Tassos almost smiled, considering her as though seeing her for the first time. Finally, he shook his head. “Even with the seeds, we still need the means to grow them. We need soil, and that’s kept in Slipmark. You can’t get me what I need. No deal.”

The wind gusted between them and the ships rocked steeply together as if even the ocean wanted them to join hands. Frustration gnawed at Caledonia’s throat, but she swallowed it down. She had one final card to play and no one was going to like it. No one except Tassos.

“Soiltech,” she said. “I have it and if you agree to fight, if you help me take the Holster, it’s yours. I’ll let you walk away with the means to produce your own Silt.”

Oran went rigid at her side. Tassos had also tensed, though for different reasons. Silt was at the root of every piece of this fight, the toxic center from which everything else bloomed. It was so powerful it controlled everyone it touched. Perhaps especially Lir and Tassos. They both held such power, but they were also terrified that without that poisoned powder, they’d have none.

“Show me.” Tassos was ready to call her bluff and walk away, but she could see he wanted her to be telling the truth almost as much as he wanted to deliver her fleet to the bottom of the ocean.

Caledonia turned to her waiting crew. They were stone-faced and tense, their hands resting near holstered weapons.

She nodded at Pisces. “Bring me the soiltech.”

The hesitation in Pisces’s expression was there and gone almost as quickly as the young woman herself. She returned in a minute, their only functioning soiltech device clutched in one hand and a canvas sack of bleached soil in the other as Nettle watched with a pinched expression.

“Show him.”

Pisces activated the device with the press of a button. It flared with pale green light as she emptied the contents of her sack over it. White soil filtered through the sieve and when it emerged on the other side, it was a dark, healthy brown scattering in the wind.

Not even Tassos could hide his pleasure, his mouth parted in delighted surprise. Cepheus went still, her eyes tracking Pisces. Oran made no sound, but Caledonia could feel his frustration.

“Do we have a deal?” Caledonia asked.

Tassos stuck out his hand. “We have a deal. We’ll work together to take the Holster and in return, you deliver your soiltech and a blueprint for replication.”

Caledonia thrust her hand into his, feeling new bruises where he’d gripped her just moments ago. They pinched less painfully than the guilt she felt when she said, “Deal.”