‘Because you weren’t brave,’ I said. ‘You weren’t brave, and you weren’t successful. We needed a crew Bosa wouldn’t think twice about jumping, because you looked like easy pickings. Amateurs, which is what you are. And when you put yourselves in harm’s way, out here around the Fang, it wouldn’t ever have occurred to Bosa that you were luring her in deliberately.’

‘We weren’t,’ Strambli said.

‘I was,’ I answered, colder than the last breath of the Old Sun. Then, feeling that I owed them a bit more of the picture: ‘Bosa took Adrana, my sister. She’s another Bone Reader. She’s better than me, and I’m better than most. Adrana and I’ve been in contact, through the bones. I told her about the Fang, and how she had to slip Bosa the idea about jumping us.’

‘You knew what we’d find here,’ Trusko said, marvellingly, as if he was only now starting to see how thoroughly he’d been played. ‘All along. You lied to me, didn’t you? That intelligence . . .’

‘It was what I needed to do, Captain. But understand, it wasn’t anything against you, not on a personal level. In fact I’m doing you a favour. You and all the captains. You slink around pretending she’s not out there, but deep down she’s got the shivers into you, and that ends now. We’re taking Bosa Sennen. We’re taking the Nightjammer.’

Forty minutes is a long time when there’s something you’d rather be doing, but it’s no time at all in a pickle. Truth was, I’d rather have been doing a lot of things other than figuring out the workings of the Ghostie armour. But I also knew we couldn’t count on much grace when we got to the Queenie, assuming we got there before Bosa made her jump. We had to work out what we had, what we could use, and just as importantly how to use it – all in the time it took a tram to get from one end of Jauncery to the other.

Getting out of the suits was the start of it. We were stripped down to just a layer of clothes, just enough to stop a cove freezing to death: leggings and vests and not much else. I kept telling myself that the suits wouldn’t have made much difference, not where Bosa was concerned, but it was still hard to let go of the one thing that felt like it might have stopped a crossbow bolt.

With my arms bare – what was left of my arms, anyway – the glowy really stood out. The others noticed it too. It hadn’t been like that before, not even before I started getting treated for it. I could feel the lightvine tingling under my cheeks and brow, too, shining like fierce warpaint.