He had been an imposing man, as thick as two men. He had a braided red beard that reached halfway down the front of his barrel chest, and it glowed with optics the way Siege’s did, although Ana much preferred the way they looped into her curls. Di had not trusted him from the start.

“Shh,” she had shushed, hoping Redbeard hadn’t heard. “The captain trusts him, so we should, too. Stop being a worrier. You’ll get wrinkles.”

Di blinked at her. “I am more likely to rust—I believe my components are freezing, it is so cold out here.”

She laughed. “You can’t even feel the cold. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Metal Popsicle.”

“No, but what will happen when all of this frost thaws?” he had asked. “The condensation will get into my hardware and I will short circuit and rust and you will need a new partner.”

Grinning, with her hands shoved into her pockets for warmth, she bumped her shoulder against his. “Nah, I’d just fix you.”

He had been wearing his favorite coat—sage-colored leather with fasteners up the side, his hood pulled over his head to help disguise that he was a Metal. She liked to remember him best like this. Moonlit eyes and a dent on his forehead from where she ran him over in a skysailer and a set to his mouth that was never argumentative—but also never approval. She liked to remember that moment on the frozen docks of the city-state Tavenktcha, if only to remember the way the evening light shone across the slats of his face and reflected off his frosted cheeks.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t want a new partner?” he had asked. “Someone else you could run over with a skysailer?”

She gave a mock gasp. “You’re still on that? It was an accident! I thought it was in park!”

“I believe that.”

“That sounds like sarcasm.”

“I am unable to convey sarcasm.”

“That also sounds like sarcasm,” she had deadpanned.

Redbeard, who had been walking a few paces in front of them, had belted out a laugh and glanced over his shoulder to both of them. His eyes were like black pinpricks, but he had the kind of face that wasn’t nearly as scary as it should have been, with the scar raking across his eyebrow. “Ye know, when Siege said she had a rogue Metal on her ship, I was a little worried. But ye ain’t too bad.”

“I shall take that as a compliment,” Di had replied nobly.

“Good. Maybe ye won’t be HIVE’d.”

“Maybe? He won’t be,” she had argued.

“And if he is?”

“Then I’ll get him out.”

“With love and sarcastic quips, eh?” the ex-con had asked, and unlike Di, she could hear the mockery that dripped across his words.

It pissed her off enough to say, “Yes. With love—and especially sarcastic quips.” Then she looked away, pursing her lips, as the ex-con howled with laughter again, making her cheeks burn with fury.