‘Truer to say it sometimes gets warm. Not afraid of a little cold, is you?’

‘I’m not,’ I said.

‘We’ll manage,’ Adrana said, casting me a glance.

The space was a compartment about the size of the smallest room either of us had ever slept in, and this was meant for two. At the back of it were two hammocks, one above the other, and a curtain that you could tug across the hammocks for privacy. Prozor showed us the hatches that held more bedding, as well as space for personal effects – not that we’d brought anything with us.

‘Sumptuous,’ I said.

‘Used to better, is you?’

‘I thought the captain told you to be nice to us,’ Adrana said.

‘You were getting the nasty side of me, you’d know it.’ But after a heavy sigh Prozor said: ‘Ain’t as bad as it looks. A cove gets used to things soon enough, and you’ll only spend as much time here as you want to. We nosh together. You’ll be the new cooks now – it’s always the Bone Reader what cooks, ’cause them being so precious and delicate they ain’t got much else to do. Other than that, you’ll be in the galley with the rest of us, singin’ songs, tellin’ stories, puttin’ on plays, readin’ fortunes, whatever passes the hours.’ She gave us a forbidding look. ‘Plenty of things scarce on a ship. Hours ain’t one of them.’

‘Are there books?’ I asked.

‘Books your thing, are they?’

‘Yes. It’s called reading.’

Prozor sniffed, wrinkling her nose. She had sharp features: sharp nose, sharp chin, sharp dark eyes under jagged brows. She had a face that would look angry no matter her mood – all vees and angles, as if she had been sketched in a hurry, with hard strokes. Her hair was as sharp-looking as the rest of her, bristling out at all angles and stiffened into spikes and barbs by some kind of glue or lacquer.

‘Talk to Cap’n Rack. He’s always pleased to show off his library. More books in there than you’ll know how to read.’

‘I doubt that,’ I said.

Prozor led us back through the ship. It might have been the way we had come, or some completely different route. It was hard to tell. She was pointing out different things all the while, grumpily unconcerned with how much we could take in at a time.

‘Near the middle now,’ she said, as we squeezed around an elbow in the passageway, still weightless. Adrana and I were moving by our fingertips and careful use of our feet, while Prozor darted forward with reckless speed, only to keep stopping and looking back at us as we caught up. She slid open a panel, ushered us through it.

‘Are you lost yet?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’