“I don’t want to know,” Adam said, staring over the waves as they tihe m.

  “Okay,” Jaygak replied, as simply as that, while Kitool stood a short while away.

  Lud Mara remained with Vonda, while Jurot sat outside by himself, his arms crossed, hoping he could sughter a feard soldiers.

  The Captain walked towards the pair, leaning against the railing, sipping from his wineskin. “You work for an enter?”

  “That we do,” Adam replied, gng towards the dark skinned Captain, who didn’t look a day over forty, but robably in his sixties.

  “My cousin is enter too. Works with the Mawi. He was always good up here,” the Captain tapped his forehead, letting out a snort. “I was no good. I was better on the sea. He was still training by the time randparents passed, but he sent gold back to his mother and father, and his aunts and uncles. I wasn’t able to send back much gold, sailing is expensive business when you’re not pirating. You have to be careful of all the dragons, the seabeasts, the weather, the Divine.”

  “Ain’t that right.”

  “Praise Noor, I am almost seventy and I send gold to my grandchildren, and my cousin’s grandchildren.”

  ‘Almost seventy? Damn, dude looks good for seventy.’

  “W for enter is good money, very good money. You must make sure they pay you good.”

  “I get paid det money,” Adam admitted.

  “How much?”

  “As a CEO, I make about forty or fifty gold a month.”

  “That is good money,” the Captain admitted. “That is why you pay for b on my ship?” The Captain cpped his hands together before patting Adam’s shoulder as he almost cackled with ughter.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Adam said, smiling slightly.

  The days on the sea passed by ufully before the rge port city weled them. Adam didn’t focus, mu the port city set along the hills, too focused on assisting his wife, before the group found themselves at an ihe sea. The dockworkers kept a wide berth around the mermen, the fire giant, and the Iyrmen. They gnced across the group, and though they sent word ahead, rumours beginning to fly already, spiralling out of trol quickly, while others in the underground firmed certain matters.

  “Make sure you tell her who Jurot’s grandfather is, and the name of my grandaunt,” Jaygak said, shaking Prince Morkarai’s fiving him a nod.

  “I will.”

  Adam followed Jurot to the wooden inn, which had been built along the docks and out towards the rest of the city. It wasn’t built like a normal inn, a square or regle, but spread out almost like a fungus trying to find water. The lower floors were dirty, smelling of the murkiness of hard w sailors whose breath were as bad as their nguage. Yet, the upper floors were , with warriors who wore scimitars at their side, and though they all wore dark blue, they each wore different coloured turbans, and some were even devilkin. Their beards were ly trimmed, lined every m with a razor.

  The guards of the docks approached, but stopped as they he people they wanted were upon the upper floors.

  “We have business with the Iyrmen,” the Dockguard stated.

  “You may have business with the Iyrmen, but the Iyrmen are doing business with us,” the tavern keeper upon the ground floor replied, rubbing a rag against her mug. She was a young woman, a decade youhan the Dockguard.

  The Dockguard narrowed her eyes, pg doque from the military, made of pure silver. The tavern keeper picked it up, feeling how heavy the pque was. She gnced across the title of the person and then the name.

  “Raid Haifa,” the keeper replied, smiling slightly. The keeper gowards one of the patrons, raising her brows. “Raid Haifa. She thinks she e in with a pque from Raid Haifa and walk up the stairs to arrest the patrons.”

  The fellow shrugged his shoulders aurned back to his drink. ‘I’d let him walk up with Raid Haifa’s pque, but I’m not one of you.’

  The keeper slid back the pque. “Bring a pque from a Liwa, even a Muqaddam, then you walk up the stairs.”

  The Dockguard clicked her teeth, inhaling for a moment, before she narrowed her eyes.

  “Huh?” The tavern keeper raised her brows, waiting for the Dockguard to speak further of the topic, but the Dockguard pulled back, stepping away.

  “I told you it wasn’t going to work,” the older woman beside the Muzim said. “We should have asked Aqid Sabah.”

  “Aqid Sabah has only stopped drinking milk from her mother a year ago,” the Muzim replied. “At least the Raid has been w for the military for about as long as I’ve been alive.”

  “Raid Haifa works in admin.”

  “Admin is better than the Fishguard.”

  The older woman chuckled at the informal name of the Aqid’s force. “Noor blesses us. Who will you ask?”

  “We will send word to the Faro a her deal with it.”

  “Shukur.” The older woman shrugged her shoulders.

  Prince Morkarai let out a sigh. He should have expected Jurot to have caused a bother sidering who the soldiers had spoken so poorly of. From what he knew, Iyrmen rarely cared for what was said about their families, but that’s only because their families were Iyrmen. Adam and Vonda? He supposed that if the threats from the Iyrmen didn’t work, then Vonda’s own title would be more than enough to force the Faro to remain at bay.

  Lucy held her head within her hands. ‘If they e, I’m going to give you up right away!’

  “You alright?” Adam asked.

  “I’m fine…” Lucy let out a huff. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.” Adam owards her.

  “Wheurn back to the Iyr, what do you want to do?”

  “I just want to kick it, do some work, take my wife out on some dates, cuddle my children a lot, and of course, spoil all my adorable cousins.”

  ‘It’s always about children with you!’ Yet the young woman didn’t dare to say anything more, not when Adam was so stressed out he barely mentiohem to her. “Do you want to go buy some gifts from the city?”

  Adam smiled, but he shook his head. “Nah. I think we’ve got enough gifts from pces.”

  ‘It’s that bad?’ Lucy thought, having hought Adam could say such words. “Have you sent word ahead to the Iyrmen? They could send some people to help.”

  Adam shook his head. “We, uh… I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t want to... I don’t want to bother them when we just o get bae.”

  Kitool moved through the roads of the hilly city, stepping into the shadows, and stepping out of other shadows, disappearing from crowd to crowd, before she found herself along a particur road. She slipped into a particur inn, pced a particur order, a out a particur message along with the server, before she made her way back to the inn.

  While Adam remained within the inn, with Vonda, Lucy, and Mara, the Iyrmen made their way through the city, buying all manner of gifts, using the business’ . Kitool stopped, feeling a gaze against her skin. She turned, her eyes upon the roof of a building, where she found nothing.

  ‘Her eyes are keehan I expected,’ the child thought, eating from the skewer, even though he required no susteo eat. Ohe boy was done, he stepped into the shadows of an alley, and almost disappeared from the state of existence.

  “Something was watg us,” Kitool informed.

  Jurot nodded, also feeling something weird within the rge city, before the Iyrmeurned back to the inn, and the group remaihere for a few days, waiting for the Captain to leave. They eheir time on nd, rexing within the inn, and doing very little.

  ‘She did not get permission from a Muqaddam?’ the tavern keeper thought, watg as the Iyrmen and the others made their way onto the ship once more.

  The Captain ihe crisp air, rubbing the back of his head. He felt as though something had happehe previous night, but he couldn’t quite recall. ‘I shouldn’t drink too much.’

  Vonda y on the bed, sighing, before pulling out her journal. The ohing that she enjoyed about being doted on so much by everyone was the fact she had nothing but time, and though the ship didn’t allow her to draw or sketch properly, she was gd for the time when the sea wasn’t th.

  Adam go the side, noting a man step out of the room opposite his own, noting the children behind him in the room, before the old man shut his door. He narrowed his eyes towards the old man, who was dark skinned, and looked no older than forty, meaning he robably around sixty. “Cute kids.”

  The old man stared down at Adam, his hair pure white, his long hair hidden behind his turban, his beard ly lihat m no doubt. He wore a deep blue set of Aswadian clothes, much looser than those of the Aldish, and he carried a scimitar at his side. “Thank you. It is their first time upon the sea and o.”

  “Oh, cool,” Adam replied, waiting awkwardly for the old man to step one way or another, but the old man waited for Adam to step one way or another. Adam bowed his head, allowing the old man to move, the old maurning a bow of the head.

  Meanwhile, as the ship began to sail away from the docks, the Dockguard swiftly made their way, shouting out. “Has anyone seen an old man with seven children? Seven children, some horned!”

  “Ope!” the little boy said. “I know, I know.”

  “What?” the Muzim replied, gng down at the boy. She dropped to a knee. “You saw?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  The boy narrowed his eyes and held out his hand. The Muzim wondered when the children had bee so wise. She dropped a silver into the boy’s palm, the metal cooling his palm.

  “I saw at the market, at the, um, by Pacha’s.” He poiowards the end of the docks which led to a market.

  “Pacha’s?” The Muzim nodded her head, and the Dockguard swiftly fled the area.

  “Little boy, it’s no good lying like that,” a sailor said, his eyes following the Dockguard, before he gnced down to his side, only to see no little boy. His eyes darted around, his head snapping like a hawk, for the sailor’s niame was Sea Eagle, for his keen sight. ‘Noor take me, do I dream of boys?’

  The boy slipped from shadow to shadow, his hands pinned against his back as he almost floated away towards an abandoned building. ‘You son of a goat, I told you to find yourself a nice devilkin woman. Kids these days, they never listen to their elders.’

  “Is he back?” the older man whispered.

  “He is,” the man’s son replied, peeking through the door to see the boy disappear into the room he had paid for.

  “Okay, remember, a meal every other day, and it has to be a rge meal.”

  “Did he say spices?”

  “Son of a cat, he is still Aswadian, and he paid us a gem the size of your brain, so you’d better treat the boy well, he’s probably the runaway son of a Saib or Niza.”

  “The gem wasn’t that big,” the son replied, recalling how big the gem was, about the size of an eyeball, and easily worth at least a hundred gold, perhaps more.

  “Hau,” the older man replied affirmatively.

  It was as noon drew overhead that the son uood what his father’s words meant, long enough he couldn’t say anything baless he made himself appear a bigger fool.

  The noonval sun beamed down onto the ship, almost searing the young half elf, who was gd his brother had bought him a hat.

  “A siieeoh?” the older man asked.

  “Yeah, Chief Executive Officer, so our title is Executive. I’m Executive Adam, and my brother is Executive Jurot.”

  “Are you pnting the seeds now to grow iure?”

  “Yeah, exactly. Right now my kids are too young, but when they grow up, they’ll make great workers for the business. Obviously, they do whatever they want, sihey’re my children!”

  Kitool narrowed her eyes towards the old man Adam stepped beside. Even from where she was, she could feel every fibre of her being screaming at her. The old man Adam was talking to was definitely a guy who had killed thousands.

  ‘A Biodi?’

  Son of a cat! I miss Kalid...