“I’m going to put it on,” Elara explained. “I can’t exactly sneak into the Spire looking like I am.”

“Oh. But if you get caught . . .”

“I know,” replied the Solani girl, and cast her eyes down to the unconscious guard, already unlacing his pauldrons. “But I’ve never really had a crew before—or anything to be a part of, really. It felt nice on the Dossier. You kind of welcomed me in despite—well, everything. I hadn’t had that before. So you get a head start, and I’ll go free your friends, and they’ll go running after you. I might not be able to stop you, but they can.”

Ana didn’t point out that the crew had tried to stop her a hundred times before, but she’d always run off on her own anyway. It had been how this entire mess started, in an Iron Shrine going to meet Mokuba about a lost Ironblood ship. She didn’t want to go alone this time, but every second counted—and every second the Great Dark looked for the heart, it was a second closer to finding it. Ana helped Elara undo the rest of the guard’s uniform and put it on her. The breastplate was surprisingly light, as were the greaves, and every time she touched the curious metal, it rippled like water. When Elara was dressed, she stepped out of the forest, pulling her bob into a ponytail behind her head, and together they slipped into the city.

The streets were sparse and dark, the only sound coming from the taverns, casting golden light and the smell of sweet mead out onto the streets. They bade each other good-bye and began to go their separate ways, when regret tugged on Ana’s heart, because the last time she had gone alone, it hadn’t ended well.

“Hey, Elara?”

The girl turned. “What?”

“They’re your friends, too. Not just mine.”

To that, the hacker smiled. “Thanks, Princess.”

“And can you tell Jax that I’m sorry? For everything.”

“The dreadnought wasn’t your fault,” Elara had tried to say, but Ana was already heading for the docks where the Dossier sat, because it was her fault. That much Ana knew.

Ana kept to the shadows and back alleys on her way to the docks, and when the sight of the Dossier, black and chrome, rose up in the distance, she felt a pang of relief. Hired workers were still, patching the hull and stringing up brilliant new chrome lightsails.

The Solgard had brought back their skysailer from the ruins, and it sat wilting on one side of the hold. It was banged up, and she hated to think of how Jax would react when he saw it. That skysailer was his baby.

Inside the ship, she didn’t see anyone, so she quickly climbed the stairs, took out her old rucksack from her chest in the crew’s quarters, and piled it full of provisions. Di’s sage coat hung on a hook where he had left it six months ago. It still smelled like rust and gunpowder as she shrugged it on and pressed her nose against the collar, inhaling deeply. It smelled like him. The coat was loose in the shoulders and too tight in the chest, but if she didn’t zip it up, it fit perfectly. She slipped Di’s memory core into one of the inner pockets and hurried to leave again before anyone found her.