I could hardly believe my own great, damnable luck. After a year and a half of searching, I had stopped looking for him, and I had found him the very same day.

I hooked a chair with my foot and sank into it, pretending I was in full control of my knees. “Rafe McCrea,” I acknowledged.

His smile, I think, was meant to be pleasant, but it came across rather acrid. “Never thought I’d live to see you again, trog. Here for the festival, I suppose?”

He made it so easy for me. I grinned, leaning across my folded forearms over the table. “Here for you,” I corrected. Then, glancing at Marlowe, I added, “Both of you. I have a proposition for you.”

“Oh, joy of dolphins,” McCrea muttered, his drink-fogged eyes making brief contact with the ceiling. He turned comically to Marlowe. “Shall we listen to the trog’s proposal, Tommy?”

My jaw dropped. “Tommy?” I repeated incredulously.

Two pairs of eyes fell on me, and I snapped my mouth closed. For a long, laden moment, nobody said anything. Then, in a low and vaguely threatening voice, Marlowe said, “If you call me Tommy again, I’ll have your lungs for bagpipes.”

I swallowed. “Understood,” I said. In a sudden burst of bravery, I pressed. “So, what do you call McCrea, then?”

“‘Darling,’” McCrea said smugly.

“Shut up,” Marlowe recommended, and I couldn’t quite tell if he was talking to me or McCrea. He looked me up and down, and I returned the gaze. He had always been a sturdy, fair youth, full of vivacity and tobacco. The man in front of me, however, rolled his pipe stem in his teeth while he considered me with keen, assessing eyes. Nothing vivacious lived in him now. He was a businessman. And that meant he could be reasoned with.

“What is the nature of the endeavor you wish to propose?”

McCrea stood up very suddenly, swayed on the spot for a moment and then patted Marlowe’s shoulder. “I need to be thoroughly drunk before you force me to listen to this.”

“You are thoroughly drunk,” Marlowe said, “but I’ll allow it. Be quick.”

“As if you have any say in what I’m allowed to do,” McCrea said, hauling himself out from behind the table with far more dignity than I would have expected. If he was thin before, it was astonishing that he was not now dead. His ribs showed starkly in his half exposed chest, and his eyes were sunken deep into his skull.

I grabbed his sleeve as he walked past. This question was imperative to our success. McCrea stopped walking and pulled up his lip like he might bite, and I wouldn’t have been the slightest inch surprised if he did.

“Do either of you have a vessel?” I asked.

The air between me and Marlowe went tight as a full-bellied sail. McCrea, however, was either too smug to fall prey to the implications of my question, or too drunk to understand it. He tugged his cuff out of my grip. “I ain’t had a mast to my name in a long time,” he said.

A smirk tugged my lips. “Is that so,” I murmured, glancing pointedly south of his waistband, my eyebrows raised. I suppose I deserved the slap he delivered to the back of my head as he marched away.

“What happened to him?” I mused, watching him swagger over to the bar.

“He’s a high-functioning drunk,” Marlowe said stiffly. “And you don’t know him, not at all.”

“So help me to,” I replied doggedly. “I need him, Marlowe.”

Marlowe took a long draught from his cup and set it down, running his pitted fingertips around the rim. “What are you after, Owen?”

I paused. Assessed. Marlowe was smart, and he would see through a lie like shallow water. But if I told him the truth, he would shut down my proposal before I even laid it out. I needed him, too. I needed them both. Merdagh, I had not thought that Marlowe would be the hardest catch!

“Something that neither of you will like,” I confessed, all in a rush.

Marlowe huffed out a breath. “Don’t tell McCrea what it is, then,” he warned. “It’ll be fool’s errand enough, trying to coax him back to the sea.”

“But it’s possible,” I persisted.

Scratching his jaw, Marlowe glanced toward the bar where McCrea was chatting up the barmaid I had, unfortunately, kissed. “With the right spur, possibly.”

“So you’ll help me, then?”

He laughed sharply. “Don’t get your head over the keel. All I’m saying is, you’ll need a good lie.” He inclined his head toward the bar, where McCrea was attempting to cram two pints of ale into one hand. “Quickly.”

"Don't you want to know the truth before you ask me for a lie?"

"Not particularly."

McCrea arrived like a winter squall and offered a pint to Marlowe, who waved his dismissal. “Got one, thanks,” he said. “But perhaps Owen would like one?”

McCrea eyed me suspiciously, then placed both cups on the table in front of his seat. “Mine,” he declared, flopping into his chair. Spine of an eel, that one. Brains of one, too. He propped his boots on the table and fixed his gaze on the ceiling.

“Mm,” Marlowe murmured, and then turned his gaze on me. “Well, well, Mr Peige. I’m listening.”

I gathered my thoughts and tented my fingers on the table. “I had a dream,” I began. “I was on a cliff high above the sea. The waves lapped the rocks below, and the sun was high overhead, shining on the waves like liquid gold. And far over the horizon, so faintly, I could hear singing.”

“Sirens,” McCrea said, not tearing his eyes away from the incredibly fascinating tiles overhead. “The sirens sing in your sleep. You really are touched in the head, trog.”

“McCrea,” Marlowe warned. “Go on, Owen.”

“When I awoke, I was filled with purpose. The sea calls me.”

“And you think we'll follow you and your frankly ridiculous dreams to the depths of Merdagh's heart, is that it?" McCrea spat, finally looking at me. "I never cared for you, trog. Why should I drown for you?"

I glanced at Marlowe, who simply lifted an eyebrow. "I'm hungry for the sea," I floundered. "But I've no wish to die upon it. I've heard tell of a treasure to the southeast."

McCrea's eyes returned to the ceiling. "Ah. And you think treasure is going to tickle my fancy enough to board a rickety old vessel?"

"She won't be rickety," I said immediately. "She'll be the finest lady on the sea. She'll put the late Jenny to shame."

"Let's suppose for a moment that we've agreed to your venture," Marlowe interjected. "What cause would you have to hire us, specifically?"

"You would be my navigator," I said, "And McCrea would captain my ship."

McCrea's half reclined body stiffened so extremely that I thought he had stopped breathing. Marlowe challenged my sanity with his eyes.

"I've seen you do it," I pressed. "The Skybound Jenny, after Captain Searly was snatched off the deck. After the gil'he-moahr baited him out onto the deck and tore him apart. After the Captain's blood rained down on us and the beasts crushed the Jenny's bow between them."

"Shut up," McCrea mouthed.

I am a terrible listener. "After Marlowe lost his leg to cold and Jute shot Old Frankie and himself in a fit of panic…"

Marlowe shook his head, ever so slightly.

"...it was Rafe McCrea who gathered the rest of us, used the scraps of the wreck and rebuilt the Jenny so we could sail home."

"And that," McCrea murmured, deadly quiet, "is why Rafe McCrea is a drunk."

"Calm southern seas," I said. "A simple, straightforward voyage to get your sea legs about you, and you'll see that it's not so bad."

He heaved a sigh, gathering one of his mugs of ale and taking a long drink. "You know what else is not so bad, trog? Solid land."

Marlowe held up a hand to stall our bickering. "And if we were to accept, what recompense can we expect?”

A fair enough question. Any sailor worth his salt would make sure that question was satisfactorily answered before he set foot in a deal. I, of course, had not been worth my salt when I boarded the Skybound Jenny, but I recall Old Frankie and the young lads talking about the Captain’s dream far more than they had talked of any payment. This, of course, would not be the case aboard my own vessel. A fabricated dream about a siren's song was hardly a vision of being the first men to find the edge of the world.

“The treasure will be split fairly between my crew,” I said.

“If we find it,” McCrea muttered.

“If we don’t, the ship is yours to sell or do with as you please.” That earned a slight nod of approval from Marlowe, and I tipped my head in return. “As for you, Marlowe, and any other crew we may have, I will cover any costs for you out of pocket.”

“Fascinating how well you’ve planned this,” McCrea drawled. “Or how well you can make things up when you’re put on the spot.”

“Both excellent qualities in a sailor,” I said, rather boldly, I thought.

“Do you have a vessel in mind?” Marlowe asked. His face had taken on a new light, almost anticipatory.

“None yet,” I said. “But I think something small. The smaller the crew, the greater the profit, right?”

“At last, a sensible thought. And what would be your role aboard the ship? Cabin boy?” McCrea gibed.

I hadn’t thought of that. Damn, he was right; I was getting far too good at making things up. “You might consider me your benefactor,” I said, as smoothly as I could manage.

Marlowe nodded his head slowly, gazing past me as if weighing everything I had said. Then, he took the full cup of ale from in front of McCrea and slid it across the table to me. An eerie smile carved out his face. “Drink up, Owen Peige,” he told me. “It seems we have a deal.”