Captain Hariri puffed out his chest and coughed. "Why don't you show Mistress Tanarau your ship, boy?"

  Tarrin gave him this real withering look, with enough nastiness in it to poison Lisirra's main water-well, then turned back to me and flashed me one of his ladyslaying smiles. I sighed, but my head still stung from where Mama'd smacked me, and I figured anything was better than fidgeting around in my dress while Papa and Captain Hariri yammered about the best way for the Tanarau clan to sack along the Jokja coast, now that the Tanarau had all the power of the Hariri and her richman's armada behind them. Thanks to me, Papa would've said, even though I ain't had no say in it.

  Tarrin led me down this narrow staircase that took us away from the garden and up to the water's edge. Sure enough, a frigate bobbed in the ocean, the wood polished and waxed, the sails dyed pale blue – wedding sails.

  "You ain't flying colors yet," I said.

  Tarrin's face got dark and stormy. "Father hasn't given me the right. Said I have to prove myself first."

  "So if we get married, we gotta sail colorless?" I frowned.

  "If we get married?" Tarrin turned to me. "I thought it was a done deal! Father and Captain Tanarau have been discussing it for months." He paused. "This better not be some Tanarau trick."

  "Trust me, it ain't."

  "Cause I'll tell you now, my father isn't afraid to send the assassins after his enemies."

  "Oh, how old do you think I am? Five?" I walked up to the edge of the pier and thumped the boat's side with my palm. The wood was sturdy beneath my touch and smooth as silk. "I ain't afraid of assassin stories no more." I glanced over my shoulder at him. "But the Isles of the Sky, that's another matter." I paused. "That's why you want to go north, ain't it? Cause of your father?"

  Tarrin didn't answer at first. Then he pushed his hair back away from his forehead and kind of smiled at me and said, "How did you know?"

  "Any fool could see it."

  Tarrin looked at me, his eyes big and dark. "Do you really think it's stupid?"

  "Yeah."

  He smiled. "I like how honest you are with me."

  I almost felt sorry for him then, cause I figured, with a face like that, ain't no girl ever been honest to him in his whole life.

  "We could always fly Tanarau colors," I suggested. "Stead of Hariri ones. That way you don't have to wor–"

  Tarrin laughed. "Please. That would be even worse."

  The wrong answer. I spun away from him, tripped on my damn dress hem again, and followed the path around the side of the cliff that headed back to the front of the Hariris' manor. Tarrin trailed behind me, spitting out apologies – as if it mattered. We were getting married whether or not I hated him, whether or not Mistress Hariri thought I was too ugly to join in with her clan. See, Captain Hariri was low-ranked among the loose assortment of cutthroats and thieves that formed the Confederation. Papa wasn't.

  There are three ways of bettering yourself in the Pirates' Confederation, Mama told me once: murder, mutiny, and marriage. Figures the Hariri clan would be the sort to choose the most outwardly respectable of the three.

  I was up at street level by now, surrounded by fruit trees and vines hanging with bright flowers. The air in Lisirra always smells like cardamom and rosewater, especially in the garden district, which was where Captain Hariri kept his manor. It was built on a busy street, near a day market, and merchant camels paraded past its front garden, stirring up great clouds of dust. An idea swirled around in my head, not quite fully formed: a way out of the fix of arranged marriage.

  "Mistress Tanarau!" Tarrin ran up beside me. "There's nothing interesting up here. The market's terrible." He pouted. "Don't you want to go aboard my ship?"

  "Be aboard it plenty soon enough." I kept watching those camels. The merchants always tied them off at their street-stalls, loose, lazy knots that weren't nothing a pirate princess couldn't untangle in five seconds flat.

  Papa told me once that you should never let a door slam shut on you. "Even if you can't quite figure out how to work it in the moment," he'd said. He wasn't never one to miss an opportunity, and I am nothing if not my father's daughter. Even if the bastard did want to marry me off.

  I took off down the street, hoisting my skirt up over my boots – none of the proper ladies shoes we'd had on the boat had been in my size – so I wouldn't trip on it. Tarrin followed close behind, whining about his boat and then asking why I wanted to go to the day market.

  "Cause," I snapped, skirt flaring out as I faced him. "I'm thirsty, and I ain't had a sweet lime drink in half a year. Can only get 'em in Lisirra."

  "Oh," said Tarrin. "Well, you should have said something–"

  I turned away from him and stalked toward the market's entrance, all festooned with vines from the nearby gardens. The market was small, like Tarrin said, the vendors selling mostly cut flowers and food. I breezed past a sign advertising sweet lime drinks, not letting myself look back at Tarrin. I love sweet lime drinks, to be sure, but that ain't what I was after.

  It didn't take me long to find a vendor that would suit my needs. He actually found me, shouting the Lisirran slang for Empire nobility. I'm pretty sure he used it as a joke. Still, I glanced at him when he called it out, and his hands sparked and shone like he'd found a way to catch sunlight. He sold jewelry, most of it fake but some of it pretty valuable – I figured he must not be able to tell the difference.

  But most important of all, he had a camel, tied to a wooden pole with some thin, fraying rope, the knot already starting to come undone in the heat.

  Tarrin caught up with me and squinted at the vendor.

  "You want to apologize for laughing at me," I said, "buy me a necklace."

  "To wear at our wedding?"

  "Sure." I fixed my eyes on the camel. It snorted and pawed at the ground. I've always liked camels, all hunchbacked and threadbare like a well-loved blanket.

  Tarrin sauntered up to the vendor, grin fixed in place. The vendor asked him if he wanted something for the lady.

  I didn't hear Tarrin's response. By then, I was already at the camel, my hands yanking at the knot. It dissolved quick as salt in water, sliding to the bottom of the pole.