A minute, maybe two, and I sensed movement passing my hiding spot. A fist knuckled a panel. A voice grunted out an oath. Another voice pushed out a handful of words that sounded defensive and threatening.

I kept so still that the lungstuff in my lungs started settling, like dust in a room no one enters.

Then the voices and movement went away and there was another silence.

I can’t say how long it was before that silence hardened and I began to believe that they had finally left. But I didn’t make the error of trusting in it too quickly. I stayed put, and when the discomfort and pain had built up inside me like a hard, hot knot, I imagined pushing that knot out through my skin, until it was floating outside me like a little angry star, and I could stand it a bit better that way. By the time I was done, though, I was surrounded by little angry stars.

Six hours must have gone by that like. Then six more. Sleep had been impossible at first, between the discomfort and the fear, but now I was too tired to fight if off. Whether I napped for minutes or hours, I couldn’t say. Only that the near-silence remained, and the darkness, and I believed at last that I was truly alone.

Bosa Sennen had taken what she wanted.

Bosa Sennen was gone.

I still moved quietly. When I finally dared touch the panel I worked my fingers into the gap and levered it away with great care, scrunching my eyes against the dim glow of the corridor’s lightvine. Then the panel slipped from my fingers and drifted across to the other side of the corridor. I snatched at it but was too slow. It clattered into the wall.

I held my breath. It was pointless to hide again. If I’d been heard, they’d find me, as sure as Paladin always found Adrana and me when we used to rope him into our games. But after minutes of waiting I began to accept that the ship really was empty.

I went to the galley, where I’d last seen the others.

I could tell you how I’d have wished to have reacted, when I found the bodies; how I’d have liked to have been all bold and dignified, keeping a respectful composure – or I could tell you what really happened, including the vomit and the tears and the self-pity.