Jean-Claude eased out of his crate and carefully stowed the small cache of needful things he’d pilfered. Whether his epistolary gambit bore fruit or not, he still needed to find out what he could about Hasdrubal. He knew the Skaladin Seelenjäger had come aboard, but had he brought Dok or the relic with him, and if not, where had he left them?

Jean-Claude checked to see if the passage in the orlop deck was clear. He found that if he closed his right eye, the transparency of the wood above increased until he could make out stanchions, barrels, boxes, and beams in the level above. The ship’s off-duty junior officers were asleep in the cabin, their bloodshadows horribly wet and distinct to his clockwork vision.

One of the first things Jean-Claude had stolen as a stowaway were clothes that fit. He could almost pass for a crewman now, save for the fact that he was older and fatter than any man aboard, not to mention the great gaping scar and clockwork eye. He adjusted his coat and pulled his hat down to cover his face, then ascended the ladder.

Jean-Claude climbed through the lower gun deck to the upper. Footsteps from above warned him in time to stuff himself in a locker. He squeezed between boxes and bags as a gang of aeronauts hurried by.

Where to go from here? On the main deck above, aeronauts busied themselves keeping the ship on course. A brace of marines, easy to distinguish by the bright edges of their steel weapons, guarded the officers’ cabins.

Jean-Claude peered through the ceiling into the cabins, but there were too many layers of things in the way to make out useful details. He saw motion but could not make out who it was. If he could get underneath it …

Directly aft of him were the officers’ stores. One Sanguinaire officer resided within, sitting on a sky chest and slumped over a crate, a bottle of liquor clutched in his hand. The glass of the bottle shimmered like a soap bubble in Jean-Claude’s vision.

Jean-Claude tried the door and found it locked. The drunkard preferred his privacy. Jean-Claude attacked the lock with his makeshift pick. The clockwork eye didn’t let him see through the metal workings, so he had to go by feel, praying no one came up behind him.

Sweat beaded on his brow despite the chill air. The pick slipped and he had to start over. Footsteps echoed up from the deck below. The lock clicked and the bolt slid free. The companionway shook as someone ascended. Jean-Claude opened the door only far enough to squeeze through. The hinges creaked. The drunkard stirred. Jean-Claude eased the door shut and crouched behind the crate the potted officer was using for a table. The men outside kept going.