The ship soared closer still, hemorrhaging smoke into the blue sky. Pine roared for his gunners to raise their shields and open fire.

Now that they were near, Caledonia could see the Bullet crew scrambling to put out the fire. What they weren’t doing, she realized, was taking aim against the Luminous Wake. Not a single gun was pointed at her crew.

“What are they doing?” Pisces asked, dread making her confusion sharp. “Why aren’t they firing?”

That’s when Caledonia saw her.

Standing tall on the forward deck of the Bullet ship was a woman with round hips and dark hair pulled into a severe braid. In her hand, she held a gun, arm resting at her side. Over the narrowing slice of water between them, she found Caledonia’s eyes. Then she raised her gun and fired a single shot into the ocean.

Recognition washed over Caledonia. This was no Bullet, but her friend and ally Gloriana.

After Slipmark, where Gloriana had helped Caledonia to free the captured crew of the Mors Navis, the woman had vanished into the night, only to turn up after the Battle of Cloudbreak with a different ship and a small crew of defected Bullets. They’d become a crucial part of Caledonia’s information network, constantly sailing out and back with news of the Bullet Fleet. Caledoina had dispatched them to verify the Fivesons’ deaths a week ago.

On a different ship.

Before she’d completed the thought, her gunners fired. Gloriana’s crew hit the deck, while she stood tall and unflinching, the gun hanging nonthreateningly in her hand.

“Cease fire!” Caledonia shouted. “They’re friendly! Cease fire!”

The guns stopped, the air cleared, and each crew eyed the other warily. Soon, the two ships were port to port with a bridge laid between them.

“Captain,” Gloriana said, crossing the bridge to the deck of the Luminous Wake with a wide smile. “We thought this looked like the Luminous. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Sorry for the less-than-warm welcome,” Caledonia said with a glance toward the still-smoking patch on Gloriana’s aft deck.

“Warm enough,” Gloriana answered with a shrug. “No one was hurt, and we found the crew we were searching for. Seems like a good day. Or, good enough. We saw what happened to Cloudbreak.”

“I’m glad to see you safe.” Reluctantly, Caledonia started a new fleet tally in her mind. She’d had fifty-four, but as of right now, she had two. “Did you find any others?”

Gloriana gave a regretful shake of her head. “Just us, I’m afraid. We were on our way back in to report when we came upon twenty of Lir’s fleet holding position south of Cloudbreak. We had to sail east to avoid them, and by the time we were making our approach, well, we could see the smoke from miles away.”

Twenty ships.