Archie didn’t return until the wee hours of the morning. As she and Rosa approached the dock, she looked around at the Harriet. She hadn’t really paid attention to it the day before—she had been more focused on the guns Travers’ goons were carrying. Through the night, it had been too dark to really take in. As the sky began to lighten, she realized that the Harriet was precisely what she had expected: a huge, flat, muddy stretch of water, dotted with tiny islets and bracketed by humps of dogwood-covered land. She found herself wishing it was more beautiful, more shaded and lush—but then, she thought, it would be good marshland for hippos rather than a prison for ferals and riverboat thugs.

She unloaded Rosa’s saddlebags onto the floating dock that bridged the gap between the Sturgess Queen and the paddock. She brushed Rosa’s teeth and put medicated drops into the albino hippo’s pink eyes. Then, she sang Rosa a short lullaby and began dragging her load aboard the boat.

She tapped on the door to Hero and Houndstooth’s cabin with one fingernail, then with two. When there was no answer, she gave a single rap on the door with her knuckle.

Hero answered the door, breathless, still tying the belt of a robe around their waist. Their eyes were glassy—their lips, swollen. Archie grinned wickedly.

“I’m glad to see you, too, ’ero.” She thrust the saddlebag at Hero and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Hero panted. “Wait, this isn’t—this can’t be enough. I need at least four times this much dynamite.”

Archie turned back, her eyes still glinting with delight. “Ah, well, you see. They were all out of dynamite.” She patted the top of the bulging saddlebag. “This is something different. Something . . . better. You’ll see. We will discuss it further in the morning, oui? You’re busy now, and I’m so very sleepy.” She yawned theatrically. “Off to bed with both of us, is it not?”

She sauntered away down the hallway, pulling off the false moustache. “Oh, ’oundstooth,” she murmured to herself, a smile overtaking her face as she remembered the longing look on Winslow’s face when Hero had touched his arm the day before. “I can’t save you this time, mon copain. You’re done for.”

* * *

Archie, Hero, and Houndstooth met in the lounge at noon, each of them still blinking sleep from their eyes. Adelia was already seated in her chair, a small armory’s worth of freshly whetted knives on a table by her side. The knife she was sliding along the whetstone was familiar; Archie noticed it before Houndstooth did.

“I thought that thing was lodged too deep in the bull’s brain to get out? And—’ow did you get those back from Travers? I thought they were all locked away . . . ?”