Swift catches it with one hand, and I don’t miss the slight bounce she gives it as she evaluates the weight.

Chuck nudges her as she walks past, tossing her mane of wavy hair so that it slaps Swift in the face.

“Oh come on,” she yelps, but the mechanic lackey only laughs.

“Have fun, you two,” Varma calls over his shoulder as the pair of them disappear around the corner.

I’ve never seen Swift go redder. “This can’t be happening,” she mutters under her breath. “Okay, look. I have business I need to take care of at the Flotilla, so you’re gonna have to just shut up, play cool, and come along for the ride.”

“I shouldn’t leave Bao—” I protest, but Swift silences me with a jerk of her wrist that causes the handcuffs to bite into my flesh. “Ow, Jesus!” I yelp.

“This is non-negotiable. The Flotilla’s our biggest stop on the trade chain—that’s why we get paid here. I have to—” She cuts off, her face souring. “Never mind. Just work with me, okay?”

I nod. There isn’t much else I can do.

We go to one of the midlevel decks to keep an eye on Bao while the ship makes its approach. He spots the Flotilla looming on the horizon and swims out ahead of us, blowholes flaring curiously, but then the trainer deck beacon flashes on, and he returns to the Minnow’s wake like a well-behaved dog. Santa Elena is giving the signals herself this time. She wanted the feeling of rolling into port with a Reckoner at her beck and call. It gives me the afternoon off, and there’s no way someone else will make a pass at Bao with the captain on deck. All that remains is for him to handle being in port like a properly trained beast.

He’s never had a problem with the ship’s Splinters, so it’s no surprise that as we draw closer, he pays little attention to the smaller ships that dart around in the distance. Some are ferries, carrying crew to and from massive smuggler ships that anchor out on their own where their autonomy is unquestionable. Others are fishing vessels returning from the net stands, loaded with enough meat to feed a hundred families for a week. My lip curls when I spot one of them dragging a bundle of neocete carcasses.

The Flotilla towers over us as we creep closer.

I’ve seen pictures of this place in textbooks, usually in the context of the justification for the Schism. Dividing the world into smaller states was supposed to ensure that governments were small enough to take care of all of their people. But some people still slipped through the cracks and floated out to sea, and the currents coagulated them into the floating cities, the fringe civilizations that live off both their wits and their availability to the pirate trade.