‘No. I’m not your good little sister now. I’m Fura Ness and I’ve got a tin hand and the glowy in me and I want to see Bosa’s blood on the wrong side of her skin.’

To her credit, she let me speak.

‘We’re sailing to the Fang,’ I continued. ‘So are you. One way or another. Copy down these parameters.’

‘Fura . . .’

‘Just do it.’ And I wouldn’t relent until she’d taken down the numbers I’d already committed to memory, and then repeated them back to me. ‘Sell Bosa any lies you need to. We’ve been lying our hearts out to Captain Trusko, so you can do the same to Bosa. Tell her you’ve got a sniff of something. There’s a ship chancing its arm on some rumoured loot, and they’re ripe for jumping. No armour, no weapons, and the crew and its jelly-livered captain wouldn’t know close action if it came up and bit them. Best part of all: there’s a nice skull waiting for you at the end of it all.’

‘She’ll know.’

‘Not if you sell it to her the right way. You don’t go rushing up to Bosa, all bright-eyed, telling her you’ve got something juicy. You’ve got to throw it out casual, mixed in with other stuff, and let her make her own mind up on it. Which she will.’

‘And then what?’

‘Bosa’ll do the rest. She won’t jump us until we’ve come back from the bauble, ’cos that’s her way. Saves her the effort of going in, doesn’t it?’

‘You’ve been through this once, Fura. Why would you bring it on yourself again?’

‘Because I’ve learned. Because we’ll be ready. Because I promised Garval I wouldn’t forget what she’d done. Do this for me, Adrana. Do this for us.’

The skulls broke the connection without any warning. They did that sometimes, when something got out of phase in the twinkly, but it was always unnerving, especially as there wasn’t any guarantee of re-establishing contact. I was about to give it a try, anyway, figuring there was no harm in it, when someone hammered hard on the door to the bone room.

I disconnected and hung up my equipment, all methodical and proper, taking pride in this odd little profession of mine.

I spun the wheel. It was Surt, with her drawn-in face.

‘What?’

She gave me a sidelong look. ‘Didn’t you hear?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

‘Gathing’s dead. He was screaming, struggling, loud enough to wake ’em up all the way to Trevenza. You sure you didn’t hear any of that?’

‘I’d have come, wouldn’t I?’ I said, closing the door behind me.