Isabelle bristled at the first sniff of Quill trying to go around her authority. “Madame could have picked any number of clerics from any one of a half dozen different sects. You were once a Temple Seeker, someone who went out and investigated miraculous claims, not the sort of person who sits quietly in a garden like a leek waiting to have your head pulled out of the ground. I have no doubt you approached l’impératrice with some reason you should be included and convinced her it was worthwhile, but understand this: I am the capitaine of the Thunderclap. If Madame put you on my ship, she also put you under my authority, and I will not have anyone on my ship who cannot account for themselves.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Isabelle saw Bitterlich’s whiskers twitch with amusement.

Quill’s gaze flicked to Sireen and back to Isabelle. He managed to bow to her without ducking his head, a dip of the shoulders like a chicken on the strut.

He said, “You are quite correct, Capitaine. When we met at the usurper’s soiree before Burning Night, I had been invited because Lael thought he could make use of me to legitimize his coup d’état, just like you. Unaware of his ulterior motive, I answered his invitation because he was known to be an antiquarian. He told me he had just returned from the dig of a lifetime, and could I please help him make sense of what he had found. It took me not five minutes to realize that he had found the Conquest.”

“You’re not the only person to figure that out,” Isabelle said. Lael had been quite tight-lipped about the discovery in life, but his death had been messy, and his fleeing allies had traded their knowledge of the wreck for sanctuary in various noble houses here and abroad. The last few months had seen a flurry of expeditions being prepared up and down the cratonic rim, all of which aimed to claim the wreck and recover the treasure.

“No, but I am the one who took the opportunity to recover all of Lael’s notebooks, including the ones where he describes the menace that drove his expedition from the Craton Auroborea. It is quite likely that I know more about the dangers the expedition faces beyond the Bittergale than you do, even with your guide.”