my thigh. I felt helpless in those moments, and I never want to feel helpless again. I push the thought away. I’m not a murderer.

“After Ampelio…I don’t think I have it in me,” I tell her finally, wishing that it weren’t the case.

“I think you’d be surprised at what you have in you,” Artemisia says.

Before I can reply, we’re interrupted by the approaching tap of boots against the wood deck, the sound stronger and more clipped than anyone else’s step. Art must recognize the gait, because she almost seems to shrink in on herself before turning toward it.

“Mother,” she says, the hand on the hilt of her dagger fidgeting again. A nervous habit, I realize, though yesterday I would have laughed at the idea of anyone making Artemisia nervous.

Steeling myself, I turn to face her as well. “Dragonsbane,” I say.

She stands tall and poised, taking up more space than it seems like she should, given her size. She wears the same outfit as the rest of the crew, apart from the shoes. Instead of bulky work boots, she wears knee-high boots with a thick block heel. I wondered, at first, how practical they were to wear on a ship, but she never so much as stumbles, and they give her a few extra inches in height that I imagine make her appear more imposing to her crew.

When her eyes meet mine, she smiles, but it isn’t the same smile my mother used to wear. Instead, she looks at me the way Cress would look at a poem she was having trouble translating.

“I’m glad to see the two of you are getting along,” she says, but she doesn’t sound glad at all. She sounds vaguely cross about something, though I think that might be how she always sounds.

“Of course,” I say, trying on a smile. “Artemisia was invaluable in getting me out of the palace and in murdering the Theyn. We wouldn’t have been able to do anything without her.”

Next to me, Art doesn’t speak. She stares down at the planks of wood beneath her mother’s boots.

“Yes, she’s quite special. Of course, she’s the only child I have left, so she’s particularly invaluable to me.”

There’s an undercurrent in her tone that makes Art flinch. She had a brother. She told me he was with her in the mine, that he’d gone mad and was killed by a guard she later murdered. Before I can think too much about the energy between them, Dragonsbane snaps her attention to me.

“We have plans to make, Theo. Let’s discuss them in my cabin.”

I begin to respond, but Art gets there first.

“Your Majesty,” she says quietly, though she still won’t look at her mother.

“Hmm?” Dragonsbane says, yet judging by the way her shoulders tensed, she heard perfectly well.

Artemisia finally looks up to meet her mother’s gaze. “You should call her ‘Your Majesty,’ especially where others can hear you.”

Dragonsbane’s smile is taut as a bowstring ready to snap. “Of course, you’re right,” she says, though the words sound forced. She turns back to me and bows shallowly.

“Your Majesty, your presence is requested in my most humble cabin. Is that better, Artemisia?” she asks.

Artemisia doesn’t answer. Her cheeks are bright red and her gaze drops again.

“It’ll do,” I tell her, diverting Dragonsbane’s attention before she reduces her daughter to a pile of dust.

Dragonsbane frowns at me, then looks back to Artemisia. “And I’d assigned you to manage the tides until noon. You have another hour, if you think you can manage it.”

The challenge in her voice is clear and Art clenches her jaw. “Of course, Captain,” she says, lifting her hands toward the sea once more.

Without another word, Dragonsbane turns and motions for me to follow her. I catch Artemisia’s eye and try to give her a reassuring smile, but I don’t think it registers. For the first time since I met her, she looks lost.

AS SOON AS WE STEP into Dragonsbane’s cabin, I wish I’d asked Art to come with me. It’s a selfish wish—she was clearly anxious to get out of her mother’s presence—but I wish it all the same. The two men waiting there are thoroughly devoted to Dragonsbane, and it feels like I’ve walked into a trap. It isn’t the way I felt around the Kaiser and the Theyn—like a lamb in the lion’s den, as the Kaiserin said—but it isn’t so far off. I will have no allies in this room.

I am the queen, I remind myself, squaring my shoulders. I am my own ally, and that will be enough.

The men clamber to their feet when they see me, though the show of deference might, in fact, be for Dragonsbane.

Eriel, a little older than Dragonsbane, with a full russet beard and no hair at all on top of his head, leads Dragonsbane’s fleet—the Smoke, the Fog, the Dust, the Mist, and half a dozen smaller ships whose names I can’t keep straight. Last night, he told me he lost his left arm in battle a few years back. It’s since been replaced with a stub of polished black wood with carved fingers frozen in a fist. The loss would have meant retirement for most soldiers, but Eriel’s strategic prowess makes him invaluable even though he can no longer fight. Dragonsbane’s small army has held its own against Kalovaxian battalions three times their size, and it’s largely due to his careful planning with the captains of the other ships.

Next to him is Anders, an Elcourtian lordling who ran away from his easy life two decades ago, when he was a teenager in search of adventure. And he certainly found it. He told me yesterday that he barely survived his first few years on his own, as he had no real skills to speak of and little understanding of money. It was not the never-ending resource he’d once believed it to be; it was something to be fought for—to be stolen, if the need arose. So he thieved his way from country to country and later trained others to do the thieving for him. When he grew bored with that, he decided he wanted to be a pirate and bartered his way onto Dragonsbane’s ship.

“You may be seated,” Dragonsbane says before I have a chance to speak.

Maybe Artemisia was right to correct her mother for calling me Theo. Maybe Dragonsbane is undermining me on purpose. She won’t have a difficult time of it with these two. Though they’ve all been perfectly civil toward me since I came on board, there is no doubt in my mind that I don’t live up to whatever idea they had of Astrea’s rebel queen.

But I’ve been underestimated by far more intimidating people, and for the first time it doesn’t behoove me to shrink in on myself and avoid notice. Instead, I draw myself up to my full height, even though Dragonsbane in her block-heeled boots dwarfs me.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” I say, nodding at both men in turn before letting my attention fall on Dragonsbane, daring her to correct my assertion. I sweeten my smile. “And thank you, Aunt, for arranging this. It’s time we discussed what comes next. If one of you would be so kind as to find Blaise and Heron, as well?”

Dragonsbane’s nostrils flare so slightly that I would miss it altogether if I weren’t looking for a reaction. Her jaw tenses before she forces her mouth into an echo of my smile.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Theo,” she says. “I’ve assembled our best strategic and diplomatic minds.” She motions to the men. “Blaise and Heron have done much for our cause, but they are boys with little experience in these matters.”

Her dark eyes are unrelenting against mine and it takes all I have not to flinch away. They are my mother’s eyes, after all, and looking into them makes me feel like a child again. But I am not a child and I can’t afford to feel like one for even a moment. There is too much at stake. So I hold her gaze and I don’t let myself waver.

“They are my council,” I tell her, keeping my voice soft but level. “I trust them.”

Dragonsbane tilts her head to one side. “You don’t trust us, Your Majesty?” she asks, eyes widening. “We have your best interests at heart.”

The men murmur their agreement a beat behind her.