Max could hear the birds singing before he forced his eyes to open. It wasn’t a surprise for him to see he was in another world. The dream was over. It was time to go home. He reached up to wipe away tears pre-emptively but found that there weren’t any. Perhaps this time, Max felt ready to say goodbye.

  It was hard to know how long they were all in the dream. Around him in the room, BB and Cy were peacefully sleeping on the floor at different corners of the room as originally agreed. Below all of them was a thin layer of an ash-like material on top of vandalised and cracked wood. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to assume it was all the pieces of parchment being used up and crumbling away. Looking back over at his well-dressed accomplices, Max began to notice something wasn’t right.

  The sun was fully up in the sky. They should’ve been back before then. BB was grinding her teeth. Maybe it wasn’t a peaceful sleep after all? Cy was curled up. It wasn’t too atypical. There was a small pool of blood forming under him. That wasn’t typical at all.

  “Ah, fuck,” Max leapt into action. At first, he felt a little dizzy, but he pushed through. “The fuck did you do?” He muttered, while trying to unravel the rigid Cy. The source of the blood was easy to find. The skin of Cy’s untattooed arm was split in several places. As Max tried to get a closer look, more skin ripped causing a sleeping Cy to groan in pain. He must’ve gone past his limits.

  Max tried to think about what he should do. There was no more parchment for him to use. No items he recognised or knew had enough innate magic to potentially heal something like this. Could BB help? Shaking the sleeping beauty didn’t do anything. She would just weakly murmur nonsense as her weak limbs tried to bat Max away. BB was out for the count.

  While she resisted, a familiar piece of canvas popped out of her inseam pocket. An eloquently painted, modern woman smiled up at him. The canvas had magic. Max made sure it could somewhat replenish and store magic through runes when he originally carved into the painting. BB was set to either succeed or die today anyway... Surely, she wouldn’t mind? Even if she had to live with the penalty… Things like this don’t matter for people like them anyway.

  Just as Max was about to grab it, there was a sudden commotion going on downstairs. BB’s crews’ voices were arguing with someone too quiet to hear. The pirate crew would have no problem against other native people in this world. But for during people like Max and BB? There was a possibility they found him.

  Max looked out the window with the afternoon sun beaming in. He could just leave. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to slip away and avoid whoever was downstairs. Cy did insist on staying hidden when he threw the cloak back at him. It would be painful for Cy to endure such a magic depletion, but he would probably survive. Max could come back when the coast was clear with items with innate magic-

  “CAPTAIN BB!” The helmsman broke down the door trying to get inside the inn’s room. Seeing the quaint room be festooned with wood carvings, cracks, fabric, and crumbled parchment caused him to stop. In one corner, BB was on the floor. In another, Cy was now covered in his own blood. Max couldn’t even begin to imagine what the helmsman thought they were doing the other night. Apparently, it didn’t seem to matter to him, or he had seen stranger things while being part of BB’s crew. “There are two crazy women downstairs!” Two? A gunshot rang out causing the helmsman and Max to look out the door to where the staircase was. “They’re both looking for Captain BB!”

  “My love is looking for me!” BB rose up from the floor like a zombie; staggered, dazed, but eager to feed on the best thing ever. Love. “That must be her.”

  “Wait,” Max grabbed her arm before she could go running off to greet whoever was downstairs. “He said there were two women. They could be like us.”

  “Too bad, I’m taken now-”

  “That’s not the point,” he hissed back in frustration. Max eyed the location of the portrait of Minna, which had gone back inside the pocket. “Is your story complete?”

  “Hmm… Doesn’t seem like it.” Fuck. She glanced out the window before looking back at Max’s grip. “You know, I think I know who they are,” BB said, with devilish glee. Her wide smile made both Max and the helmsman uncomfortable. “I’ve done quite a few things for you now. Time for you to return the favour.”

  Max wrapped scraps of fabric around Cy’s arm, while he waited for the helmsman to escort one of the women up the stairs. From outside the window, there was a small yelp from BB. She must’ve hit the ground hard.

  “This is a dumb idea,” Max mumbled to himself. “We’re never working with pirates again.” His patchwork bandaging was reasonable, so he began getting the scraps of higher quality fabric and drawing the healing rune on them with ink before tossing them on Cy’s body. One of them was bound to work.

  From the corridor, he could hear the commotion was intensifying with a few more gunshots. How hard was it to invite one woman upstairs? Max reached for another handful.

  “You- Ah- Hey! Isn’t that mine?”

  “No.” Max quickly dismissed even though he was caught red handed.

  Wielding a stolen pistol from one of the pirates, Jacquotte’s sister blocked the doorway. What was her name again? Compared to Jacquotte, her hair was a lighter blonde, and her face looked more petite. Petite nose, petite chin, petite eyes; but a disconnectedly strong body was underneath. Her clothes were what caught Max’s eye. They were eccentric for the times with a blend of pink colours. The front of the skirt of her dress was tucked up into her waistband showing trousers underneath. “Where is Captain BB?” She said menacingly, while pointing the pistol down at Max.

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  “She leapt out that window,” Max pointed over his shoulder. Jacquotte barged past him to the window, where she saw BB and Jacquotte running towards the docks.

  “Motherfucker,” Jacquotte’s sister muttered. She began to tuck in more of her skirt. “How the hell-”

  “Why don’t you just go back down the stairs?” He offered a possible solution. None of the fabrics were working.

  “And face the pirates again?” She sighed. Defeated, she slowly turned around before cringing her nose. “What’s wrong with him?” Max ignored her. “Is he diseased?”

  “He’s injured.”

  “Poor soul.”

  Max’s movements slowed for a moment before continuing. “You recognised some of these fabrics, right? Which one would have the rarest material or the least processed? Are there any made with silk?” It was a good bet silk would have some internal magic.

  “Silk is so expensive,” Jacquotte’s sister muttered. Max fully expected her to walk past and ignore them, so he was surprised when a strong hand held out two pieces of fabric. “This one’s leather, and here’s some cashmere. What are you doing-”

  “Magic,” Max snatched it out of her hand. His rune drawings were sloppy, but still accurate enough as he threw both on Cy.

  “Right… Magic… As much as I love watching people die, wouldn’t it be better to summon a doctor?” She offered.

  In an instant, Cy’s breathing got a bit easier. His brows and his curled body finally relaxed. Jacquotte’s sister helped save the day. Not knowing which or how effective the pieces of fabric were, Max unravelled the makeshift bandages to show a completely healed arm. Whatever had magic, it was clearly effective. “See,” Max showed her the healed arm, but it was still met with scepticism. He noticed some of Cy’s blood had gotten on the bottom of her skirt.

  “Let’s get him off the floor.” Jacquotte’s sister rolled up her sleeves before bending over.

  “Wait. I can do it. You’ll just get more blood on your dress.”

  Ignoring him, she picked up Cy’s legs. “Are you going to help? Or should I do it alone?” Max didn’t say anything in reply, as he helped move a fabric covered Cy into his room and bed on the other side of the hallway.

  He had never met her before. But her attitude was familiar. Even some of her phrases were oddly familiar. Perhaps he was just seeing things?

  After throwing Cy onto the bed, Max checked Cy’s arm to ensure it wasn’t ripping again. “Thanks,” he muttered before tucking Cy in. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “I did.” Jacquotte’s sister examined her bloody dress before ripping the skirt off in one swift movement. Were the seams intentionally weak? Was the dress designed to come apart? “I have something to ask of you. Compared to the… people below, you’re more like the kind of person willing to listen.”

  “They weren’t listening?”

  Hypocritically, she ignored his question. “My name is Serena Dimechi, daughter of Cosimo Dimechi and sister of Jacquotte Dimechi. Yesterday, something peculiar happened to my sister. A pirate harassed her all day. Quite strange, isn’t it?” Her voice played with the idea that the pirate was unknown to both of them. Max held his tongue. It was easy to make this conversation go wrong quickly. “Then, this morning, my dearest sister was practically hysterical. Sobbing about how she had to find this pirate before she set sails. Apparently, she is the love of her life. The same pirate who was harassing her the other day.”

  Max tried to keep a neutral face as a notification from the system appeared. It was safe to assume his sub-goal was now a third of the way to being complete. BB must’ve reached the end goal with her newest lover.

  “And now that I find this pirate. Not only does she run off with my sister, but other people in this inn can do magic.”

  It took Max a second to realise what she said, and then another one to understand the implication. “You think I did something-”

  “Going to bed with hatred and waking up completely in love is quite a stark difference. Isn’t it?”

  He tried to shrug. “Eh, stranger things have happened. Why did you want to see Captain BB? To stop her from seeing your sister?”

  Serena scoffed at the idea. “The opposite.” Max frowned in confusion. “I want her to take Jacquotte far, far away from here.”

  “Why?”

  “So, there’ll be one less person to fight against my inheritance of the family business,” Serena declared boldly. Max wasn’t sure before, but he was now. She was like Cy. A person who belongs to before. “And with her frivolously spending a pirate’s money instead of our family’s, it’ll give me a great advantage in stopping our impending bankruptcy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “You want Captain BB to whisk away Jacquotte?”

  “I want Captain BB to ensure Jacquotte will never return.” Her voice and words were cold. “Do you think that could be arranged?”

  “No problem.”

  “How much do you think-”

  “It’s on the house,” he quickly declared.

  “If Captain BB were to get bored of my sister, she’ll still keep her away?”

  “I doubt she’ll get bored of her, but yes. I can assure you Jacquotte will never be able to rejoin high society again after becoming part of a pirate crew.”

  Serena stared at Max for a little bit before turning to leave with a quick, “Then good day.”

  He considered going after her before realising Cy was beginning to stir from his sleep. Serena was closing the door behind her just after Cy rubbed his eyes awake. “Was that Ellie?” He said in a sleepy voice.

  “… I think it was.”

  Cy’s sleepy face turned into confusion when he realised they weren’t in the dream world anymore. “That was definitely a before person. You really think she’s Ellie?”

  “I think so,” Max repeated.

  “Then what are you doing? Go after her!”

  Max merely shook his head, but a smile lingered after. Getting her roped up in his problems wasn’t going to help anyone. A six-stars story undoubtedly meant they had a long way to go before he could enjoy any kind of retirement. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Maybe in another life…

  There was another notification from the system.