Isabelle opened the door to the small, dark, tilted cell where Capitaine Similce was being held. The Skaladin capitaine rose to meet her, her eyes wary, her expression set, her body balanced, under stress but not coiled to spring.

Captivity had not been kind to her. Her eyes were sunken but still held a banked fire. Her skin was the washed-out gray of someone recently shadowburned. She was not much older than Isabelle but her face might have been eighty for the erosion of her features.

That’s the sort of face that wants revenge, Primus whispered. That gives you a hold on her.

Like grabbing a hot iron, no doubt, Isabelle replied. She splashed him back into the everdream. Yet the ghost was right. A wounded person might easily lust for revenge, or be goaded into it, but if Similce hadn’t already chosen that path for herself, Isabelle wouldn’t point it out to her. Jean-Claude said it best: Revenge is a knife fight in a coffin.

Isabelle eased into the cell, and Bitterlich came in after her, dragging the unconscious guard.

“What do you want, hespta?” Similce said. From the tone alone Isabelle knew it was an insult. One of her past lives whispered, whelp.

Excitement intruded upon Isabelle’s mind. All she had to do was pull on the ancestral cloak and she could speak Skaladin. Unfortunately, Forenzio, the miscreant who possessed that skill, had been a slaver, trading flesh and souls up and down the Forbidden Coast, a man who delighted in cruelty. She did not need him staining her mind. Yet she could not live in fear of the mob, either. If Bitterlich was right, she might rehabilitate them, make them her honor guard.

Plus, she needed all the speed she could get. Soon Commandant Turenne must discover her missing, and the hunt would be on. Isabelle’s own fear was already a mist in her mind, casting doubt on the source of shadows and sounds.

She pulled Forenzio forward, wrapped his memory around her mind. It was like fitting into someone else’s clothes.

In Skaladin she said, “Is that any way to greet your rescuer?”

Similce looked surprised, but only briefly. “You are the one who put me in here, killed my crew, stole my ship, and tried to kill me. Now you say you are going to rescue me. You will forgive me if I think you a liar, soulless Breakerborn.”

There was plenty of anger to work with here, rage to exploit.

No. Isabelle clamped down hard on the slaver. We don’t hurt people if we can help it.

Isabelle marshaled her words and inspected them to make sure no traitors had slipped in. “I would point out that your crew are being treated as prisoners of war, their hurts tended and their needs met, and your ship is being repaired.”

That took Similce aback. Her eyes glinted and her cheeks showed a bit of color.