Marie stepped to the fore. “Lieutenant, as you pointed out, you have only limited supplies and no trade goods. If you want to keep flying you need more of both, but you’ll have no leverage if you try to bargain for work, and likely you would find yourself indebted to any employer who would hire you.”

“That doesn’t change at Flotsam,” Similce said.

“Except that it does. The Gyrine take care of their own. Djordji has been sending money home for decades. His clan will fill this ship to bursting without anybody getting hurt.”

Isabelle noted that Marie tactfully left out the possibility that Similce’s plans included betraying Isabelle’s crew and selling them for slaves or turning them over for a bounty.

“If he lives,” Similce said.

Marie said, “Even if he dies, the Tall Clouds will honor me as his daughter and heir.”

“You’re not Gyrine,” Similce said.

“The Gyrine do not see lineage as a matter of birth, but of choice. Djordji has been everything to me a father should be. I’m honored to join his clan. I will carry on his memory, and I will sing his endsong.”

“And what will this do for you?” Isabelle asked.

Marie said, “It gives me a line of retreat, if ever I should need one. It gives me a way to help my friends and finish the mission and find Jean-Claude.” She squeezed Isabelle’s hand reassuringly. “It’s what I want.”

Isabelle had no idea what this portended for Marie’s future, but for now it was the wind her sails needed.

She returned her attention to Similce. “Will you ever have another chance to step foot on the vagabond city?”

Similce looked up at her. “You think that’s tempting for me?”

“Am I wrong?” Isabelle asked.

Similce snorted. “Very well. We will go to Flotsam, but only because I’ll still have enough supplies to get to a safe port, and it will get you off my deck the sooner.”

CHAPTER

Twenty-Two

The Potencia’s hold was dark, and the inside of the empty crate Jean-Claude had chosen for his shelter was even darker. The fact that he could see with his left eye therefore made him rather suspicious.

The edges of his crate looked like pale green knife cuts in the cloak of darkness. Harder things like the iron ribs of a barrel seemed to glow from within like burning coals. Softer things like rope and canvas were fuzzier, and he’d be cursed if he couldn’t see right through some of the flimsier materials and perceive the shadows of objects beyond them, individual potatoes in a sack, for instance.

At first he’d thought the strange limning of objects had been a consequence of the blow to the head Hasdrubal had inflicted on him, but no wallop could explain how he was able to see in pitch-darkness, or see through things that weren’t glass.