“No,” his father said, frowning. “No, it’s not fun. Not really. It’s deadly serious.” A look like he was trying to tell Finch something Finch just couldn’t understand at the time.

Finch remembers that pipe when he’s working on his overlay. That tiny view of a huge world, which makes him realize the limitations of his map. That beyond it, beyond Ambergris, there’s something more. Though it’s easy to forget.

It’s the pipe he’s thinking about as he enters the Spit with Wyte. About those spies, who had led exciting, dangerous lives all across the world. But who were still, at the end of the day, captured inside a pipe.

Bound by rules.

Moved around a board against their will.

Or thought they were.

What’s the difference?

2

Through the doors of boats. Through many doors. Always with sudden water between them. Gray, blue, black, depending on the shifting clouds above. The distance wide enough to make them jump. Then narrow as a line of blue. As the boats rocked, lashed together by rope that groaned. A marsh smell. A fish smell. Mixed with the odd old-new smell of paint curled back in a snarl or crisply flat.

Into spaces seeping water from old wounds, the texture of warped planks beneath their feet weathered in a hundred ingenious ways. Across decks that announced them through the creak caused by their weight, wood singing a dull protest. Up or down steps always too deep or too shallow.

Following the wide back of their silent guide, Wyte the worse off for being taller, having to contort his frame into whatever shape awaited him. The doors got smaller then larger, then smaller again. Oval. Rectangular. Square. Inlaid with glass. Gone, leaving only a gaping doorway and a couple rusted hinges. Once, a flapping triangle of canvas with an eye painted on it in green and red that seemed to follow Finch’s stumbling progress.

And what in Truff’s name is this supposed to represent? The thought came to Finch more than once, looking down at the whittled wood from Bosun. The trap. The lizard caught in it. The carving brought his thoughts to Sidle, made him feel, absurdly, like Bosun had been inside his apartment. Who created such things? Who had the time?

Bosun stopped suddenly, turned back to look at them from just inside a doorway.

Wyte ran into Finch before he could stop himself. Lulled by the stilted rhythm of their progress. Finch just able to stop falling.

“What? Are we there already?” Wyte asked, peering over Finch’s shoulder. Could feel his breath, hot and thick.

Bosun smiled. A thin smile. Nothing humorous about it.

They stood precariously outside the doorway, on a tiny deck, backs to a cabin wall. A trough of water lapping between boats. A heron croaking through the slate-gray sky.

“Toss your guns,” Bosun said.

“Why should we?” Wyte asked.

“No guns allowed with Stark.”