"Again," Gray said, soft and fierce.
Ace lifted his hand, the wire of flame already forming in his mind, when Pelly clacked chopsticks against his wrist and didn't bother to hide the smile behind the smoke.
"Break," Pelly said. "Fifty heartbeats. Then you can blister the captain."
"Tragic," Gray said, flexing the faint shine Ace had carved into his palm. "We were becoming friends."
Colin arrived with a cup and a plate balanced on one forearm. "Hydrate," he told Ace, then tilted the plate toward the captain so the sugar caught the light. "And you. Fuel for your terrible leadership."
Andrew leaned a hip on the rail and eyed the pastry. "I made that one with patience and spite."
"It smells like both," Pelly said.
Ace drank. The water steadied his hands more honestly than pride had. Colin turned, as if the thought had just landed, and pressed the plate into Ace's hands.
"Do me a favor," the doctor said. "Bring this to the captain's cabin. He pretends he doesn't like interruptions."
Ace glanced at Gray, who was already walking toward the companionway with the lazy balance of a cat who knew the furniture would forgive him.
"Go on," Pelly said. "He bites less when he's eating."
Teuton rumbled, "He bites less when I am watching."
"Promise not to fall," Andrew added cheerfully. "I don't want to use my cloud on stairs."
"I'll manage," Ace said.
He carried the dessert down the corridor that felt like a memory somebody else had left for him: wanted posters framing doors, photographs nailed into wood, a whole history of laughter and bruises that didn't belong to him and might never, and yet. I am here. Make here work.
Gray's door stood open. The cabin smelled faintly of salt and ink. A logbook lay on the desk, spine bared, pages fanned. A strip of light from the small window cut the paper in half.
"Don't hover," Gray said from the chair, not looking up. "Bring the sweet thing before it goes sad."
Ace set the plate down. Gray's grin was already halfway to victory. He took a bite, made a noise so content Pelly would have called it a crime, and waved a knuckle at the open pages.
"Since you're here," the captain said, "read."
Ace hesitated. "Isn't that… private?"
"It's a logbook, not my soul," Gray said. "Besides, I like an audience."
Ace stepped closer. The neat lines of Gray's handwriting ran like a tide, sentences drifting into bracketed asides that felt like a second voice speaking from the margins. The brackets weren't shy; they wanted to be seen.
[TODAY WE FISHED UP A MAN. HE LIVED THROUGH MY FIRE. NOT MANY DO.][STILL ASLEEP. IRRITATING. COLIN NOW ONLY EATS AND SLEEPS. CONSIDER REPLACING DOCTOR WITH A BROOM.][FINALLY AWAKE. TALKING IS MORE INTERESTING THAN COMAS. SAYS HE'S FROM THE FUTURE. I DON'T CARE WHICH FUTURE. NAME: ACE. FIRE-TYPE. IS THAT WHY HE LIVED?]
Ace's cheeks warmed in a way that had nothing to do with heat. "That middle line seems unfair."
Gray licked sugar from his thumb. "To whom?"
"Colin," Ace said.
"Accurate then," Gray said, pleased.
Ace let himself look at the other lines. From the future. He could hear how that must sound. He closed the book carefully and glanced up.
"Charles says it's fate," he said.
"Charles says a lot of things," Gray said. He tipped his head, as if checking the angle of the ship against the weight of the word. "Do you like fate, Ace?"
"I like the part where it explains why nothing makes sense," Ace said. "We are in Sea Era 1468. I come from 1520. That's 52 years I didn't ask for."
"The past is just fate with better manners," Gray said. He pushed the logbook back into Ace's hands and nodded toward the chair opposite. "Sit. Tell me about your world, and then lie to everyone else about it."
"You want me to—"
"Keep quiet," Gray said, voice easy but not negotiable. "If you speak the future out loud, the sea will hear. The sea loves a dare."
Ace sat. He could feel the ship moving under his knees, the pressure and roll. He looked down at the paper again, at the bracketed lines that turned a day into a conversation with itself.
"I won't be careless," he said. "Names, events—" He shut his mouth on the ending he didn't want to give voice to: how they die.
Gray's eyes softened by a temperature only he could measure. "Good. Keep your ghosts in your pockets."
He took another bite of dessert, then pointed the pastry at Ace like a lecture pointer.
"You know Devil Fruits can awaken," Gray said.
"I know," Ace answered.
"Your fire is bad," Gray said, cheerful as weather. "Pretty, wide, weak. It doesn't hurt what matters. Against me, pure ability to pure ability, you don't get a mark unless you stop widening and start piercing."
Ace let the sting land. He'd invited it by surviving. "I'm already changing that."
"I noticed," Gray said. He opened his hand. The faint, almost-imaginary shine Ace had pressed into his palm caught the light and threw it back. "You kissed me. Next, bite."
Ace almost smiled. "You're insufferable."
"Correct," Gray said. He pushed the logbook closed with the heel of his hand. "You like rules. Make yourself one. Every time you open my door, you make my hand worse."
"That's a rule?"
"It is now," Gray said. "Also: stop thanking people. It confuses this crew. We prefer debts that are obvious."
"I can do rude," Ace said.
"Not rude," Gray corrected, amused. "Efficient."
From outside, Pelly's voice carried down the corridor like an order disguised as a complaint. "Captain. Your fifty heartbeats are a rumor, not a schedule."
"Back to the yard," Gray said, standing. He took the last bite of the dessert and looked briefly betrayed by the empty plate, then forgave it because forgiveness was quicker than grief. "Bring the book."
Ace picked it up. The weight felt familiar already, like a weapon he didn't yet know how to fire. He followed Gray out. The door clicked shut with the sound of things being where they belonged.
The corridor returned them to the deck and the blue. The crew didn't pretend they hadn't been listening; they didn't need to. Abel's gaze didn't break from the horizon. Alder's hands never stopped talking to the wheel. Andrew twisted his rope once and a cloud wandered over and sat like a patient animal where he wanted it.
"Again," Gray said, and held out his hand.
Ace set his feet. He allowed himself one breath of this is stupid and put the feeling into the shape, not the size, of the flame. The wire settled. He listened to smaller instead of stronger.
"Keep the deck unsinged," Pelly said without looking. "I hate cleaning, and I hate making others clean more."
A drop of sweat slid along Ace's temple. He didn't shake it off. He tightened the line until it stopped being a line and became an answer. The shine in Gray's palm deepened by less than a word.
"Better," Gray said. "Again."
Ace pulled back. He blinked the ghost out of his vision and lifted his hand once more when a thought, late and dangerous, tried to detour his focus.
"If I sharpen enough," he said, "I can hurt what hurt me."
"Yes," Gray said, pleased that Ace had asked the right question without naming the wrong name. "And faster than you think, if you stop widening when you get scared."
"I'm not scared," Ace said, and then, honest: "I am. But I'm not widening."
"Good," Gray said. "That's a difference with teeth."
He reached up, and to Ace's surprise, tapped a knuckle against Ace's sternum—once, lightly, right over the ache that wasn't a wound.
"Here," Gray said. "Make that smaller too."
Ace swallowed. He knows where it hurts without me telling him. He lifted his hand again.
[LOGBOOK][NOTE: HE CAN LISTEN WHEN HE STOPS TRYING TO PERFORM. FATE: STILL NOISY. HEAT DRILL: WORKING.]
Colin drifted back with another cup as if he'd been summoned by a polite thought. "Water."
"Debts clear," Ace said, taking it.
"Incorrect," Colin said. "We saved you. You owe us something interesting later."
"Good accounting," Pelly said.
"Thank you," Colin said.
"Don't thank him," Pelly told Ace. "He'll only buy more dishes and make me wash them."
"I do not wash dishes," Colin said.
"Precisely," Pelly said.
Ace brought the wire down again. The ship moved under him, but less than before, or maybe he finally understood the way it spoke. The heat pressed, not wide, not proud, and the mark in Gray's palm accepted a little more bite.
"Again," Gray said, and it wasn't cruel; it was the faith of a man who refused to believe in ceilings.
Ace nodded. He kept the wire smaller.
[LOGBOOK][SEA ERA: 1468. GUEST SAYS: 1520. DELTA: 52 YEARS. FUTURE: LOCKED IN HIS TEETH.][ORDER: HE KEEPS QUIET. CONSEQUENCE IF NOT: I HAVE TO GET CREATIVE.]
"Last drill before the tide turns," Pelly warned. "Then the cook feeds you, and then fate can be noisy somewhere else."
"Fate is everywhere," Charles said mildly from his carpet.
"Then fate can be noisy quieter," Pelly said.
Ace didn't laugh this time. He let the humor sit with the fear and pushed both down into the needle. Gray's expression shifted by the width of a thought. Ace felt the world lean and not fall.
Gray closed his hand. The movement cut the heat like a blade sheathing itself.
He nodded at the logbook tucked against Ace's ribs. "One more rule," he said. "Every time you want to tell someone a future, write it in brackets instead and show me first."
"I'm not your secretary," Ace said.
"Good," Gray said. "Secretaries make terrible pirates."
The wind shouldered the sail. The ship angled into it with manners. The fog had long since thinned to a memory. Ahead, the blue wore a direction.
Gray opened his hand and showed Ace the faint mark he had made.
"Show me a flame that hurts one thing," the captain said.
Ace steadied, wire forming.
He did not widen.