Rustling on deck—sleeping sailors rising. Shit. They’d hoped to take the Dream without alarm, in case they had Craftsmen or other emergency precautions. Wake too many of the deck crew and there’d be no way to distract them all. Stop this now.

She triggered the Suit. Ice slammed through her veins, and a silverblack hand seized her heart. In a single pull she vaulted the rail, landed soundless on deck, choked out the first sentry in two heartbeats and the second sentry in two more. The rest of her team landed with a rainfall patter, and six Blacksuits stood aboard the Dream, unnoticed—at least, that was the plan.

“Blacksuits!” someone cried.

A man stood on the quarterdeck, pipe in hand, beside a canvas chair. She’d counted boots and hadn’t counted him, because he wasn’t walking. Stupid. Justice’s conclusions rushed back into her along the quicksilver link: Raz’s reluctance to give the signal, trying to attract the lookout’s—the first mate’s—attention. She didn’t swear, but wanted to.

Didn’t freeze, either. Cat sprinted to the stairs, leapt up, vaulted over, struck the man with the pipe so hard he spun first, then fell. She caught him before he hit the deck, not gently.

Too late, too late; her team charged the men at the port rail—five on eight, trivial for Blacksuits, but the sailors asleep on the forecastle were waking. They rolled to their feet and drew weapons whose edges wept with a sickening enchanted light.

Lee hit the inquisitive watchman first, and hard—threw him over the railing. He screamed when he fell, which didn’t help. Keep it quiet, thought all the Suits at once, as they took out the remaining sentries. But by this time the forecastle was awake, and cabin doors burst open, disgorging more of the Dream’s armed and angry crew.

Cat dived into battle. The man in the lead, a tall Iskari with thick braids and a curved cutlass, swung; she blocked his blade with her forearm and was not cut, but nevertheless it stung, and numbness took her arm. Not fast enough. She butted him in the face with her forehead, and he fell.

Another blade swept toward her. She dodged, dancing over the Iskari’s fallen body, but stumbled into a third sailor, who tried to grab her arm. He couldn’t hold her but slowed her down enough that the next cutlass almost caught her in the side. She swung the man who’d grabbed her around into the second sailor. He hit hard and let her go.