No. Isabelle shucked off Forenzio’s cloak, and her next breath of air hit her lungs like she’d just stepped out of a dusty coal mine into spring air. Still the slaver left ash on her soul, stains that would be a long time coming out. Shepherds were not cruel to sheep because they did not have to prove to themselves that they were better than their livestock. Slavers needed constant proof and found it in wickedness of all sorts.

The three of them stepped out of the cell, and locked the guardsman in.

The alarm bell sounded again. The escapees hurried to the end of the corridor and slipped out the service door.

They emerged into a dark, cold, and windy evening. The depot had turned out to be even bleaker than Isabelle had imagined, just rank upon rank of low buildings with canted walls devoid of any decoration. She felt rather like a mouse in an unkempt graveyard, scuttling amongst the mounds.

The bell rang again. Reason suggested that most of the people responding to the alarm still didn’t know what it was about—Isabelle’s little band could still make it to the ship—but fear cared little for logic. Her ears sifted the wind for any shouts of excitement or outrage that would mean the hunt had fallen upon them.

Bitterlich hefted one end of Isabelle’s crate, which they’d left by the door, and had Similce take the other. He could have carried the whole thing by himself, but this kept Similce occupied and attached to the group. He led them down the alley between warehouses on the way to the harbor. The stone slab road was pitched more than twenty degrees to the right.

The trio did not creep or sneak or attempt to dart from shadow to shadow, but simply made themselves as unremarkable as possible as they hustled toward the docks. Isabelle carried an alchemical lantern in her spark-hand, the device turned up brighter than her ember swarm, the best way to hide one light being to drown it in another.

From all over the depot, men swarmed toward the central square. Anyone not having an assigned emergency-duty post would assemble there. Fortunately, the base personnel were mostly intent on getting to where they were supposed to be. Only a few people even took note of Isabelle’s group, and if they noticed anything unusual, it did not give them pause.

They reached what passed for the depot’s main street, a wider lane that divided the ranks of warehouses in half. On the other side was a straight run to the docks.

Isabelle looked down the street to the square just as a large man with a neck like a bull mounted the reviewing stand. Already there under the flagpole stood a thin figure in a long coat, puffing a pipe.

“Djordji?” What in all ten thousand little Torments was he doing?