Her gaze narrowed. A hitch caught her breath -- some rattle of pain under her ribs -- but she ignored it to focus on him. A boastful man was nothing but common on the seas. A boring man, eager to go back to what he once knew? Rare. Rare enough cause confusion.

But she knew the legend, so her response was a simple one: "A heartbeat, eh?"

The Dutchman's Captain and his heart. Oh, she definitely did know it. But not from sailing nor from pirating. She knew it from one of those humid days, strapped into a pretty lace-edged dress and sitting before a pile of books. Her Watcher had the best stories of supernatural dealings on the ocean. She decided, later, that he must have sailed in his youth.