‘Drozna’s the best of a bad barrel. And I wouldn’t sweat about the arm too much. Once they see what you’re worth, where you came from won’t matter. This is the crew we needed, Fura. A weak captain suits us better than a strong one.’ She knuckled the partition between my quarters and the next. ‘Ship’s sound enough. Few dents. Can’t compare to the Monetta, but then what can?’ She paused. ‘We’re both aboard, anyway. I’ll make a big show of warming to you, but it’ll take time.’

I smiled. ‘I won’t take it personally.’

‘Now all we need is somethin’ we can call a plan. Your noggin’ still full of chaff about taking the fight to Bosa?’

‘Never been fuller.’

Prozor gave a little dry laugh. ‘When we parted in Trevenza Reach – before Quindar put me under with that gun of his – I didn’t think you had it in you. You said all the right things, and I think you thought you meant it, but I still reckoned you’d wilt away once you got another taste of Mazarile. Nice homes. Nice beds. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?’

‘I don’t blame you. There’s something else about Trevenza, too. We were talking about Illyria, and I asked you what could have been worse to Rack than knowing she’d been turned or was dead. You weren’t exactly keen to enlighten me, but I think you had the shape of it.’

Prozor gave a sigh that was more groan than sigh, like the mere idea of dragging these words out of herself caused discomfort.

‘She’d smashed me around. Put me so far under she thought I was dead. But I wasn’t. And either I dreamt somethin’, or I came back far enough to get a glimpse of her, while she was tormentin’ Rack. And I saw her face, Fura. I saw the living face of Bosa Sennen, and I knew it.’

‘Illyria,’ I said, voicing what had only been a private theory until then.

‘I didn’t know her. But I knew Rack, and it was his eyes lookin’ out of that face when she let us see it. Bosa hadn’t just turned Illyria, Fura. She’d made Illyria into herself. And that’s why Rack put that crossbow between his teeth and put a bolt through his own grey. Because he couldn’t live a second longer knowin’ what his daughter had turned into.’