Jean-Claude crept out into the aisle between pens. He needed tools. He peered around the corner into the gun deck. No one seemed to have noticed his little tussle. There might be something on the gun deck he could use to cut the Seelenjäger’s nose ring, but he’d have better odds down on the orlop deck where the workshops were.

Jean-Claude hefted a large sack of chicken feed onto his shoulder. Even on a ship as dread bound as this one, no one wanted to meet the gaze of a man with a heavy load lest they be asked to share it.

The ladder down to the lower decks was between the manger and the gun platform. He entered into the public space with all the confidence he could muster, then descended carefully.

The problem with hitching a ride with the Seelenjäger was that shapeshifters could only get so big and carry so much, and Jean-Claude was no lightweight. Without a nearby place to land, they’d fall, or at least the Seelenjäger would be forced to drop him.

Yet what other chance did they have?

On the orlop deck, laughter and conversation rolled out of the surgeon’s bay. Several Sanguinaire officers gathered round the table, playing cards. A handful of flat-eyed clayborn attended them.

“Would you look at this?” said one of the Sanguinaires. “That meat puppet Thirdeye brought Father used to be a King’s Own Musketeer.”

Jean-Claude felt as if he’d been gut punched. One of the officers had his letters pouch, the one he’d carried for decades and contained his certificate of authority, his passport. The bastards were pawing through his identity.

“Filthy clayborn,” said another Sanguinaire, who might have played second nostril to Travers’s virtuoso sinuses. “No piece of paper can give the soulless power over the Builder’s chosen. Burn them.”

That suggestion made Jean-Claude’s blood run to ice.

“Not until I’ve made use of them,” said the first officer.

One of the flat-eyed clayborn turned toward Jean-Claude, and he hastily retreated down the corridor. Truly the papers were a matter of least concern … but if he recovered them they could identify him to any Célestial agent he could find, even without his voice.

First he had to find a tool to free the Seelenjäger—nothing mattered unless they could get away—but if he could snag his papers too … Well, he’d never not overextended himself before.

Jean-Claude ducked into the first uninhabited bay he found: the carpenter’s workshop. There had to be something for ring cutting in here. There were lockers and tool chests, all locked down. He offloaded his sack and started in on the largest locker with his lock pick.