Nola smiled. “A crocodile bit it off, didn’t it?”

He nodded. “Aye, the damn bastard ripped it clean off.”

Kitten pointed to her eye. “And I was born with this eye, so Golden-Eye seemed fittin’.”

“Oh, I thought Kitten was your pirate name,” Nola admitted, confused.

“No, dear, Kitten is my very given name! Love every letter on it!” the golden-eyed pirate said.

“As do I,” Dyson said, landing a kiss on her head.

Hill lifted his mug. “As fittin’ as mine,” he said. “Tipsy.”

And so, on went the crew saying the whys and wherefores of their pirate names: some interesting, some not-too-much. She learned that it was Ardley who had stitched Boots’s leg up after the crocodile attack and joined the crew shortly after.

Nola felt among friends—real friends—for the first time in her life. She even felt safe, understood, and a weird sense of belonging.

After Ardley sat his pipe down and pointed to his hair and big round belly to explain the reasoning for his name, Nola turned to Mazie, and waited.

“You want to ask me, don’t you?” Mazie said, her lips curling up and her fingers drumming against the deck.

“Would you tell me if I do?” Nola asked.

She snickered. “No bloody chance.” Mazie banged her mug down and took out her boucan from its sheath, slamming it into the deck.

Nola shifted, looking down at the knife.

“Bloody hell, Mazie,” Boots said, “You don’t need to kill everyone’s buzz every time you hear somethin’ you don’t like.” He scrunched up his nose. “Even behind that droll deviltry, we see you for who you are. Relax, mate, or sleep it off.”

Everyone fell silent, watching a sneer cross over Mazie’s lips. Then she threw her head back and laughed, releasing the tension she had created. It had been a while since Mazie had been that drunk; she convinced herself she deserved it.

Nola suddenly felt a bit suffocated, even in the open air. She searched her mind for any other topic to shift the conversation.

“This rum—” She cleared her throat, breaking the silence. Nola already felt the liquor hitting on her senses. “…is delightful. I’ve never tasted anything like it.” She acquired the taste, but it still burned.

The captain folded his arms over his chest and gave her a subtle wink. As he opened his mouth to speak, Kitten chuckled, leaning up from Boots, who had nestled his lips into her hair.

“First off,” the golden-eyed pirate said, “ye need to eliminate the word, delightful, like right now, from yer vocabulary.” She held up two fingers. “Secondly, ’ave ye ’onestly not ’ad rum before?”

Boots wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. She snickered, wiggling back between his legs.

Nola smiled for only a moment before her smile turned into a small frown. “I haven’t, actually. We were always too poor for a drink like this.”

The crew blasted into laughter, so hard they held their stomachs.

“Oh, my love,” Lincoln started, his laughter tapering out. “I don’t recall the last time we ever paid for the rum.”

Nola smiled. “You stole it?”

He tipped his head. “I’m a pirate, milady. That is what we do.”

Boots wiggled his shoulders, swinging his arm over Kitten’s head, grasping her waist again. “In our defense, we’ve never stolen from someone who didn’t deserve it.”

“I see,” Nola said.

She was not judging them either way. They survived that long by doing what they did best, and she respected them for it. After years of having everything taken from them, if her parents’ lives were not at stake, she would have done the same to the king.

There was another moment of silence. No one made a sound other than the waves gently crashing against the side of the ship.