He spent a moment surveying as much of the ship as he could see, just to assure himself no excitement was about to find him. Then he lit his lantern, readied a sheet of paper, and dipped his quill.

Capitaine Thirdeye,

By now, you will have received a visitor in the form of bloodhollow who will have directed you to attack and shoot down a ship called the Saint Asne. If you want to know why that is a bad idea, contact me.

J-C

“Capitaine,” Similce said, “I need to speak to you.”

Isabelle, weary beyond words from Djordji’s death, led Similce into the chartroom, out of the increasingly bitter wind.

Inside, Similce actually saluted Isabelle, albeit with a closed fist over her heart in the style of the tyrant’s navy. “Capitaine, I believe entrusting the fate of my … of the Saint Asne to that girl’s dueling ability is a mistake. We don’t need to make port at Flotsam. With the supplies we have, we can make it as far as Gabbering Cove.”

Isabelle’s temper rose at this disrespect for Marie, but she tamped it down. Similce was being a proper second-in-command, playing by the rules, and it behooved Isabelle to do the same.

She said, “I agree that putting all our lives on Marie’s shoulders is a risk, but we don’t have any better options. We could make it to Gabbering, yes, but then what? We still have no trade goods and not enough supplies to reach anywhere else. If you follow each choice to its possible conclusions, the only one where we actually get what we need lies in Marie’s hands.”

“She just seems so … young,” Similce said.

“That woman is actually a year older than I am. Marie looks young because she spent twelve years as a bloodhollow. She’s the only living person who’s ever been brought back from that, and she revived with her sanity intact. She was trained by the greatest duelist of the last century, who made her his protégée even before he adopted her as his daughter. She has never failed me, not as a friend, adviser, or guardian. I trust her judgment, and her abilities.”

Isabelle hoped she sounded confident. She did trust Marie’s prowess, but still the thought of sending her to the dueling courts terrified her.

Similce said, “I did not think it was possible to come back from being a bloodhollow.”

“Neither did anyone else,” Isabelle said. “It’s an alchemical process. I’ve been trying to duplicate it.”

Similce’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t like bloodhollows?”

“Bloodhollows are a loathsome grotesquery, a blight against all that is good.”

“And yet you are loyal to the queen of bloodshadows,” Similce said.

“Yes,” Isabelle said. “She is amenable to reason. She would rather use her Builder-given power to heal than to harm, and she lets me fight the fights that she can’t touch politically.”