Luckily, the twins and the promise of cargo beyond them must be drawing most of the attention right now. The ship’s halls are empty except for me, though I hear shouting and footsteps and laser-fire not too far away. I pass through a mess hall, down the stairs, and through the middle deck, following the sound of the engine. Their engine is quite a bit larger than ours due to the ship’s size, and a whole lot noisier. Down belowdecks, the sound is a constant, jarring rumble.

Which means I don’t hear the pirates around the corner until I come face-to-face with them.

With two guns aimed in my direction, I freeze and slowly raise my hands in the air, eyes darting from one face to another. My heart skips a beat as I recognize both of them.

The first to step forward is Captain Murdock’s right-hand woman. Izra Jenviir is a lean, middle-aged woman with paper-white skin and hair so pale it looks almost silver in the light. A crater of red scar tissue takes up the space where her left eye should be, and a black rectangle on her right wrist covers an old Titan war-brand. Everyone says she’s a deserter—not to her face, of course, if they like to keep their teeth inside their mouths—but I’ve always had trouble imagining her running from anything. She’s a half head smaller than I am, but that doesn’t make her any less terrifying.

She also, apparently, has a gun for an arm now.

“That’s new,” I say, eyes flicking toward the strange device wrapped from her elbow to the tips of her fingers. I recognize the slick black shine of Primus material, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. The thickest section reaches from the pirate’s wrist to her elbow, with several other, spindlier parts circling out from around it to encapsulate her arm like a long, thin rib cage. Though her arm is mostly intact, the weapon is attached directly to her flesh, pieces of it plunging into her fair skin. Looking at it makes me queasy. “Looks… nice?”

When she turns her arm to the side, something clicks, and the rib-like sections slowly peel outward. The thing emits a low hum that makes every hair on my body stand up at once. She aims her wrist at me, and I jerk back so fast that I slam into the wall.

“Hey, hey, what did I tell you?” her companion says, stepping forward and holding a hand out in front of her. She gives him a withering look, and he smiles in response. It drops off his face as he turns to me. “This one’s mine.”