"What do you mean by that?"
Edward leaned his head on his bent arm and waited patiently, ignoring Thatch's shouting. Jozu muttered something under his breath and slapped the seventeen-year-old on the back of the head, silencing him.
"Every child…" Rida emphasized the words carefully, "is born with blue eyes. Later they change, and that process can last even until the age of three. But she…"
"Lerena," Whitebeard corrected calmly, and Rida immediately bowed her head again with respect.
"Forgive me," she said, and her hands trembled slightly. "Lerena is an exception, as you can see. And her exceptionality will not be accepted in Bethesda. The child comes from the North Blue; only there do children sometimes have golden irises, you know that, Captain Newgate."
Rida carefully handed the baby a necklace—a long golden chain with a cross—and watched the girl grab it tightly while staring at Marco.
"I cannot leave her here, I understand that," Whitebeard agreed slowly. "However, there are many islands in the New World, and surely somewhere there will be a place for her."
"I can take care of her, if you wish," Rida offered quickly, seeing a chance to leave her home island.
Newgate remained silent, weighing her words in his mind, and his gaze seemed to say that he understood perfectly well what Rida meant, as if he knew she wanted to use him for her own purposes.
"Be ready tonight," he finally said. "We will take you to Turmalin. It is one of my islands. We will reach it in a few weeks. Whatever Lerena needs—or whatever you need—my sons will provide."
Later it seemed amusing to Rida the way Thatch approached Lerena. Sitting in the ship's galley she watched the process of feeding the child and could not help smiling when she noticed the pirate's unexpected gentleness hidden behind his usual anger. The seventeen-year-old boy with the yellow scarf around his neck—which fascinated the baby enormously—walked around the room feeding the little one warm milk from a bottle.
The galley itself was enormous, like almost everything on the Moby Dick.
It was already midnight, and the lights of Bethesda had disappeared into the darkness an hour earlier, which reassured Rida that she was now far enough from home to breathe freely.
"You look like someone who's happy to be this far away from home," Thatch remarked suddenly, and if it had not been for little Lerena in his arms he probably would have sat down beside Rida and tried to flirt.
The woman nodded quietly, keeping her eyes on the baby but choosing not to continue the subject.
"No wonder," Thatch went on. "Why live on one island when you can sail in the New World?"
"How long have you been here?" she asked, deliberately steering the conversation toward him so that she would not have to talk about herself.
"A year now. The old man took me in. I stole from the local mayor and broke two of his ribs," he said cheerfully, his mood infectiously carefree.
"I was supposed to be flogged, but then Pops showed up."
He jerked his head toward the deck above, clearly meaning Edward.
"And he had a little chat with me. Then he offered me a place on the crew, and since I had nothing better to do, I agreed. On my first day Marco beat me so badly I couldn't walk afterward, and that's how we became brothers," he admitted with disarming sincerity, without the slightest hint of resentment.
Rida laughed quietly, imagining the blond pirate with the bored expression beating Thatch.
"That must have been quite a sight."
"It was. Woman, I thought I was going to die…"
He suddenly stopped speaking and looked down at Lerena, who had stopped drinking and was yawning.
"What's wrong, cuttlefish? Don't want any more?"
"Well then, I'm going to sleep now. You could go through the whole voyage without eating if you want. I'm sick of your screaming and—"
She interrupted him again with another wide yawn.
Thatch shifted her upright, exactly the way the new babysitter had instructed him earlier, and gently patted her back.
"I can take her if you want," Rida offered, and the boy accepted immediately and handed Lerena over.
"Come on, we'll go to bed, yes?"
"Don't you dare start crying again," Thatch warned seriously. "And you're not getting any more food until breakfast, you hear me?"
The girl kicked her legs happily in response, which pleased Thatch immensely.
Rida left the galley with a faint smile, convinced that the entire voyage to Turmalin was going to be one great adventure.