‘No – we’ve a string of baubles to pop, once our yardage is settled. But you’ll find no lack of ships heading that way, or some near-enough place. I’m owed favours enough that I am sure I could arrange free passage for both of you.’

‘I’ll work my way,’ I said. ‘But thank you, anyway.’

‘I see you thought better of Meveraunce’s potions, Fura. I can’t fault you for that, but be prepared for some odd looks when you leave the dock.’

I shrugged. ‘Hasn’t anyone seen the glowy before?’

‘The glowy isn’t the odd thing. It’s that you don’t seem to care. The way you almost seem to welcome it, like a badge of honour.’ He produced a pair of small bags and set them on the galley table. ‘Your shares. I hope I’ve been honest.’

From the feel of my bag, there were six or seven quoins inside. Even if they were low-mark denominations – and I doubted that they were, for Jastrabarsk and Rackamore had held each other’s honour in equal regard – this was more money than I’d ever handled at once. I wondered about the etiquette of opening the drawstring to peer inside, but instead followed Prozor’s example and did no such thing.

‘Take care of that money. Prozor doesn’t need to be told, but Trevenza Reach isn’t well policed. Someone lifts that bag before you get to bank it with the Crawlies, you might as well have stayed at home.’

‘I’ll take care of her,’ Prozor said, stuffing the bag into an interior pocket. ‘Not that she can’t do it herself.’

‘There’s one other thing,’ Jastrabarsk said.

He fumbled a single quoin out of his pocket and onto the table. He just set it there for a few moments, not saying a word, giving us both time to clap our eyes on the piece and puzzle out its worth. It was the same size and thickness as any other, but from the dense criss-cross pattern of bars on its face, I knew it was one of the highest-value quoins I’d ever seen.

‘I thought we’d been paid,’ I said.

‘I can’t entice either of you to remain on my ship,’ he said, breaking his own silence when the quoin had made its point. ‘But I’d still like you to consider this offer. You could sail with any ship for a year, break a dozen baubles, and not earn this much money. It’s yours, for a simple price.’

‘And that’d be?’ Prozor asked.

‘Information. If one of you knows it, and speaks it first, then you can claim the quoin for yourself. If you want to split it, you can share the information.’

‘And what would this information be?’ I asked.