Bitterlich nodded to him and said, “Capitaine Elliott, I am Major Ewald Bitterlich, Her Imperial Majesty’s Marines. What news do you have for l’Empire?”

Elliott gave a nervous bow. “Major. Not news for l’Empire so much as a message for Capitaine Isabelle of the Thunderclap, which I understand just sailed off.”

“It has,” Bitterlich said. “But she is my capitaine, and I will deliver the message.” He didn’t know enough about Elliott or who he might be working for to divulge that Isabelle was still on Joubert’s Folly.

Elliott fidgeted as a man wrestling with a choice. At last he said, “I was told to give it to her, but I suppose she’s out of reach now.” He gestured to one of his crew, a boy of perhaps fifteen, who stepped forward and held out a battered white hat with a dilapidated plume pinned with a silver hatpin in the shape of an imperial thundercrown.

Bitterlich’s breath caught and his eyes grew wide with hope and excitement. There was no mistaking that bashed and battered piece of head covering: Jean-Claude. The hat by itself did not imply he was alive, but someone had to have told Elliott to bring it to Isabelle.

Bitterlich calmed his body and gently accepted the hat from the boy’s hand. “Thank you,” he said. “How did you come by this?”

Elliott’s face puckered a little. “There was a man at the cloud market. Asked if anyone was coming this way. No one I’d seen before. Not anyone I’ll likely see again.”

“I see,” Bitterlich said. Cloud markets were gatherings of ships on the deep sky where sailors gathered to trade news and cargoes of dubious origin. It would not be fruitful to press further in that direction. “Does the hat come with any news attached?”

Elliott relaxed slightly again and said, “Yes. I’m to say he says he’s hunting the missing trinket. That’s it. I don’t know what it means.”

Bitterlich laughed. “Hunting … Of course he would be.” Isabelle was scared to death that he was dead, but instead he was off chasing the trinket, but did he mean the Conquest shard or the key?

“Thank you,” Bitterlich said again, tipping his hat to the man. “Malgiers, make sure this man gets rewarded for his service: an imperial for him and each of his crew from my personal account.” A gold coin each was more money than the man probably saw in a year, but it was a dividend of gratitude Bitterlich could afford.

Elliott’s mouth fell open. “Thank you, monsieur.”

“Now I must be off.” Bitterlich tossed Jean-Claude’s hat in the air, transformed into a wolf, caught the hat gently in his jaws, and dashed for the infirmary.