at the sky. âYour motherâs watching. Make her proud.â
I got a little lump in my throat at the mention of our mother.
Adonis did, too. âThank ye, please,â he told Healy in a scratchy voice.
âYouâre quite welcome, thank you very please,â said Healy with a smirk.
Then Spiggs called to him from across the deck, and he left us to make our way off the ship alone.
All of a sudden, I didnât want to leave. The thought of parting ways with Burn Healy, for the first time since Iâd learned he was my uncle, didnât sit well.
Not that I had much of a choice. It wasnât like heâd asked me to stay. And sooner or later, heâd be shooting it out with Ripper Jones and
Li Homaya.
I didnât want to be anywhere near that battle if I could help it.
Even so . . .
Before I left him, I had to make sure of something.
The others were already on the gangway.
âJust one second!â I called out to them. Then I ran across the deck to where Healy and Spiggs were talking.
My uncle heard me coming. By the time I reached him, heâd already turned toward me. His eyebrows were furrowed together, and he had a pained look in his eye.
âIâm sorry, sonâthereâs dirty work afoot, and itâs no place for childrenâI mean, I would if I could, butââ
âItâs not that,â I said.
âOh.â He looked a little flustered. âThen what?â
âIâve made a decision,â I told him. âIâm going to destroy Roger Pembroke. Or die trying.â
He almost smiled. But not quite.
âWell, in that case . . .â He dug in his pocket for a moment. âTake another five gold. Youâll need it.â
He dropped the coins into my hand. Then he ruffled the hair on the top of my head and returned to his conversation without another word. He had a job to do.
And so did I.
CHAPTER 7
Housekeeping
THINGS HAD CHANGED at the ugly fruit plantation since weâd been away, and not for the better.
The lower fields were shaggy and overgrown, like nothing had been pruned in ages. Harvesting hooks lay here and there, spotty with rust. And there wasnât a field pirate in sight, although I could hear hoarse voices yelling at each other down near the barracks.
As we approached the house, the first thing I noticed was that the sharkâs jaws Dad had hung over the front door were gone.
Then I realized the front door was gone, too.
Next to where the door used to be, there were two cannonball-sized holes in the wall. So it probably shouldnât have come as such a surprise when we stepped inside and discovered a cannon in the middle of the living room.
It was surrounded by a thick carpet of shattered bottles, chicken bones, bent playing cards, and some spectacularly broken furniture. Only the couch was more or less in one piece, along with the legless house pirate who was asleep on it with a copy of
Principles of Citrus Cultivation
open across his chest.
âQuint?â
âBack off, ye crapsacks!â
He sprang to his feetâactually, his stumps, which ended where most peopleâs upper thighs areâbrandishing a knife that must have been hidden under the book.
Then he realized who we were.
â
Egbert!
And . . . Savior save us, is that Adonis? Thought ye was dead!â
Adonis was furious. âWotâd ye do to the house, ye stupidââ
âRespectââ I reminded him.
âFooâyeâ
thank ye very much
!â he finished, spitting out the phrase in a way that gave it pretty much the opposite meaning from its usual one.
Quint looked sheepish. âIf Iâd known ye was cominâ, I woulda . . .â
â. . . not blown holes in the wall?â I suggested.
He shook his head sadly. âBad night, that was. Lessons learned, I tell ye.â
Then his eyes landed on Kira, and his face brightened. He