She was wearing completely different clothes now—a long coat that looked expensive and practical in equal measure, boots that came to her knees, weapons visible at the belt that she hadn’t been carrying when she’d been serving ale.

She looked up, right where Jake was, and met his gaze across the distance between them. Her slender lips broke into a wide grin as she stared at him.

It was the same warm, interested smile she’d given him last night, but now it carried additional layers—amusement at his obvious shock, satisfaction at a deception successfully executed, and something darker that suggested the questions she’d asked about their business hadn’t been idle curiosity.

Pirate Queen Elisabeth raised one hand in a greeting that was half wave and half salute, her smile widening.

Then she turned her attention to the merchant vessel that was still trying to flee and gave an order Jake couldn’t hear from this distance but whose results were immediately visible as her crew moved into action, grappling hooks flying toward the merchant ship with little ease as if they had done it a lot of times.

While she was busy ordering her men, the shock rippled through Windrunner’s crew in visible waves, each person processing the revelation at different speeds but arriving at the same stunned conclusion—the woman who had served them dinner last night, who had flirted openly with Jake, who had asked casual questions about their business while pouring ale, was standing on the deck of the Darkwhale giving orders to her pirate crew with the casual authority of someone who had been doing it for years.

Maureen’s face had gone through several expressions in rapid succession before settling on something between fury and calculation, her hands gripping Windrunner’s wheel with enough force that her knuckles showed white against the wood.

Below them, Elisabeth’s crew moved across the captured merchant vessel, grappling hooks securing the two ships together while pirates swarmed aboard the smaller craft with weapons drawn and demands being shouted in voices that carried up to where Windrunner hovered.

The merchant crew didn’t resist—they were clearly experienced enough with piracy to understand that resistance against overwhelming force was suicide, and within minutes they were being herded to one side of their own deck while Elisabeth’s people began hauling cargo out of the holds.

"Get us down there," Maureen said, her voice carrying the controlled tension of someone who had made a decision and was implementing it despite knowing it might be tactically unsound. "Land on the ship. Now!!"

"Captain, that’s—" one of her crew started.

"Now," Maureen repeated, and there was something in her tone that ended the discussion.

Windrunner descended rapidly, Maureen bringing the flying ship down in a controlled dive that ended with them settling onto the Darkwhale’s massive deck with a gentleness that belied how fast they’d moved to get there.

The pirate crew stopped their looting operations to stare at the flying ship that had just landed uninvited on their flagship, hands moving toward weapons, but Elisabeth raised one hand in a gesture that held them in place.

"Let them disembark," she called out, her voice carrying that same amused warmth it had held last night when she’d been playing the role of inn servant.

"They’re guests, hostile guests who were hunting me, admittedly, but guests nonetheless."

Jake was the first off Windrunner, his boots hitting the Darkwhale’s deck with his enhanced vision already scanning the ship’s layout and his blood sense cataloging the number of crew members he could detect.

Maureen followed immediately behind him, her sword already drawn despite Elisabeth’s instruction for her crew to stand down, and the rest of Windrunner’s company came after with weapons ready and expressions that suggested they were prepared for violence but hoping to avoid it.

Elisabeth stood perhaps twenty meters away at the bow, still in that same casual position with one hand on the rail, and now that Jake could see her properly without the disguise of inn-servant clothing and humble demeanor, he could appreciate exactly how much effort she’d put into the deception. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

She looked different from the poster at the guild office, and it was the reason that they couldn’t recognize her. They were completely caught off guard by the pirate queen and it seemed like she was toying with them by serving them food yesterday. She was right in front of them, but they couldn’t recognize her.

She looked at Jake with that same interested smile and tilted her head slightly.

"So," she said, "did you enjoy your evening at the Sailor’s Rest? I thought I played the role quite convincingly."

Jake met her eyes across the distance and felt the sharp sting of having been thoroughly outmaneuvered, which was not a feeling he enjoyed but which he had to acknowledge with the part of his mind that appreciated tactical competence regardless of which side it came from.

"The performance was excellent," he said, keeping his voice level.

"Though I have to ask—was sleeping with me part of the intelligence gathering, or did you just decide to mix business with pleasure?"

Elisabeth’s smile widened genuinely, showing teeth, and something in her expression suggested she appreciated the directness of the question.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

"You got what you wanted, I got what I wanted, and everyone walked away satisfied. That’s a successful negotiation by any standard."

"I really liked you and that was why I came to you directly. I take what I want."

"What did you want?" Jake asked because that was the actual question and they both knew it.

"Information," Elisabeth said simply.

"Confirmation that Maureen was hunting me, verification of her ship’s capabilities, an assessment of what kind of person you were since the guild posting mentioned a Raikarndel heir had taken the contract and I wanted to see if you were actually dangerous or just trading on your name." She paused, her eyes moving over him with the same assessing attention she’d used last night but without the pretense of attraction covering it.

"You’re more interesting than I expected; I’ll give you that. The shadow serpent abilities, especially those, were a nice surprise when those mermaids reported back about the fight at Skun."