She ascended to the great cabin, where Vrain, Rebecca, and her other line officers waited. The cannons had been cleared out, though the reek of gun smoke lingered like the last unwanted guest at a party. A heavy chair had been installed. Isabelle received and returned salutes, then took her place in the chair.

Two marines marched in with the Skaladin capitaine.

She was a woman. Isabelle had not expected that. Her graying hair was tied back in a queue, and her eyes were as dark and hard as flint. She’d been stripped of her weapons and stood before Isabelle in bare feet, striped breeches, and a green blouse that had seen better days. Her hands were manacled behind her back.

The marines forced her to her knees. She grimaced with pain, fear, and fury.

“Identify yourself,” Isabelle said.

The Skaladin returned a string of what was undoubtedly invective in her own language. The shadows in the corner bubbled like a kettle on the boil.

Isabelle cast a questioning glance at Vrain who said, “She does not think kindly of your ancestors.”

“Neither do I,” Isabelle said. “Does she speak la Langue?”

The Skaladin growled, “Even a child could speak your language.”

Isabelle resisted the urge to trade insults. “So, do you mean to make yourself useful to me, and be treated as a prisoner of war, or do you wish to be treated as a pirate?” The penalty for piracy was summary execution. It was not a threat she wanted to carry out, no matter how warranted it was. She prayed the Skaladin would not put her to the test.

The Skaladin considered that. “What do you want?”

“To begin with, your name.”

She lifted her chin. “I am Similce, capitaine of the Saint Asne, sister of Exarch General Ptoleus, cousin to Tyrant Hanilcar. If you are fool enough to slay me, my death will not go unavenged.”

Isabelle shook her head. “Neither the exarch general, the cousin of a tyrant, or anyone in good standing would send their sister to cull Célestial slaves from a deep sky eddy in an eighty-year-old, top-heavy tub with a puffworm infestation. No one will ransom you, and no one will complain if you disappear.”

This was a guess, but only just. Isabelle had seen the dilapidated condition of the brig during the battle, and Similce’s secondhand clothes and sunburned feet spoke of a poverty rarely seen in ship capitaines.

The corners of Similce’s mouth tightened ever so slightly. A ghost stain spread through Isabelle’s vision. Between one thought and the next, Similce became a pale-skinned slave girl kneeling on the auction block and the cabin became a flesh market.

Isabelle’s heart raced. This should not be happening. No so soon.

Slave girl Similce said, “And yet I have something you want, or I’d already be in the gullet of the Gloom. What is it you want for my life and the life of my crew?”