She leaned on the orrery, apparently tracking the Saint Asne’s progress toward Flotsam, or perhaps just lost in thought.

“Good morrow, mon capitaine,” Bitterlich said, making his smartest salute.

Isabelle straightened up, but paused without returning the gesture. Worry leaked into her voice. “Are we back to formal distance and barely speaking to each other?”

“No,” he said, “but we are far from our charted course, and our crew will follow our cues. As we maintain discipline, so will they, and we will only do so by keeping in the habit.”

“That is one of the many reasons why I appreciate you, Major.” She returned his salute, her spark-hand trailing motes like a comet. “Report.”

Bitterlich assumed a parade rest. “The watch was uneventful. Similce slept through the night and her second gave no sign of mutiny. Djordji’s condition … has not improved.”

Bitterlich could not see Isabelle’s grimace under her cowl, but he could feel it.

He said, “Marie is still with him. Asleep, the last time I saw her.”

Isabelle let out a long breath, as if she was forcing herself to exhale. “It must seem a fever dream to her, moving from one sick bed to another.”

Bitterlich could not contradict that. “Rebecca fell asleep around midnight after eating enough for three men. Malgiers and I spent most of the night talking to the Skaladin crew, listening to their stories. We found out how they came into Hasdrubal’s service.”

“Do tell,” Isabelle said.

“It seems they ended up on the wrong side of a civil war. From what I gather, conflicts between factions are fairly common. The power structure gets reshuffled, the people on top end up on the bottom and vice versa.”

“So the same cursed story every kingdom tells: rebellion against an intolerable master, only to become an intolerable master.”

“So it would seem. Similce and her crew belonged to a faction that was burned to the roots and who consequently had no home to return to. They survived by becoming deniable assets for whoever would hire them, but without a home port, it’s not a sustainable path. Similce kept her people alive and her ship aloft, but eventually the Breaker takes her toll. Aeronauts were killed. Contracts became fewer and farther between. When Hasdrubal approached with the promise of being repatriated in the tyrant’s service, they jumped at the chance.”

“Where they tried their luck against us,” Isabelle said. “And lost the little they had left. I imagine that makes them ripe for mutiny.”

“Perhaps not as much as you think. By sheer accident, we’re playing by their rules. You beat them, but instead of killing them or selling them into slavery, you asked them to join your side. That means you think they were a worthy and honorable opponent. That sort of personnel salvage is a long and established tradition in Skaladin.”

Isabelle’s cowl tilted skeptically. “You learned all that in one night?”