‘You want proof, Captain, I can show you the bodies, and what she did to them. I doubt you’ll need much persuasion.’ I hesitated, realising that I ought to sound less like an educated young lady from Mazarile and more like someone who’d been crewing for years. ‘Ain’t pretty, what she did, I mean,’ I went on. ‘And the way she spoke to Rackamore, it was clear that they knew each other already.’

‘I believe she exists. But it’s unusual for her to be trawling this close to the outer processionals, or to be interested in a small prize like this one. So she may be shifting tactics. That said, I doubt that she’ll return – not if she left you in a sorry state. You say she left with your Bone Readers?’

I nodded and forgot to speak for a few seconds. ‘Yes,’ I stammered out. ‘The two of them.’

‘Sisters, we heard. Fresh in from Mazarile, with quite some potential. What were you, Incer?’

‘Nothing like that, sir. Just a Scanner – a Bauble Reader. Prozor was training me up.’

‘We heard about Prozor. She was good, they said – one of the best. Is she . . .?’

‘Dead,’ I answered. ‘Yes.’

Something touched my throat. I jumped hard, despite myself, and felt a sharp edge nick my skin.

A hand reached around me, flicked off the squawk.

‘Dead, is she?’

I suppose I must have breathed but I don’t remember doing it. Just a long silence while I kept still and the blade stayed against my throat. We could have stayed like that for hours, for all I know, although I doubt it was more than seconds.

Eventually I squeezed out a word.

‘Prozor.’

‘Prozor the dead. Ain’t that nice. Ain’t that convenient.’

‘You’re alive,’ I said.

‘And whoever said I wasn’t?’

If she was going to open my neck she might as well do it now. I turned around slowly, giving her time to move the blade so that it was still pressed against my windpipe.

‘I thought she’d killed you,’ I said. ‘Like she did the others – Rackamore, Triglav, Jusquerel. I thought you’d gone the same way, except she’d bludgeoned you. I didn’t check because I didn’t have a reason to think you weren’t dead. You looked dead.’

‘Do I look dead now?’

‘Don’t look far off it.’ She had a bloodied scalp, hair tangled into it, a terribly blackened eye. I had touched her head, I remembered, and felt the soft damage under it. I hadn’t been careless, or presumed something foolish. It wasn’t my fault that her breathing was so shallow I missed it. ‘Would you mind moving that knife, Prozor? Before you kill the only other survivor on this ship?’