Releasing Hime’s and Amina’s hands, she stepped into the center of the gathering. The sun was warm against her tearstained cheeks, the wind chilling her fingertips. She let her sadness, her anxiety become a slender core of steel extending from her crown to her toes. She let it hold her up instead of drag her down.

The eyes of dozens of boys and girls landed on her, and for a moment she felt tacked in place. They were a marked ship on the edge of the Bullet Seas, they were the people who’d taken more than Aric cared to give, and they were waiting for her to give them a way forward. Several of them were waiting for her to make good on the promise to get them on the other side of the Net. Before she could give them what they wanted, she would have to give them what they needed. Right now, that was one another.

“Friends,” she began in a low voice, commanding the space without volume. “You don’t know one another yet, but you will. We have decisions to make and seas to cover, and to do that well, we must work together.”

Unease ruffled through the crowd. There were two distinct sets of people here: the Blades and her crew. And even though every single Blade had been essential in freeing her crew from Slipmark, they had precious little reason to trust one another.

She couldn’t force trust where there was none. So she would show them where it already existed.

“Sledge,” she called.

He stepped forward, masking his uncertainty beneath a stony exterior. He was still angry with her, but anger didn’t erase trust. At least, she hoped it didn’t.

“Pisces,” she called.

Pisces moved to the front of the crowd, crossing her arms over her chest. She, too, was angry with Caledonia. At least they had that in common. Caledonia took a steadying breath and reminded herself that it wasn’t her job to be liked. It was her job to keep them alive.

“I want you to each select one person and join me in the box. Hime, you’re with me.”

Speaking in a single voice, Sledge and Pisces answered, “Yes, Captain.”

Chapter Thirty-one

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The box was the small, windowless chamber beneath the bridge. When this had been a Bullet ship, it had served to collect their records and accounting of how many conscripts came from which colonies. One wall was covered in drawers, snapped firmly into place and filled with papers. A small ledge extended along the wall opposite, just wide enough to use as a sort of desk, and in one corner was a single chair, now occupied by Sledge, who only barely fit in these tight rooms to begin with. Sitting put him closer to their eye level and made him somewhat less imposing.