‘I’m all right. I just do what she says, and that’s enough for her – she can’t hurt me. But Garval . . .’

‘What has she done? You have to tell me. She saved my life, Adrana. I want to know what’s happened to her.’

‘It’s a drug. I told you that much. It does something to her bones. It’s making them fuse together.’

‘Fuse,’ I repeated, as if the word was weird and alien.

‘At the joints. Any place where a bone moves against another bone. Fingers. Arms. Legs and hips. Neck and head. It’s been very slow and the change from day to day’s very small. But it’s always in the same direction, always making Garval stiffer. It’s getting harder for her to breathe now, because her ribs are fusing into a solid cage, and she can’t move her lungs properly under them. Can barely speak, because her jaw’s fusing to her skull. She’ll die, and soon, but not before Bosa’s made a point of her.’

The thought of that torture put a bit of ice into me that never unfroze.

‘Why?’

‘Do you remember the glimpse we got of the Nightjammer, Fura? The spike at the front, and the figure under it? I saw it better when they took me. The figurehead used to be a breathing person, tortured the same way as Garval, until they’re just a single living bone wrapped in meat and skin. Once in a while, Bosa changes the figurehead – usually when she wants to teach a lesson about loyalty.’

‘Oh, Garval. After all she did.’

‘If I had a way of putting her out of it, Fura, believe me I would. I know what she did for you, and there isn’t any way to repay that.’

‘Maybe that drug’s reversible. If Garval can just hang on . . .’

‘Until what?’

‘There’s hope,’ I said. ‘Prozor and I’ve been working on a plan. I told you we were coming for you, didn’t I?’

‘And I told you to go home, like a good little sister.’

‘There’s a bauble,’ I said. ‘It’s called the Fang. It’s the one where Prozor lost Githlow, her husband. Well, we’re sailing to it again. We’re six days out now, so we’ll be on it in twenty-one days. Three weeks from now. You’ve got Bosa’s ear, haven’t you? She wouldn’t keep a Bone Reader if she didn’t pay attention to what they give her.’

‘I don’t know where you’re going with this, Fura.’

‘We’re going to crack that bauble. Then you’re going to come in and jump us, just like Bosa did with Captain Rackamore. First you’ll need to confirm you can make the crossing, but they say the Nightjammer’s fast, don’t they?’

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Before we go any further.’