Jo's fingers moved through the rope in a rhythm she'd learned by now—over, under, pull, coil—the work automatic while her eyes drifted to the horizon. Three days out from Tortuga and the sea had gone flat, the sails hanging slack from the yards, the whole world holding its breath under a sun that turned the deck planks white with heat.
The ship was becalmed. Waiting. Like her.
She'd spent the morning with Kofi, learning a knot called a thief hitch, and the afternoon with Swee, who'd shown her how to read the clouds for weather—cumulus building meant fair, but if the tops flattened and spread, that was a squall coming. Jo had memorized it all, hungry for every piece of knowledge the crew would share, because each new thing she learned made her feel less like cargo and more like someone who belonged here.
The locket sat warm against her chest beneath the borrowed linen shirt. She touched it sometimes without meaning to, the way someone checks a wound that's healing.
Swee's whistle cut the air.
Not the casual trill she used to call someone's attention, not the two-note signal for a meal. This was sharp and rising, the kind of sound that made every head on deck snap toward the source. Swee stood in the rigging, one arm extended, pointing east—and Jo saw it.
Sails. Square-rigged, coming up fast on the starboard quarter, the breeze that wouldn't touch them filling those distant canvas bellies full and white. The shape of them resolved as she stared, the way a nightmare does when you try to look away. Three masts. Gunports along the side. A British warship, and close enough already to see the pennant snapping at the masthead.
The deck came alive around her.
Mara's voice cut through the chaos—"Stations, all hands, stations!"—and feet pounded on the planks, the crew scattering to their posts with the practiced urgency of people who'd done this before. Men and women swung into the rigging, others ran for the gunports, and somewhere below Jo heard the scrape of the cannon being run out.
But the sails still hung slack. There was no wind for them. Nothing to fill their canvas and carry them away.
A hand closed around Jo's wrist.
Amelia. Her eyes were already calculating, scanning the distant ship, the angle of approach, the time they had. Her jaw was set and the softness Jo had seen in the water that afternoon was gone, replaced by something harder, something that had survived this before.
"Stay below," Amelia said.
Jo opened her mouth to argue—she could help, she could load, she could—
"Josephine." Amelia's voice cracked like a whip. "Below. Now."
And then she was gone, shouting orders, her boots finding the quarterdeck in three strides, and Jo stood frozen as the crew flowed around her like water around a stone.
The warship was close enough now that Jo could see the gold braid on the officers' coats. Could see the guns, a whole row of them, black muzzles trained on the schooner. Could see the flag—the Union Jack, the same flag that flew over her father's house in Port Royal, the same flag that had meant safety once, before she understood what safety cost.
Below. Amelia had said below.
Jo's legs carried her toward the companionway, but her eyes stayed on the quarterdeck, on Amelia's back, on the way she stood at the wheel like she could will wind into existence through sheer stubbornness. The crew had the guns run out now, nine-pounders aimed at the approaching warship, and the mismatch was so vast it was almost absurd. A schooner's popguns against a Royal Navy frigate's broadside.
Jo ducked below just as the first shot tore across the water.
The sound was wrong. Not the clean crack of a cannon—something lower, heavier, the sound of wood splintering and the whole ship shuddering with the impact. Jo stumbled in the dark of the companionway, one hand catching the bulkhead as the deck tilted, and she heard the cry go up from above—a woman's voice, cut short.
Through the grate, the sounds of battle filtered down. Gunfire. Shouting. The scrape of boots on wood. And beneath it all, Amelia's voice, rising above the chaos, giving orders in Spanish and English and something else Jo didn't recognize, the words sharp and sure and unbroken.
Jo counted to twenty before she couldn't stand it anymore.
She was not cargo. She was not property. She had chosen this ship, this crew, this woman, and she would not wait below while they died for her.
The companionway stairs met her boots as she climbed, and then she was on deck, the sun blinding after the dark below, and the world resolved into fragments she couldn't fit together.
Smoke. The acrid burn of gunpowder hanging in the still air. Wood splintered along the starboard rail, a gap you could put your arm through. Swee on her knees by the mainmast, a cut across her forehead, blood streaming down her face. And forward, near the bow, the crew had gathered in a loose circle around something Jo couldn't see.
Then the circle shifted, and she saw.
Amelia was on her knees.
Time stopped. The noise of battle, the cries of the crew, the creak of the wounded ship—all of it fell away, and there was only Amelia, her hands pressed to her side, blood seeping between her fingers in a slow, dark spread, her face white beneath the tan, her teeth gritted against the pain.
Standing over her, sword still raised, was an English officer in a blue coat with gold epaulets. His face was flushed with exertion and triumph, and his eyes—cold, gray, satisfied—found Jo as she emerged from the companionway.
The whole deck went still.
"Well, well," the officer said, his voice carrying across the silence. He had an English accent, clipped and refined, the voice of a man who'd grown up in drawing rooms before learning to kill on decks like this one. "It seems we've found what we came for."
Amelia's head turned. Her eyes found Jo, and in them Jo saw something that broke her heart—not pain, not fear, but desperation. The look of someone who had failed at the one thing that mattered.
Jo's feet carried her forward before she knew she was moving.
"Jo," Amelia said. Her voice was rough, cracked, wrong. "Go back—"
"No."
The word came out flat and final, and Jo kept walking, past Swee, past the broken rail, past the crew who reached for her and fell back, until she stood between the English officer and Amelia's kneeling form.
The officer's smile widened. He was younger than she'd thought—maybe thirty, handsome in that polished English way, the kind of man her father would have called a good match. The kind of man Lord Thomas Whitmore looked like, before you saw what lived beneath the surface.
"Miss Ashworth," he said. "I am Captain James Harding of His Majesty's Ship Vengeance. I have been ordered to return you to your father, the Governor of Jamaica, with all due haste." He lowered his sword but did not sheathe it. "You will come with me now."
Jo heard Amelia try to stand, heard the sharp intake of breath as the movement pulled at her wound, heard the crew shift and mutter around them. But she didn't turn around.
"No," she said again.
Harding's smile flickered. "I'm afraid that isn't a choice."
"It is my choice," Jo said, and her voice didn't shake. She was surprised by that. "I left my father's house of my own will. I am not a piece of property to be returned. I am a member of this crew, and you will not take me."
"You are the daughter of the Governor of Jamaica—"
"I am Jo." She stepped closer, close enough to see the surprise in his eyes. "And if you want me, you will have to kill everyone on this ship first. And I do not think your crew is ready for that fight."
Behind her, she heard Mara's low voice, speaking rapid Spanish, and the answering click of more guns being readied. The crew had regrouped, had found cover behind the broken rail and the masts, and the English captain's boarding party—what there was of them—were standing on a deck that had turned hostile.
Harding's eyes swept the schooner, calculating the odds. His ship was still out there, guns still trained, but boarding a pirate vessel crewed by desperate people was a different proposition than blowing it out of the water. And his orders, Jo knew, were to return her alive.
A live hostage was worth more than a dead one.
"You will not win this," Harding said, but his voice had lost its certainty. "My ship outguns yours ten to one. I could blow you out of the water—"
"Then do it." Jo heard the voice as if from a distance, recognized it as her own. "Kill everyone here. Kill me. And explain to my father why you returned his daughter's corpse instead of a living bride."
Silence.
The wind picked up, just a breath, just enough to stir the limp canvas. Jo felt it on her face like a promise.
Harding's jaw tightened. He looked at Amelia, still on her knees, still bleeding, and then back at Jo, and something in his eyes changed—a calculation, a withdrawal, a tactical retreat dressed up as mercy.
"Your father will find you," he said. "Wherever you run, however far you sail. The British Empire does not lose what it claims." He stepped back, raised his sword, and shouted to his men. "Back to the ship. Now."
The boarding party retreated, sliding down the ropes they'd come up, and within minutes the longboat was pulling away, heading back to the warship that sat on the horizon like a threat waiting to be fulfilled.
On deck, no one moved until the longboat was well clear.
Then Mara was at Amelia's side, her hands replacing Amelia's, pressing hard against the wound. "Get Kofi," she said, her voice level. "And get the captain below. Now."
Two crew members lifted Amelia, and Jo saw her face—pale, slick with sweat, her eyes finding Jo one last time before they slipped closed.
"Is she—"
"She'll live," Mara said, but she didn't look at Jo when she said it. "Help Swee. Get the deck cleaned up. We have work to do."
Jo stood in the middle of the deck, the blood still wet on the planks, the smell of gunpowder still sharp in her nose, and felt the wind rise against her face—a real wind now, fresh and steady, as if the sea itself had been waiting for the threat to pass.
Swee touched her arm, her face a mask of blood and defiance. "That was brave," she said. "Stupid, but brave."
Jo looked at the horizon, at the distant shape of the English warship growing smaller, and thought of Amelia's hands in the water, holding her up, teaching her to float.
"I said I wouldn't sink on her watch," Jo said quietly. "I suppose she'll have to teach me to swim after all."
Mara emerged from the captain's cabin forty minutes later, her hands still stained red, her expression unreadable. The crew had gathered on the main deck in clusters, not working, not talking, just waiting—the way people wait outside a room where someone might be dying.
Jo stood apart from them, near the broken rail, her hands gripping the splintered wood until she felt a sliver bite into her palm. She'd helped Swee clean the blood off her face, had carried a bucket of seawater to wash the deck, had done everything Mara told her to do because doing something was better than standing still. But the whole time, her mind had been in that cabin, with Amelia.
Mara's eyes found her across the deck. Held.
Jo's heart stopped.
"She'll live," Mara said, loud enough for the whole crew to hear. Murmurs rippled through the gathered women, relief passing from face to face like a wave. "The blade went deep but missed anything vital. Kofi's got her stitched up. She's asking for you."
The last words landed like a stone in still water. A few crew members glanced at Jo with new eyes—the passenger, the governor's daughter, the one the captain was asking for.
Jo's feet carried her across the deck before she knew she was moving. Past Swee, who grabbed her arm and squeezed once, hard. Past the crew who parted to let her through. Down the companionway stairs, her boots finding the steps by memory, her hand finding the latch of Amelia's cabin door.
She pushed it open.
The cabin was dim, lit by a single lantern swinging gently with the ship's motion—the wind had come up proper now, filling the sails, carrying them away from the English warship and whatever Harding would report to her father. Amelia lay on the narrow cot, stripped to her shirtsleeves, a bandage wrapped around her torso, the white cloth already stained pink at the center. Her face was pale, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow but steady.
Kofi knelt beside her, packing the last of his supplies into a leather bag. He looked up when Jo entered, his dark eyes assessing her the way they assessed everything—slowly, carefully, as if reading the grain of a piece of wood before deciding where to cut.
"She lost blood," he said, his voice low and rough. "She will be weak for days. The wound must stay clean. If it goes red and hot, come find me."
Jo nodded, not trusting her voice.
Kofi stood, gathered his bag, and paused at the door. He looked back at Jo, and something in his expression softened—just a fraction, just enough. "She told me to keep you safe. Before the fighting started. That was the last thing she said before she went to meet them."
He left. The door clicked shut behind him.
Jo stood in the dim cabin, the lantern swinging, the ship creaking around her, and felt the weight of those words settle into her chest like an anchor dropped in deep water.
She crossed to the cot in three steps and lowered herself to the stool beside it, the same stool she'd sat on that first night, when Amelia had returned her mother's locket. She reached out and took Amelia's hand—the one that had held her in the water, the one that had squeezed hers and promised she wouldn't sink.
Amelia's fingers twitched. Then curled around hers.
Her eyes opened. Hazy at first, focusing slowly, finding Jo's face and holding there. The corner of her mouth lifted, just barely, into something that was almost a smile.
"You're a terrible listener," Amelia said. Her voice was a rasp, barely above a whisper, but the humor in it was unmistakable.
Jo laughed—a sound that came out half-sob, half-relief, her throat tight. "You're a terrible swim teacher. You promised me clear water and you gave me a sword fight instead."
Amelia's thumb moved across Jo's knuckles, a slow, weak stroke. "Next time. Clear water. I promise."
"You almost died."
"Almost."
"Don't do that again."
Amelia's eyes drifted closed, her grip loosening as sleep pulled her under. But her lips moved, forming words too quiet to hear. Jo leaned closer, caught the edge of them—"Can't promise that"—and then Amelia was asleep, her breathing evening out, her hand still resting in Jo's.
Jo stayed.
The lantern burned low. The ship sailed on. Outside, the crew moved through their tasks, repairing the damage, resetting the watch, the rhythm of survival asserting itself the way it always did. And in the dim cabin, Jo sat with Amelia's hand in hers, watching the rise and fall of her chest, counting each breath like a gift she hadn't earned but would fight to keep.
When Swee knocked and slipped in an hour later with a cup of tea and a plate of hardtack, Jo took them without letting go of Amelia's hand. She ate one-handed, the bread dry and flavorless, the tea bitter, and she didn't care.
"Mara says we're making good time," Swee said, perching on the edge of the desk. "Wind's holding. Harding's ship turned south, probably heading back to Port Royal to report."
Jo nodded, her eyes on Amelia's face.
"She's going to be fine," Swee said, softer now. "Kofi's never lost anyone on this ship. Not yet."
"I know."
Swee was quiet for a moment. Then: "The way you stood up to that captain. With the guns and the blood and everything. That was—" She stopped, searching for the word. "That was the bravest thing I've seen, and I've seen a lot."
Jo looked at her then, at the bandage across Swee's forehead, at the freckled face that had been nothing but kind to her since the moment she'd arrived. "I was terrified."
"Everyone's terrified," Swee said. "The trick is doing it anyway." She slid off the desk and moved to the door. "I'll bring you more tea. And something that's actually food, not ship's biscuit."
She slipped out, and Jo was alone again with the lantern and the creak of the ship and the warm weight of Amelia's hand in hers.
The night stretched on. At some point, Jo's head came to rest on the edge of the cot, her cheek against the rough blanket, her hand still holding Amelia's. She felt the ship move beneath her, felt the wind through the hull, felt the slow, steady pulse at Amelia's wrist against her fingers.
She thought about her father, about Lord Whitmore, about the English warship that had come for her and left without her. She thought about the crew, who had fought for her, bled for her, accepted her. She thought about Amelia, who had taught her to float and then bled for her too.
And she thought about what Harding had said—that the British Empire did not lose what it claimed.
She touched the locket at her throat. Her mother's face, frozen in miniature, watching her from another world.
"I'm not going back," Jo whispered into the dark. To her mother. To the ship. To no one. "I'm never going back."
She woke to the slow grey light of early morning filtering through the cabin's single small window, her neck stiff from sleeping bent over the edge of the cot, her hand still wrapped around Amelia's. For a moment she didn't move, just breathed in the smell of salt and blood and the faint herbal sharpness of Kofi's poultice, her eyes tracing the rise and fall of Amelia's chest beneath the blanket.
Still breathing. Still here.
Jo eased her hand free and stood, her legs protesting, her back screaming. The lantern had burned low, the flame a thin blue ghost in the glass. She found a fresh candle in the drawer of Amelia's desk—a small desk cluttered with charts and a half-eaten apple and a pistol with its powder horn still attached—and lit it from the dying flame. The new light pushed the shadows back into the corners, and she saw Amelia's face more clearly now: the pallor beneath the tan, the lines of pain that had settled around her mouth even in sleep, the way her fingers twitched against the blanket as if reaching for something that wasn't there.
Jo touched her forehead. Warm, but not fever-hot. That was something.
She slipped out of the cabin, closing the door softly behind her, and found the galley. The cook—a wiry woman named Elara who'd barely said two words to Jo since she'd come aboard—was already at work, a fire crackling in the iron stove, a pot of something savory bubbling on the hob. She looked up when Jo entered, her eyes assessing, then nodded once toward a shelf of tin cups.
"Broth's almost ready," Elara said. "She'll need to eat, when she wakes."
"Thank you."
Elara grunted. "Don't thank me. Feed the captain. That's thanks enough."
Jo waited while the broth finished, watching Elara work—the efficient movements of someone who'd done this a thousand times, the way she tasted and adjusted without measuring, the knife that never left her belt even as she stirred the pot. When Elara finally ladled the broth into a tin cup and handed it over, Jo wrapped her hands around the warmth and carried it back to the cabin like a sacrament.
Amelia was still asleep. Jo set the cup on the desk, pulled the stool closer to the cot, and sat down to wait.
The morning passed in increments of breath. The ship creaked and settled around her, the crew's footsteps overhead a constant rhythm, the distant shout of orders and replies. At some point the light through the window shifted from grey to gold, and the cabin warmed, and Jo found herself studying Amelia's face the way she might study a map of unfamiliar waters—looking for the landmarks, the hidden reefs, the safe passages.
Amelia's hand moved. Her fingers found the edge of the blanket, gripped it, and her eyes opened.
"Jo."
The word was rough, barely a sound, but it found Jo in the dim light and held her. She leaned forward, her hand finding Amelia's, and the relief that flooded through her was so sharp it almost hurt.
"I'm here."
Amelia's eyes tracked across the cabin, took in the new candle, the cup of broth on the desk, the chair that Jo had pulled close enough that their knees almost touched. Her gaze returned to Jo's face, and something in it eased—a tension Jo hadn't realized was there, a knot she'd been holding since Harding's sword had found its mark.
"How long?" Amelia asked.
"Since you got stabbed? A night. Since I started waiting? Feels like a year."
A ghost of a smile crossed Amelia's lips. "You stayed."
"I told you I would."
"People say things." Amelia's voice was still a whisper, but the weight in it was the same weight Jo had heard on the quarterdeck, in the water, in every moment that mattered. "They don't always mean them."
Jo lifted Amelia's hand and pressed it to her own cheek, holding it there, letting Amelia feel the warmth of her skin. "I meant it."
Amelia's thumb moved, a slow stroke across Jo's cheekbone. Her eyes drifted closed, then opened again, as if she was afraid that closing them would make Jo disappear.
"You need to eat," Jo said. "Elara made broth. It smells like it might actually be edible."
"I'm not hungry."
"I don't care."
Amelia's eyebrows lifted—a flicker of her usual fire, banked but not dead. "That's a new tone."
"I learned it from you." Jo stood, retrieved the cup of broth, and sat back down. The warmth seeped through the tin into her palms, and she held it out to Amelia, who made no move to take it. "You can't heal if you don't eat. Kofi said you lost blood. You need strength."
"Kofi talks too much."
"Kofi saved your life."
Amelia was quiet for a moment. Then she shifted, wincing, trying to push herself up on her elbows, her face going white with the effort. Jo's hand shot out, pressing her back down, her palm flat against Amelia's shoulder.
"Don't."
"I can sit up—"
"You can lie there and let me help you." Jo's voice came out firmer than she'd intended, and she saw something flicker in Amelia's eyes—surprise, perhaps, or the beginning of a challenge. She met it without flinching. "You told me to stay below. I didn't. You told me you'd teach me to swim. You haven't. So right now, you're going to drink this broth, and you're going to let me take care of you, and then we can argue about who's in charge."
Amelia stared at her. The silence stretched, the ship creaking around them, the candle flame bending in a breath of air from somewhere. And then Amelia's mouth curved—a real smile this time, tired and pained and genuine.
"You're going to be trouble," she said.
"I already am trouble." Jo lifted the cup to Amelia's lips. "Drink."
Amelia drank. The first sip made her grimace, but she swallowed, and then another, and then she took the cup herself—her hands shaking, but determined—and finished half of it before she lowered it, breathing hard, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.
"That's enough for now," Jo said, taking the cup. "You can have more in an hour."
"You're going to count the hours?"
"Yes."
Amelia's head fell back against the pillow, her eyes closing. But her hand found Jo's again, and her fingers laced through Jo's, a gesture that felt less like surrender and more like an anchor line thrown in deep water.
"Stay," Amelia said. Not a command this time. A request.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Jo stayed. She stayed through the morning, refilling the cup of broth when Elara brought another batch, coaxing Amelia to take a few more sips each time. She stayed through the afternoon, when the fever rose and Amelia's skin grew hot to the touch, and she fetched cool water and a cloth and bathed Amelia's forehead and neck, her hands gentle, her movements sure. She stayed through the evening, when Kofi came to check the wound, and she watched him peel back the bandage and examine the puckered edges of the gash—still red, still angry, but not infected, not yet—and she felt the tension in her chest ease a fraction.
"She's strong," Kofi said, his voice low, meant only for her. "She'll heal."
"I know."
"Do you?" He looked at her then, his dark eyes holding hers. "She's been alone a long time. Longer than she'd admit. Having someone to fight for—that's a different kind of medicine."
Jo didn't know what to say to that. She nodded, and Kofi left, and she sat back down beside the cot and took Amelia's hand again.
That night, Amelia woke from a nightmare—her body arching, her hands reaching for a sword that wasn't there, a sound tearing from her throat that was half-rage, half-fear. Jo caught her before she could tear her stitches, pinned her gently to the cot, spoke to her in a voice she didn't know she had—low and steady, like the rhythm of the sea against the hull.
"You're safe. You're on the ship. It was a dream. I'm here."
Amelia's eyes found her in the dark. Wild at first, then focusing, then—recognition. Her body went slack beneath Jo's hands.
"Jo."
"I'm here."
"I was back there." Amelia's voice cracked. "On the deck. Harding. The sword. I couldn't—I couldn't reach you, and they were taking you, and I couldn't—"
"They didn't take me." Jo smoothed the hair back from Amelia's forehead, her fingers tracing the line of her brow, the curve of her temple. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
Amelia's hand came up and caught Jo's wrist, holding it against her chest. Jo could feel her heart beating fast, a bird trapped in a cage of ribs.
"Promise me," Amelia said.
"I promise."
"Say it."
"I promise, Amelia. I'm not going anywhere."
The name hung in the air between them. Jo had never said it aloud before—never had reason to, never had the right. But now, in the dark, with Amelia's heart beating against her palm, it felt like the only word that mattered.
Amelia's eyes widened, just slightly. Then she pulled Jo's hand down, pressed a kiss to her palm, and let it rest against her cheek.
"Stay with me," she whispered. "Tonight. Please."
Jo didn't answer with words. She kicked off her boots, pulled the blanket up over both of them, and lay down beside Amelia on the narrow cot, her body curving around Amelia's injured side, her arm sliding careful and gentle across Amelia's waist, her cheek resting against Amelia's shoulder. The position was awkward, the cot too small for two, and the ship's motion made her brace her feet against the frame to keep from sliding off. But Amelia's hand found hers where it rested on her stomach, and Amelia's breath evened out, and the nightmare receded into the dark where nightmares belonged.
Jo lay awake for a long time, listening to the sea, feeling the warmth of Amelia's body against hers, counting the slow rhythm of her breath. She thought about her father, about Lord Whitmore, about the British warship that had come for her. She thought about what Harding had said—that the Empire did not lose what it claimed.
But she thought about this, too: the way Amelia had held her in the water, the way she'd bled on the deck, the way she'd said Jo's name like it was something precious and fragile and worth dying for.
Jo pressed her lips to Amelia's shoulder, a kiss so light she almost didn't feel it.
"I'm not going back," she whispered again, into the warm dark, into Amelia's skin. "I'm never going back."
Dawn came slowly, grey light seeping through the window like water through a hull seam. Jo had slept in fits, waking each time Amelia shifted or murmured, her body attuned to the other woman's breathing the way she'd learned to read the ship's motion—instinctive now, automatic, a new language spoken in the bones.
Amelia's hand was still wrapped around hers when Jo opened her eyes. The fever had broken sometime in the night—she could feel it in the coolness of Amelia's skin, in the even rhythm of her breath. The bandage at her side showed no fresh blood, just the old stain brown and dry.
Jo eased herself up, careful not to jostle the cot. Every muscle in her body protested—her neck, her back, her hip where she'd been pressed against the edge of the frame for hours. She stretched, feeling the joints pop, and looked down at Amelia's face in the growing light.
Peaceful. That was the word that came to her. The lines of pain had smoothed out, the tension in her jaw gone. She looked younger like this, the hardness that the world had carved into her features softened by sleep and trust.
Trust. Amelia had trusted her enough to sleep beside her. To let her see the nightmare, the fear, the crack in the armor. Jo touched the locket at her throat and felt the weight of that trust settle into her chest like something solid, something she would carry and protect.
She slipped out of the cot and found the pitcher of water she'd brought up the night before. She poured some into a basin, wet a cloth, and wrung it out. Then she sat on the edge of the cot and began to clean the dried sweat from Amelia's face—gentle strokes across her forehead, down her cheeks, along the line of her jaw.
Amelia's eyes opened. For a moment she was still, just watching Jo's face, and then her hand came up and caught Jo's wrist, stopping the motion of the cloth.
"You're taking care of me," Amelia said. Her voice was stronger this morning, rough but steady.
"Someone has to." Jo met her gaze. "You're terrible at it yourself."
"I've had practice."
"Not enough." Jo pulled her wrist free and continued her work, wiping the cloth along Amelia's collarbone, the hollow of her throat. "You're going to stay in this bed until Kofi says you can get up. And you're going to eat everything I bring you. And you're going to let me change your bandages."
"That's a lot of orders for someone who isn't captain."
"Consider it a mutiny." Jo wrung out the cloth and set it aside. "A small one. Just the two of us."
Amelia's lips curved. "A mutiny of two. That's not a mutiny. That's a conversation."
"Then consider it a very insistent conversation."
Jo reached for the fresh bandages Kofi had left on the desk. She hesitated, the roll of linen in her hands, and looked at Amelia. "I need to change the dressing. Kofi showed me how."
Amelia's eyes searched hers. Then she nodded, once, and shifted to give Jo access to her side—a small movement that cost her, her jaw tightening against the pain.
Jo worked the old bandage loose, trying to be gentle, her fingers finding the knot Kofi had tied and easing it apart. The wound beneath was red and puckered, a line of dark stitches holding the edges together, but the skin around it was clean—no swelling, no angry heat. She pressed a clean cloth to it first, blotting the small amount of fluid that had seeped out overnight, and then began to wrap the new bandage around Amelia's torso, her hands moving with a steadiness she didn't feel.
Up close, she could see the other scars. A thin white line across Amelia's ribs. A round puckered mark on her shoulder that looked like an old bullet wound. A network of fine lines on her forearms, the kind that came from years of sword work, of blocking and parrying and surviving.
Jo's fingers brushed one of them, a long pale streak on the inside of Amelia's wrist.
"How did you get this one?"
Amelia was quiet for a moment. "Port Royal. Three years ago. A man tried to take my ship."
"He didn't succeed."
"No. He didn't."
Jo finished the bandage, tucking the end of the linen securely, and sat back. Her hands were steady, but her heart was not. Being this close to Amelia, touching her, seeing the evidence of every fight she'd survived—it made something ache in Jo's chest that she couldn't name.
"You have a lot of scars," Jo said quietly.
"I've been in a lot of fights."
"I know." Jo met her eyes. "I'm sorry I added one more."
Amelia's hand found hers, squeezed. "You didn't add it. Harding did. And he didn't get what he came for."
"He got close."
"Close doesn't count."
Jo lifted Amelia's hand and pressed it to her own cheek, the same gesture Amelia had made the night before. "I don't want close to count. I want you to stay alive."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
Amelia laughed—a real laugh, weak but genuine, and the sound of it made something loosen in Jo's chest. "You're going to be the death of me, Josephine Ashworth."
"Jo." She corrected her gently. "I'm Jo now. Josephine is the girl who ran away."
Amelia's eyes held hers, and in them Jo saw something shift—a door opening, a wall coming down, a decision being made. "Jo," she said, testing the weight of it. "Jo."
"Yes."
"Jo." Amelia said it again, like she was memorizing the shape of it. "I like that."
Jo felt her face warm. She looked away, busying herself with gathering the soiled bandages, folding them into a neat bundle to be washed. "You need to rest. I'll bring you breakfast."
"Jo."
She stopped at the door, her hand on the latch.
Amelia's voice came from behind her, low and rough and honest. "Thank you. For staying. For—all of it."
Jo didn't turn around. She was afraid that if she did, she would say something she couldn't take back. Something about the way Amelia's name felt in her mouth. Something about the shape of her hand in the dark. Something about the way she had never known what it meant to belong somewhere until she'd stood on a bloodied deck and refused to leave.
"You don't have to thank me," Jo said. "I'm exactly where I want to be."
She opened the door and stepped out into the morning light, the ship moving beneath her, the wind fresh and steady, the horizon open and waiting.