Then Aev fell out of the sky on top of it.

Knives blunted and thin metal limbs snapped beneath a ton of high-velocity gargoyle. Gears and springs and shattered glass flew out in all directions. The deck stove in beneath her feet. Lightning danced from broken planks, and the strange weight that bound Cat to the wood vanished. She rose, as did the other Blacksuits; Raz and the crew of Bounty and Dream took longer to recover.

The golem’s skull rolled from its shattered body. Aev looked down at it, quizzical, then crushed it to dust with her heel. A shadow rose screaming from the metal husk, and faded on the wind.

What took you so long? Cat asked.

Aev pointed up with one clawed finger. Cat looked, saw nothing, then heard a whisper of wind. A huge bat-winged creature fell to splash between the two ships. It lay faceup in the water, twitching in its swoon.

“Busy,” Aev said.

They secured the ship in minutes. Dream’s remaining crew surrendered; Blacksuits moved through their ranks, taking names and faces for prosecution. Raz’s crew spidered up the rigging to prepare the Dream for sailing into port.

“Do you feel useful now?” she asked Aev after the worst was done.

“I enjoyed this,” the gargoyle replied. “But what was our purpose here? Helping pirates take a merchant ship?”

“Follow me,” Cat said, and led her down below.

The gargoyle could not use the ladder—too heavy—so she jumped into the hold, splintering more timber when she landed. The ship rocked, and Cat steadied herself on the wall. Belowdecks the Dream smelled foul, animal stink mixed with tar and pine. She worked fore past wine barrels and bales of cloth and crates marked for Iskar and the Schwarzwald. A black wall closed off the forward hold; the wall had a single door without handle or visible lock save for a shimmering Craft circle.

“We’ve suspected Varg of zombie trading for a while, but without proof we had no excuse to search the ship.” They’d taken an amulet from Varg’s coat that afternoon, and she drew it from her belt pouch now. “But she reached out to a dreamglass supplier in Alt Coulumb this time, and dreamglass is illegal in the city, so.” The seven-pointed star on the amulet’s face matched the symbol at the Craft circle’s center; she applied the one to the other, twisted, and the door creaked open. Chill wind fogged her breath. “Here you go.”

Aev entered the cold, dark room. Cat could barely see the hold’s contents over the swell of her wings and back, which was just as well; it wasn’t a good sight. “They’re shipping bodies.”