‘That you should drop by the bone room when you get a chance. See if you can get a read out of the skull. Could be your chance, Fura. Unless you’ve got plans to hop a ship home from Trevenza Reach?’

I shook my head forcefully. ‘Not in all the worlds. I’ll get word to Father, make sure he’s all right, make sure he knows I’m all right – and explain to him about Adrana, and so on, and that I won’t be home for a little while.’

‘You could do that now. Jastrabarsk ain’t got too many secrets to protect.’

‘No, but I have. There’s a man working for my father. He’s called Vidin Quindar – you might have heard of him?’

‘I know Quindar. Sooner say I didn’t, but I do. But he ain’t the sort of cove to work for the likes of your father.’

‘He does now. Whatever money Father had left – and it can’t have been much – he’s used it to keep this man looking for us, because he knows the ships and how they operate. Well, I don’t want to run into him before I’ve found another ship.’

‘What’s so shabby about this one?’

‘Everything. You can say it’s the glowy, but there’s something in me that wasn’t there before. I’m not resting until Bosa’s paid for this, Prozor. I want my sister back alive, and Garval, and Illyria too, if she’s still alive, and for that I’m going to need a crew with the guts to take her on.’ And I lowered my voice, because I was about to speak ill of our hosts, who’d been good and kind to us, and that made me feel sneaky and unappreciative, like a guest with bad manners. ‘And this isn’t it. They’re too timid. They weren’t going to take a chance on that bauble ’til you twisted their arms. They didn’t even have the nerve to try and beat the Monetta to it – they were happy to let us have first pickings! They make Rack seem like a big risk-taker.’

‘Anyone but you, Fura, I’d make ’em pay for that.’

‘But you won’t with me, because you know I’m only saying it the way it was.’

She cocked her head, giving me a sideways look.

‘You an expert, all of a sudden.’

‘I’ve earned the right, Prozor. Just as you did. I know I don’t look or speak the way the rest of you do, and I know I haven’t seen a hundredth of the things you have. But I’ve survived Bosa Sennen, and that’s more than most can say. And now I’m going to make her regret the day she ever crossed orbits with Fura Ness.’