Amanda awoke in bed next to Sirius, her memories of the previous night were a blur. Confused at the strange array of half-formed images that beat at her pounding skull, she pulled herself upright. She was immediately overwhelmed by a strong feeling of nausea. Half climbing over Sirius, she leaned over the edge of their bed and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

  Gently, Sirius pulled her hair back from her face.

  “I have regrets,” she mumbled.

  “Really?”

  There was something familiar about the laughter in his voice. She was too hungover to think about it too hard though. It wasn’t unlike him to tease her for her own folly though. In a way it was comforting.

  “Was that the 5th beer or the 7th?” Sirius asked.

  She groaned.

  He stroked her back.

  She struggled to get her thoughts into order. Her memories didn’t quite match with her surroundings. The alcohol must have caused some weird dreams or something. Slowly, she sat upright.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, his tone more serious now.

  She hesitated as the images in her mind formed into something more solid. Something didn’t add up. She surveyed the their small cabin with a frown, her half-asleep brain bringing the easy questions to her lips first. “Seven beers?” she asked. “I didn’t have that many did I?”

  “That was just when I stopped counting.”

  She could hear laughter in his voice again. A feeling of deja vu swept over her. She turned to look at him. His gaze was gentle, concerned but playful too. Familiar. Far too familiar. Not just him but everything since the moment she’d woken up this morning.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. The worry in his eyes deepening slightly, becoming more concerned.

  “Yeah,” she nodded.

  It was a lie. But it seemed to satisfy him enough, or at least he simply put it down to her being hungover.

  “Food might help. Shall we get some breakfast?”

  She nodded. Pretended everything was okay, because she needed time to think. It wasn’t okay though, because by now she was pretty darn sure that the images in her head, had not been dreams at all.

  She had time travelled. The ring had let her time travel. As she followed Sirius to the galley, her fingers found the cool metal that hung on the end of the cord around her neck. She could still feel magic in it, recognisable magic, and no longer just because it reminded her of something she couldn’t remember. She knew exactly what it was now. It’s shape and power. Weaker than before. How much was left? She wasn’t sure.

  Time travel magic was dangerous. That she did know. Experience had taught her that it was, for the most part, better off avoided. But she was here now, and given what had happened, that was probably a good thing. She would do better this time. She just had to be careful. Time didn’t like things to be altered, it resisted it. The more you tried to change the more unpredictable the results. The trick was to keep it small. The problem was, preventing an entire ship from sinking hardly seemed like a small thing. But if the actions which altered it were small, maybe that would be okay.

  All the way through breakfast she behaved as she had previously. It wasn’t hard given she had been hungover then, and it seemed like she was hungover now. She hadn’t spoken much before and she was glad of that since it gave her some time to think.

  She was still thinking by the time they reached the deck later that morning. She knew the mistake she had made had been using her magic. Perhaps that was all she needed to do differently, just stand back and let the day play itself out?

  Morgan and her sailors had been in battles before, been boarded before, survived before. This was nothing new. It was her intervention and her fire that had caused the ships to sink.

  Someone handed her a cup of something strong smelling. For a brief moment she was reminded of home, of the smell of the nicer kind of fire and wooden barn, of the whiskeys her dad sometimes poured, although this one had a sweeter more caramel sort of scent to it. At least her hangover seemed to be wearing off faster today. Although, technically, she supposed, her yesterday was also today.

  “You alright?” Sirius asked.

  “Huh? Yeah.” She’d been spacing out a bit too much. She gave him a smile that barely qualified, “Just hungover.” She couldn’t remember what words she’d said on the deck yesterday… err today… whatever day it was. Thoughts of the upcoming events were wearing at her nerves. To try and calm herself she downed the dark spirit in one go, not remembering until after she’d swallowed the stuff that it wasn’t an action she’d taken last time. Shit. Well, hopefully it wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Sirius raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Hair of the dog.” She shrugged and gave him a more believable smile the than the one just before.

  It seemed to amuse him.

  “Hey, that’s for Pinto and Miles, you’re supposed to save it for the toast,” chided the sailor with the liquor as he poured her another.

  “Oh, oops.” Now what did she do with this one though? She’d already drunk one. Last time Sirius had had hers but that didn’t really work now that he’d seen her drink, did it? Either way if there was going to be a fight and he was going to be in it, it was probably better that she drunk hers this time instead of him. She settled on that and waited.

  From across the deck, someone else shouted for a refill. Laughter followed but his request was granted. Not far away, Stinger, Ferret, and Larska discussed who was here. Beside her Sirius asked someone else what the drink was. Amanda only vaguely paid attention to any of it.

  Eventually Singer gave his short speech and Amanda downed her second glass along with the rest of them.

  Conversation slowly returned and Amanda tried to decide what she should do when the time came. There was no doubt that they would be boarded. Perhaps it would be safest if she just went below deck and waited, but she knew the not knowing would drive her crazy. She just needed to find somewhere safe that she could watch from, and maybe, only if absolutely necessary intervene from.

  The borrower was a problem though. There was the option if she took him out first, that maybe then it would still be safe to use her flames. But that still meant killing a man and it would not be subtle. They had had other magic too. Chaos had not come from her fire alone but it had been the worst of it. Maybe if she had a gun.

  She glanced toward Sirius but before she could ask for one of his Morgan’s voice rang out across the deck.

  “Hold on. We have one more event this morning.”

  Amanda could see the scene even without turning around to look at it. She did so though, after a moment’s preparation. She watched Morgan march Abe across the deck.

  Beside Amanda, Sirius cursed.

  Amanda’s gaze fixed on Abe. He was the problem. Him and those other two. If she’d just let Morgan kill them all, so much would have gone differently. Just dealing with the antics of those first two had taken time. Maybe if they’d moved faster, they wouldn’t have found themselves being pursued now. Maybe the dragon wouldn’t have attacked. Maybe she would have looked at the infusements yesterday instead of getting drunk. Maybe there was something useful in them? If only she’d known that ring contained time magic earlier, then she could have gone back and let Morgan kill them all.

  But somewhere along his walk, Abe seemed to notice her staring and he met her eyes and stared right back at her. Doubt claimed her. There was something in his eyes that told her he wasn’t like the others.

  As Morgan approached the front of the crowd Amanda lost eye contact with Abe. She shook her head. It was probably just wishful thinking. Besides, what was one man to an entire crew? If only she’d gone back sooner, but time magic had a limit and this one no longer held the same power it had. Maybe the first time she could have done it, but not now. She wasn’t even sure she had enough for a repeat of this day if she screwed it up, assuming she could even control the damn thing.

  She became aware of Sirius watching her closely then, so she tried to remember how it was she had behaved before. She wasn’t worried about Abe this time though. She knew he’d be fine if the ship was fine. Every bone in her body was waiting for that other shout, the one that signified the approaching ship.

  “We are still owed some blood,” Morgan called to the crowd.

  Amanda swore she could have counted several heartbeats in the silence that followed. Then finally it came.

  “Sails on the horizon! Unknown vessel in pursuit.”

  Men scurried into action around her. Amanda remained still in the storm. The next several minutes were certain, it was what came after them that wasn’t.

  “Why wait for now to chase us?” Stinger asked aloud from not far away.

  From beside him Larska answered. “You know why. They want the haul.”

  Morgan landed on the deck with a thump and scoffed, “They can have it. There’s nothing in it. We’ll dump and run, like we did with the dragon.”

  Amanda considered it. Maybe that was exactly what they should do. Maybe that was all the change needed to save them? But Amanda wasn’t sure how to argue in favor of it and while she was still deliberating, Sirius was already jumping in with his bartering.

  She listened to them argue back and forth, their calm demeanors such a contrast to that which she knew was yet to come. But at the same time, it gave her some comfort. Neither of them were afraid. Maybe her first instinct on this second morning had been right. Maybe she really did just need to keep out of the way.

  Morgan turned to Ferret. “The Slicer? What are our chances?

  “Not good. We’re likely going to want to make some sort of bargain. A one on one fight is not a sure win knowing who their captain is, so unless you fancy an all out battle...”

  Amanda listened to them carefully, hoping maybe there was some snippet of useful information she’d missed last time. It all made it sound quite hopeless though. Ferret’s assessment made it sound like if she really did just stand by and watch, there’d still be several deaths. That was better than the entire ship though, wasn’t it? And maybe Morgan would convince them to negotiate, but for what? Surely not a sacrifice or two like on The Piper? No matter which way it was put, they seemed bound to lose something.

  “Can we surrender?” Amanda interrupted, finally making a decision on what seemed like the smallest loss.

  All eyes turned her way.

  She glanced in the direction of their pursuers. “Since it seems like we can’t outrun them and we can’t outfight them, then we should try to negotiate right?” She added some extra inflection to her question, fixed her eyes on Morgan, lowered her chin slightly and tried to give the impression of an eager novice asking for confirmation from an expert, rather than as a challenger.

  It worked. Her question and the way in which she asked it didn’t seem to ruffle any of Morgan’s fur. The captain glanced toward her partners and quartermaster, to gauge their opinions.

  “She’s right,” Stinger agreed. “That’s likely our best chance.”

  Yesterday, Morgan had pushed for outrunning them, but it seemed it took only a little nudge for her to shift her tact.

  She nodded. Then she turned toward the rest of the deck and yelled out, “Raise the white flag!”