With Bao’s training stagnated, I start to follow Swift around during her training exercises. As long as I don’t directly interfere with anything, I lock up the trainer deck, and the captain doesn’t notice my negligence, I figure it’s only fair that I get a better sense of how things work on this ship. Plus Swift seems glad for company that isn’t in direct competition with her.

One overcast afternoon in the second week of November, I watch from the back wall as she and the other lackeys gather around the helmsman for lessons on piloting the Minnow. My attention constantly flicks backward to check on Bao. He’s big enough that he hunts during the day and homes back to the ship at night, so he doesn’t always roam within sight of us. Still, I rest easier knowing that he’s there. I don’t know what might happen if his imprinting behavior mucks up, if he suddenly wanders off and never returns. Reckoners don’t usually do that, but there’s a first time for everything, and Bao is full of surprises. Briefly I wonder how long it would take Santa Elena to notice if he vanished.

I let my focus shift back to the five trainees crowded around the helmsman, a stout old man named Yatori. He’s spitting out some lecture about the ship’s mechanics, his voice stuck in a nasal drone that nearly puts me to sleep. Chuck and Varma look bored too. As an enginesmith and a helmsman’s apprentice respectively, they’ve heard this spiel about powering the Minnow’s engines at least a hundred times before.

Swift, on the other hand, looks like she’s about to pop, like everything the helmsman is saying is completely over her head. I can understand most of it—stuff about currents, about the way the ship handles in different types of water—but Swift looks like she needs to be taking notes to get all of it down, and I start to feel sorry for her. I know she’s clever, but this kind of learning just isn’t her style, and she has so much riding on her ability to memorize this stuff. Any good captain should be able to pilot her own ship, and if Swift ever wants to fill Santa Elena’s shoes, she’ll have to be passable at helming the Minnow.

I watch the little tattoo on the back of her neck snap up as Yatori calls on her.

“Take over,” he instructs, lifting his hands from the controls.

She slides into place, her shoulders squared and tense as she takes the helm. One of her hands rests on the wheel, and the other slaps the radio on the dash. “Swift to engines, report when ready,” she says. She’s trying so hard to sound authoritative.

“Engines ready,” the engineer’s voice declares a second later. “On your mark.”