I edge nearer and decide I’ll take it hot first. I still have to push myself in, and the water’s a shock. I tense, grit my teeth and try to hold, but I’m not prepared for the rush of pain through my ports, needle-sharp and boiling, tunnelling into my flesh and pushing silver flashes across my eyes.

I don’t hear myself shout, but I feel it. I’ve broken bones that didn’t hurt this much. It’s a second before I realise that I’ve bitten into my bottom lip, blood turning bitter in my mouth. Shadows creep in from the corners, and the floor spins out from under my feet. The whole world turns around me.

I don’t see Salt’s hands curve over the top of the stall, and I only feel the edge of his fingers as he snags my arm at the shoulder, lowers me safely to the floor. I manage to cut the taps, and fold myself into a ball in the corner.

My mouth is full of spit and iron. My stomach churns.

“Fuck,” I manage. “I’m worse off than I thought.”

Salt straightens, checks the grazes under his arms and across his chest, then beams at me over the stall top. “The chain gang screwed me just as well as it screwed you, jockey.” He cuts the water and settles on the floor of his stall. I feel the deck bow slightly as he shifts his weight. “Give it ten before you try again. I didn’t, nearly broke my head on the stall.”

“Thank you,” I manage.

We watch the haze together.

“What do you think it means?”

There’s a moment’s silence before he replies. “That we’re out of shape. The chain gang clipped our wings, and it’s taking time to grow them back.”

I shake my head, for all that Salt can’t see it. “That isn’t what I meant.” My hand hurts. “I’m not sure what I meant.”

He breathes deep. “The message in Sigurd’s bottle. That’s what you were going to say.”

“I suppose it was.”

“Don’t let them touch you,” he says, like he’s laying each word out where he can see it.

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t think it means anything. You touched them, and it hasn’t done you any harm.”

I suppose I did.

I work my fingers. They hurt, the Juno’s broken bones still throbbing beneath my skin.

“How’s the hand?”

The question drives a shiver down my spine. There’s water cooling on my skin, and a chill that climbs up through the floor, but this is different. My heart chokes me.