Anne nodded. "Agreed. We leave the bell alone for now." She turned to William. "Send a few crewmates back to the ship and let them know we'll be staying the night here. Perhaps with that time, we may be able to reclaim one of the citizens." Anne eyed Alexandre, then glanced over her shoulder at Jules, who was just returning from the storage room.
"Terribly sorry, miss, no more in the back. Here, your money," he said while holding out his hand.
"My thanks," Anne replied, following the act.
With her newfound knowledge, instead of the same unease she had been feeling before, she felt a profound sense of pity for the men and women of this island. Pity, and a wave of rising anger boiling up.
…
"You must have your rest, Captain," Alexandre chided. "If we are to have you leading our troops, you must be of sound mind."
Anne stifled a yawn, cursing the Frenchman for talking of rest at the late hour it was. Alexandre, Victoria, Anne, and William had huddled themselves in the storage room of the general store. Soft lamplight illuminated the windowless room, casting shifting shadows and bounding bands of light against the barrels, boxes, and bags of supplies in the crowded room.
Their charge, Jules the shopkeeper, sat slumped in a chair in the middle of the four. If an onlooker caught a glimpse of the half-shadowed face of the man between them all, they might think he was asleep, but he was not. He was under a trance, this time of Alexandre's doing.
Anne knew nothing of the practice and had thought not long ago it was superstitious nonsense, and so thought it equally odd that to remove one from a trance, they must again force them into the same experience. That lack of knowledge, and thus an inability to truly help, and the stifling yawn, made Alexandre's words sound like honey. The only thing keeping her awake now was a vague sense of duty and curiosity over the entire strange matter.
"And what of you?" she eventually asked.
Alexandre smiled in his usual, civil way, and though Anne couldn't be sure, it seemed warmer to her somehow. "I rarely sleep, and Victoria, for entirely different circumstances, is plagued by a similar affliction as I. We will see you in the morning, and perhaps you will then be able to talk with the real Jules."
Anne didn't need much convincing, and with a dull nod and heavy eyes, she headed up the stairs in the storage room to the second floor of the general store.
There, a few crewmates who weren't out on watch were sleeping on cots, leaving two beds on the left side of the room for William and Anne. With a few words, Anne ordered William to rest as well and refused to lie down until she saw him do so first. He was reluctant, but he too had had a long and tiring day from the early morning sailing until now, and she could tell that he fell asleep soon after his head hit the pillow.
Anne laid her head down to rest, tossing and turning as she ran through the events of the day in her head once more until eventually sleep took her. Her sleep was short-lived when a sound forced her from her bed to full alertness.
It was the cutting crack of a pistol fired outside.
6. By These Copper Legs o' Mine
Edward's whole body ached in a painful expression of his own stupidity. Bruises blotched his face, back, arms, and legs from the beating Grace's crewmates had given him. True to their captain's word, they'd managed not to break any bones, but Edward wasn't sure how much better off he was for it.
The worst was his back, as they had opened the wound given by his father, which had been only a week old at the time. Edward did his best to protect the injury without making it seem as though he were guarding it as per the rules of the engagement, but it had been unavoidable. After that point, he focussed simply on not crying out in pain over the ordeal.
And after it all, he had to man a ship that was not his own, taking orders from a captain he had to act amicably towards.
As his arms shook, he secured coarse rigging; as his legs wobbled, he ran the length of the ship to perform increasingly menial tasks, tasks meant to break him and have him regret his decision. And as he bled on the deck from his forehead and back, he kept going. Despite the pain, the weakness, and the not-so-subtle slights from the crewmates tripping him up, he did the work of three men—just as he had been told to do, just as he had agreed he would.
To Edward's dismay, this only served to infuriate several members of the crew. The more he pushed on despite his injuries, the more contempt he could feel in their gazes; the heat against the back of his neck told him those gazes were measuring him and finding him wanting no matter how well he performed.
The primary source of the contempt came from the first man they had spoken to before boarding the Black Blood: the pock-marked, sour crewmate named Nigel. He had an inner circle of other crewmates Edward learned about over the day's work, and they were the ones trying to trip or knock him over at each corner when the captain wasn't looking.
Despite this, some in the crew seemed to warm up to Edward after his stubborn refusal to submit to his injuries. As the day progressed and his sweat and blood poured out of him, he noticed a few go out of their way to aid him. When he fumbled with a knot his numb fingers just
