Penelo woke to the buzz of the communications system, startling her out of a sound sleep. She heaved a sigh and rolled over, burying her face in the pillows. Balthier would answer it.

A minute or so passed, and the irritating sound continued unabated. A shiver of unease crept down her spine. Why hadn't he answered it? She thrust off the tangled mass of blankets, shoving herself upright to squint at the clock on the wall. It had gone half past noon already…hadn't Balthier said that his errand shouldn't take more than an hour?

Except for the incessant buzzing of the communications system, the ship was utterly silent. No percolating coffee, no footfalls, none of the normal, everyday sounds that would attest to anyone else's presence. It took only a matter of moments to complete a cursory search of the ship up to the deck. She was alone; Balthier hadn't made it back from Tarram. The unease solidified into a knot of distress in her stomach. He'd said an hour, and he'd meant it – he had never lied to her.

If he hadn't returned, it wasn't because he'd simply lost track of time. It was because something had prevented him from returning.

A quick glance at the console revealed that the call was coming from the Galbana, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Fran – Fran would know what to do. She dropped into the captain's chair and punched the button to connect the line.

"Oh, thank the gods!" Yulia's harried voice sailed over the speakersbefore Penelo could even get out a greeting. "When you didn't answer, we thought for certain we were too late."

Alarm drew Penelo's shoulders tight and tense. "Too late for what?" she asked in a rough whisper.

"Penelo?" There was hint of surprise in Yulia's voice. "I thought – Balthier is with you, isn't he?"

"No. No, he's not. He left this morning and he hasn't come back. He should have been back more than an hour ago, but he isn't, and I..." With alarming swiftness, her sleep-fogged brain cleared enough to connect the two occurrences: Balthier's disappearance and Yulia's frantic call. Her hands curled on the armrests, nails carving crescents into the wood. "Too late for what?" she repeated.

Yulia's tone went brisk and business-like. "Where are you now? Can you send us your coordinates? Fran and Vaan are assembling supplies as we speak. We'll meet you as soon as we can, but you mustn't go anywhere."

"Yulia, tell me what's going on." Despite the icy pit of fear settled in her stomach, her mind was calm and blank, like a slate wiped clean. There was no room for panic; there was only a laser focus on the matter at hand. Everyone else knew more than she did, and she couldn't be of any use if she fell to pieces.

A heavy sigh preceded Yulia's voice. "Just this morning we were in a tavern in Balfonheim," she said. "And I happened to see the notice board. I'd never been in a tavern before, you see, and I was curious about it. So I went to take a look, and I found…I found a poster for you."

"For me?" Penelo lurched in the seat, baffled. "But…I'm fine. Balthier's the one who's gone missing."

"Yes, and that's precisely why you must stay where you are. Don't leave the ship; don't let anyone aboard. We'll sort this out –"

"Who's the petitioner?" Penelo asked.

"It doesn't say," Yulia said. "It simply says to collect the reward at the Sword and Crown tavern in Rozarria." A brief hesitation. "There's more," she said. "Lord Larsa sent a message yesterday. He said that Asraen has slipped his guards and fled Archades. I wasn't terribly concerned then – but now, with that poster…"

"Oh, gods." Penelo swallowed convulsively in a futile attempt to clear the sour taste of bile that had risen with the swift onset of nervous nausea. "It's Raen. It's got to be him behind this."

"If he is, I'm going to shoot him myself," Yulia snapped. "I'm beginning to believe I'd make a better widow than a divorcée." She made an infuriated sound in the back of her throat. "You cannot leave the ship," she said. "If they've taken him, it's likely only to separate the two of you and draw you out. You cannot let them succeed."

"He'd have been back by now if he hadn't been taken. And if he's been taken, he's helpless – they'll have stripped him of weapons, probably bound him up, too. And they don't need him. They'll kill him. Raen will kill him." Penelo rubbed her cold cheeks, willing some feeling back into her face. Realization struck with the force of a blow. "Raen will kill him. With Balthier out of the way, he could probably petition the courts for Balthier's inheritance."

Yulia snorted. "He'd never get away with it – he'd be the first suspect in his death."

"Yes," Penelo said. "Which is why there's a petition out on me, not Balthier – there's no paper trail to connect him to Balthier's death. He can get rid of the both of us in one fell swoop. No credible witnesses, no mess to tidy up."

The crackle of static over the line burned her ears. At last Yulia said, "We're coming straight away. We'll get this sorted, I promise."

Balthier had promised he would return in only an hour. However unintentionally, promises were so fragile, so easy to break.

Penelo rubbed the back of her neck, but failed to relieve the tightness in the muscles there. "It'll take hours. We both know Balthier might not have that much time. I've waited too long already."

"Penelo, please don't do anything rash," Yulia pleaded. "You don't even know where they've taken him, or what they intend to do with him!"

"I know," she said. "I know. And that's why I've got to let them take me, too. It's the best chance Balthier's got. Besides," she said. "I think I know who's captured Balthier." She pushed herself out of the chair. "Don't worry about me. Go straight to the Sword and Crown and see if it really is Raen. And, please…hurry."

"Penelo, wait –"

She pressed the button to disconnect the line, cutting off Yulia's frantic plea. And then she rose and stalked down the hall to begin preparations for her own kidnapping.

Balthier stared at the wall, counting the tick marks scratched into the dull wood for the third time since he'd awakened. His head ached abominably, but at least his blurred vision had at last corrected itself. He'd not been anticipating an attack in Tarram, where it was considered poor form to requisition bounties from amongst visitors. Such an act could even find one declared persona non grata from the pirating town, and thus he had assumed the bounty on his head must be very high indeed, for whoever had undertaken the task had been prepared to risk banishment.

He ought to have known better; his capture had been his own fault, the results of his own arrogance in assuming himself untouchable in Tarram. And it had left Penelo alone and vulnerable.

He might've taken comfort in the fact that the petitioner that had put a bounty on his head clearly did not mean to kill him – were it not for the fact that he had found himself in exactly the same predicament he had once rescued Penelo from.

One thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven tick marks lined the walls. Penelo had inhabited this drab, dingy room for as many days, marking each of them upon the walls, probably with the edge of her nails. Three years she had lived here – if one could call it living, which Balthier was not inclined to do. The thin pallet on the floor against the wall had been her bed. There was neither pillow nor blanket to speak of. The room itself was hardly larger than a storage closet. How had she survived this? He'd been trapped her only a matter of hours, and already he suspected his sanity was slipping.

And he might yet be forced to endure it for some time. It would take a few hours for Penelo to realize that he would not be returning – longer still for her to convene with Fran, and who could say how long it would take for them to track him down?

It had taken him years, after all. Although perhaps amongst the lot of them, they were likely to arrive at the correct conclusion in significantly less time.

With any luck, it would be beforethe iron manacle fastened around his ankle had had the chance to leave lasting scars.

The thud of heavy footsteps coming down the hall reached him in time for him to move away from the door just seconds before it crashed open, slamming against the wall and sending a shower of splinters and dust bursting across the room.

Bartaan crossed the threshold, scowling at Balthier as he entered the room. "On your feet," he snarled. "Tavern's getting busy; you've got to earn your keep around here."

"You can't be serious," Balthier said, scorn dripping from every syllable.

"You cost me my serving girl," Bartaan replied. "You might as well replace her."

Balthier pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh. "You put a bounty on my head simply to put me to work?"

Bartaan's brow furrowed. "There's no bounty on your head," he said. "Call it a happy accident. Jiraj nabbed you to lure Penelo out of hiding; I took you off his hands. Seemed fitting."

"You've struck a poor bargain, then, for I could not be induced to labor on your behalf did my life depend upon it," Balthier sneered in response.

"Oh?" Bartaan's bushy brows receded into his hairline. "I kept Penelo in line for three years; I doubt you'll be much more trouble than she was." He folded his arms across his massive chest. "You got too much pride, same as her. But there's no one alive that can't be broken, given the right motivation."

"I'll remind you of the last time we sparred," Balthier snarled. "Better men than you have tried and failed."

Bartaan gave a rusty laugh and a smirk that stung in its certainty. "I got no need to bash your head in," Bartaan said. "It's bad for business. Can't work if you're beat too badly, and I don't care to risk injury m'self. Besides, hunger'll get you soon enough." He crossed the threshold, still chuckling to himself. "Penelo lasted six days with naught in her stomach but her pride. But from what I understood, she was used to hunger. Someone like you – I doubt you'll make it two."

Penelo counted at least three avenues of escape, which was less than ideal but enough to work with, should this confrontation not go to plan. Her stomach was in knots – the very idea of returning once more to the Sword and Crown was terrifying. She could almost feel the manacle once again weighting her steps, and every time the thought of it crossed her mind, she broke out in a cold sweat.

It went against every instinct for self-preservation she possessed to knowingly walk into a trap. It was quite possibly the stupidest, most illogical thing she would ever do, and yet even knowing that she might very well find herself trapped once again within the very situation she had only recently escaped, she could not regret her decision.

Balthier had rescued her once before. He had given her weeks of freedom, had restored her battered pride and taught her that she had value far beyond that which Raen had ascribed to her. If it might save Balthier, she would sacrifice herself time and time again.

Because she had been lying to herself – it was impossible to love him only a little. It had simply been easier to think of it that way, to convince herself that she was still her own person, unhindered by so fickle an emotion. She hadn't wanted it, but it had gotten its hooks into her anyway, clawing beneath her skin to carve his name on her heart. A chain of an entirely different variety, and one she would wear happily for the rest of her life if only he lived through this.

She took a shuddering breath and shoved that intrusive thought aside – she had to believe that he was alive and unharmed. It was the only thing that kept her mind and her determination on the task at hand rather than falling prey to fear. Balthier's life hung in the balance, and she needed to be the strategist he was, to stay three steps ahead while allowing her adversary to believe he had the advantage.

Jiraj had been following her for some time, at a discreet distance. She had made a circuit of Tarram, inquiring after Balthier with the various merchants and shopkeepers in the city, generally attracting as much attention as she could manage in order to draw Jiraj out. Now she had only to destroy his illusion of stealth and call him out here on the shore near the Strahl, to which she could still flee if he failed to provide the answers she sought.

Jiraj was of middling intelligence at best, wont to tout his own prowess with little regard for the fact that some information would serve him better if he kept it quiet. She had played to his vanity and pride many times before; she had little doubt she could manipulate him into unwise admissions yet again.

Away from the city, he had grown bolder, secure in the surety of his conquest. He was only some twenty paces behind her, now, and steadily gaining ground. She used the squish of his heavy boots in the soft sand to account for her attention to him, whirling about to face him.

"Jiraj," she said, striving to infuse her voice with just the right amount of suspicion. She touched the belt at her waist, wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the dagger sheathed there, and narrowed her eyes at him. A moment passed in utter silence; he had come to a halt, a gleeful grin wreathing his face, already reveling in his victory.

She cleared her throat. "My traveling companion's gone missing," she said. "I don't suppose you've seen him?"

That grin grew wider, exposing his crooked teeth. "You coulda been nicer to me," he said. "I was always nice to you, weren't I? If you'd just given me a fair chance at a rematch…" He ambled forward a step; she skittered back two.

"What did you do?" she asked, hissing the words between clenched teeth. "What did you do with him? "

He shrugged. "Offloaded him. Couldn't have him about, mucking things up." The grin was permanently affixed to his face, as if it had been carved into his flesh. Penelo's palms itched to smack it off, but that would hardly get her the answers she so desperately needed.

"Offloaded him?" she asked. A horrible thought rose to mind. "Into the water?" Balthier had warned her of that.

"Naw," he scoffed. "It'd be just my luck if he could swim, wouldn't it, then?" He gave a rough rumble of laughter. "I sold him to Bartaan. Figured he'd want a crack at him, after how he sprung you."

Torn between relief and terror, Penelo hesitated. Bartaan wouldn't kill Balthier, not when there was good gil to be earned off his labor, and he was surely still feeling the sting of the six hundred thousand gil she'd skipped out on. But if, as she suspected, Raen had been behind that anonymously-posted mark... well, a coward at heart he might be, but he was also an opportunist of the first order. Perhaps Balthier hadn't been killed as a fringe benefit of the bounty posted on Penelo, but he had been dragged straight back to the designated meeting place. And while Raen would never challenge Balthier in a fair fight, he would think it a divine stroke of luck to have Balthier trussed up and at his mercy. Raen would kill him without a second thought.

Vaan, Fran, and Yulia were still some hours away – even if she managed to escape Jiraj and fled to the Strahl to wait on them to storm the Sword and Crown, there was every possibility that they would be too late to save Balthier.

They might already be too late.

No! She couldn't think like that; wallowing would serve no purpose. She knew where Balthier was being held, and she knew that Jiraj would take her there, too. It was her best chance – Balthier's best chance.

She was going to have to let him take her – and she was going to have to make it look good, look real. It would be real enough, after all…only Jiraj wouldn't know that she had set herself up to be captured.

Her heart thudded in her chest. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out the distant cry of gulls, the wash of the surf against the sand. Jiraj hadn't moved yet, but he would – he was only waiting on her, trying to anticipate her actions.

She took a deep breath and snatched the dagger from its sheath. "You can turn and walk away now, and that'll be the end of it," she said. "I don't want to kill you."

A startled laugh built in his throat; he swiped a meaty fist across his eyes as if to brush away tears of mirth. "Come off it," he said. "You? Kill me?" He wheezed with his amusement. "You got a high opinion of yourself."

She backed a step away, just enough to give the impression that she was all bluster and no bite. He knew her only as Bartaan's serving girl – he might've witnessed a handful of scraps she'd been involved in, but they had always been shut down relatively quickly. He had no idea what she'd been capable of before the manacle and chain, nor did he know what she had done since. To him, she was the same leashed pet he had known these last three years – mouthy, but ultimately harmless.

Good.

She erupted into motion only a half-second before he did, whirling about to race towards the Strahl. The sand beneath her feet flew into the air, spraying back behind her straight into Jiraj's face. She heard his heavy breaths turn to rasping wheezes as the sand choked his lungs. He made a hacking sound deep in his throat, but his feet still pounded behind her.

His longer strides ate up the distance between them, and he lunged at last across the empty space, seizing her ankle as he fell, his thick fingers clamping directly over the ridge of scar tissue. Her brain blanked, her breath drove itself from her lungs on a screech of instinctual panic. With a vicious jerk, he wrenched her leg out from beneath her – shades of the past all over again. She felt herself falling as if it had happened in slow motion, felt the white-hot surge of helpless fury burning at the back of her skull.

This time, she hit hot sand instead of cool wood. It wasn't much, but it was enough – enough to soothe the automatic fear response that might've sent her headlong into a tailspin of dread.

Balthier wasn't here to pull her out of it this time.

She struggled for a deep breath and swiped her arm across her forehead to wipe away the cold sweat that had broken out. Adrenaline coursed through her veins; she rolled onto her back, and Jiraj's fist burned her flesh as she turned her ankle in his tight grip. Before she could regain her breath, Jiraj shoved himself up onto his knees and yanked at her ankle, dragging her towards him. Her shirt rode up, and the sand beneath her scraped her raw. The sun was in her eyes – she kicked out at him blindly, heard his grunt of pain, and assumed she'd caught him somewhere in the midsection. Moments later, his free hand caught her other foot, pinning it to the sand.

"Aw, knock it off; I don't wanna hurt you." His voice was a harsh rasp, but no more than annoyed. He dragged himself up and released her ankles only to straddle her legs – then his palms were running up her thighs, patting her down.

With a shriek of rage, she snarled, "Don't touch me!" Her arm came up as she lashed out, the dagger clutched in her fist sliced cleanly through his forearm. He gave a hiss of pain, and his fingers seized her wrist on the next swipe, prying her fingers open until the dagger dropped to the sand.

His palm cracked across her cheek. She felt her teeth slice into her lower lip, tasted the coppery tang of blood. Her vision blurred for a few seconds, and his hands continued their brisk, efficient pat.

Through the ringing that had taken up residence in her ears, she heard him say, "Just gotta check you for weapons." The pat-down was quick; he had already wrested her dagger from her hand and had no reason to suspect that she would be carrying anything else. He made only a perfunctory examination of the most obvious places; the insides of her boots, her waist, her sleeves.

She dropped her head back into the sand with a groan. He collected her wrists in one hand, looping a length of cord around them, tying the knot so tightly that it chafed her skin.

"Shouldn'ta cut me," he chided. "Wouldn'ta had to hit you if you'd have come along quiet. Don't bother screamin', now. No one'll hear over the ocean." He fisted one hand in her waistband and shoved the other beneath her shoulders, pulling her up and onto her feet.

She stumbled, her head spinning as the world tilted, and she turned her face to spit out a mouthful of blood. "Why?" she managed, though her lips had gone numb and her cheek throbbed. "Who hired you?"

"Dunno," he said. "Poster didn't say. But someone out there's willing to pay a hell of a lot of money for you." He nudged her forward, toward the row of airships docked along the shore. "Whoever it was, he ain't made the Sword and Crown yet." A grating, coarse laugh singed her ears. "And if you're lucky, it'll be a while until he does, and Bartaan'll let you say goodbye to your man before I turn you over. I don't expect you'll be seeing him again otherwise." He made an aggravated sound in his throat as she dragged her feet, carving deep gouges in the sand. Wearying of her snail's pace, he tugged on her bound wrists to halt her progress, and bent down. His shoulder lodged itself in her stomach, driving the air from her lungs once more, and she gave a squeak of distress as her feet left the ground and she dangled upside down, slung over his shoulder. He set off again at a rapid clip, and she bounced with every step, her breath coming in halting wheezes as his shoulder lodged itself in her solar plexus.

Her arms dangled over her head, and she could see only the flat plane of Jiraj's back. The brief flickers of the sand and shore she could glimpse in her peripheral vision made her head spin as they tilted and jumped with each jarring step Jiraj took, and she was forced to close her eyes to quell the motion sickness that threatened.

At last Jiraj paused beside a ship, and Penelo was able to draw in air that wasn't promptly forced right back out of her lungs. A creaky clanging sound screeched through the air, and a fine plume of sand was tossed up around them, blowing into her face and sticking to the sweat that had collected there. She yanked up her arms and tried to wipe her face clear of it with her sleeve, but the grit remained with each swipe, until her cheeks felt raw and abraded.

Jiraj started forward once again, and beneath his feet she saw a grimy sheet of what had once been an iron ramp, but now resembled a rusted bit of scrap metal. Jiraj's ship was a piece of junk. She experienced a sliver of disdain – for any self-respecting pirate to allow his ship to deteriorate to this condition was unthinkable.

"Ain't as nice as your man's," he said, as if he had sensed her silent judgment, "but she'll get us there."

"I wouldn't put good gil on that bet," she muttered, turning her head to spit out the sand that had worked its way into her mouth.

He jammed his shoulder into her stomach, this time intentionally. "You never speak ill of a man's ship," he said, his voice sour and harsh. The sunlight dimmed as he strode onto the ship, the click of his boots sharp on the uncovered metal floor of the corridor. She'd been on only a few airships in her life, all of them of a class above this one. Vaan's ship was small by conventional standards, but it still managed to contain both sleeping quarters and storage space.

Penelo doubted Jiraj's ship possessed either; there were boxes and crates strewn about the narrow corridor, and Jiraj navigated them with practiced ease even in the low light. Which begged the question – what would he do with her?

He paused just before they reached the deck, and she heard the rusty whine of a latch being pried open, followed by the twist of a knob and the creak of a warped door as it scraped across the floor. Then the world tilted again as he hauled her from his shoulder, planting her on her feet before the dark interior of a shallow closet.

Her heart skittered through a few beats. She jammed her heels into the floor. "No," she said, vaguely ashamed of the raspy note of panic in her voice. "No – please."

His palm came down upon her shoulder. "Can't have you stirring up trouble in the meantime, and I ain't got nowhere else to put you."

"I won't cause trouble!" Her voice soared through several octaves, ending on a plaintive wail of distress.

His chuckle burned her ears. "You can say that with a straight face? I got stuff all over the ship I wouldn't want you getting' your hands on." He gave a hard shove to the small of her back, and despite having braced herself, she went flying forward. Her hands hit the wall first, and she steadied herself to turn, but the door slammed shut and what little light there had been guttered out completely. She launched herself at the door just in time to hear the latch click into place.

Dread settled over her like a shroud. The air was musty and stagnant; her chest hitched in a futile effort to draw breath. Her heart pounded, she gasped, and gasped again for air through a throat that felt as if it were caught in a vise. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and panic scrabbled at the back of her mind, struggling for freedom.

No! Balthier – Balthier would tell her breathe, to just relax and wait for the panic to subside. To concentrate on something else. He would stroke her hair and whisper comforting nonsense and…and just hold her until she collected herself.

She could almost hear his voice: Breathe, darling. Just breathe, and you'll be fine.

As if compelled by just the echo of his voice in her mind, she drew in a huge gulp of air. The panic receded the tiniest bit. Her lungs burned with the effort, but she established a steady rhythm of breaths, until the sick, queasy feeling settled to a low discomfort, until the terror retracted its icy claws from her shoulders, until her thundering pulse at last slowed and steadied.

The dark pressed in upon her eyes, but as her fear waned, she caught sight of it – the smallest sliver of light peeking beneath the door. It was just enough to concentrate on, to keep her anchored, to keep her brain from drifting aimlessly back into primal terror.

Minutes passed in silence as she knelt, bordered by walls and darkness on all sides, steadfastly resisting the instinctual panic reflex. But each time it threatened, she forced it resolutely back down, concentrating only on her deep, even breaths, on that tiny sliver of light, on the gentle rocking of the ship that told her they were underway.

It took every bit of effort she could manage, but somehow she did it – she had conquered her own fear.

The trip would only be an hour or so. It might feel like an eternity, but she was going to make it through by sheer determination.

And then Jiraj – and Bartaan, and Raen…they would all get what was coming to them.