Slowly word got around that we weren’t so bad. To help myself blend in a bit more, I found a very sharp knife – what they called a yard-knife, because it could cut through any sort of rigging – and had Adrana hack away half the length of my hair. I surprised myself when I next caught my reflection. There were angles in my face I hadn’t seen before, a sort of hardness pushing through from underneath. I hadn’t got any uglier, but I certainly hadn’t got prettier either. And I liked it. Afterwards, grudgingly-like, Adrana had me do the same to her hair as well. But I knew she liked how it had changed me, and wanted a part of that for herself. We also stopped insisting on wearing our dresses and boots all the time, and started trying on some of the less grubby items left for general use. Also, I may as well admit, we stopped being so particular about washing. Whatever it was we did – one of these things, or all of them, or just some slow adjustment, the crew now seemed more willing to invite us into their confidences, to share their work and its difficulties, to occasionally drop an unguarded remark about Rackamore.

‘If we can tear him away from his books . . .’

‘When the captain’s finished ironing his shirts, perhaps he’ll be able . . .’

‘Even his nibs wouldn’t turn his nose up at that . . .’

And so on. It wasn’t ever anything damning, and probably no worse than what any captain must face from their crew, and under it all was a respect and fondness. They liked him, even if he sometimes got under their skin with his high manners, educated way of speaking and the time he spent with his nose jammed into books.

Not that they were an unlearned lot. We already knew that Cazaray had come from a good background. Mattice, the Opener, had picked up his craft from books, not word of mouth. He showed me these journals – their handwritten pages a mad scribble of facts and lore relating to all the doors, locks and countermeasures one might encounter within a bauble.

‘Most of these pages aren’t in my hand,’ he said, as I flicked through the arcane contents. ‘When I was young – yes, I was young once, as miraculous as that will seem – an old Opener called Lautaro entrusted these books to me. They were all the cleverness he’d stored up over a life of opening baubles – and the books weren’t even new when Lautaro began. You see how the hand changes twice? He had ’em from an even older Opener. Going back a hundred, hundred and fifty years now. If I’m one of the best in the business – and I wouldn’t gouge the lamps out of anyone who made that claim – then it’s only because of those who went before me.’