A Price in Ink

“Twenty crowns,” Rowan said, slipping the gangplank loose with his boot.

“I have four.”

“An excellent beginning. What else?”

Mira glanced at the approaching uniforms. “I can calculate longitude, mend a survey chain, and draw a coastline without making it look like boiled cabbage.”

“Then you have met my previous cartographer.” He shouted toward the hatch. “Bess! We are departing with four crowns and a useful insult.”

A broad woman carrying a saucepan came on deck. She inspected Mira, then the quay, and put down the pan. “Cast off yourself. I'll take the helm.”

The green brig drifted backward just as Voss reached its berth. He did not shout. He raised one gloved hand, as though memorizing the shape of their departure. Mira found that worse.

Beyond the breakwater, Rowan introduced his vessel as the Lark and its remaining crew as Ivo, a young deckhand with an older person's skeptical eyes. Bess was mate, cook, and, she informed Mira, the owner of half the ship. Any agreement with Rowan was only half an agreement.

Mira spread the torn map beneath the deckhouse lamp. Rowan's smile vanished. He ran a finger above a drawing of seven islands arranged like scattered teeth.

“Where did you get this?”

“My uncle's effects.”

“Ansel Venn?” Bess leaned closer. “He helped my sister when the company barred her boat from the north channel. Drew her a safer route.”

Rowan opened a locker and withdrew a second scrap of chart. Its torn edge fitted Mira's, though a narrow wedge remained missing at the center. Mira reached for it. He held it back.

“I won mine from a surveyor,” he said.

“Won how?”

“By being worse at cards than he expected, until I wasn't.”

The combined drawing showed a spiral of currents around an empty circle. Beside it, faded letters spelled HAVEN. Mira knew the legend: a sheltered island beyond the Broken Chain, where spring water flowed through winter and no king collected harbor dues.

“I want accurate charts,” she said. “What do you want?”

Rowan studied the empty circle. “Enough money to own my ship outright.”

Bess folded her arms. Mira noticed.

They signed their agreement on the back of a flour invoice: shared findings, shared expenses, no sale without unanimous consent. Outside, the Resolute's white sails rose against the harbor sky. The Lark's little red door rattled as Bess brought her into the wind.