Heinrich raised all four hands to demur. “Your Jean-Claude saved my life and sanity. Bringing you this costs me nothing and gives me joy.”

“Then let me make you a different proposition,” Isabelle said. “Please, come with me.”

She took Heinrich back to the Saint Asne and into the chartroom, where she pointed out Flotsam on the orrery. “We are here.” She pulled out a compass and made a measurement into a blank space on the map. “Joubert’s Folly is about here. It’s an imperial supply depot. If you could deliver Jean-Claude’s papers there, and tell the base commandant what you told me about your escape from Travers, I would be immensely grateful and make it worth your while. Just don’t tell him about me or Flotsam.”

Heinrich examined the orrery. “Why not tell them about you?”

“Because the commandant wants my neck in a noose,” Isabelle said. “On the other hand, he has nothing against Jean-Claude, and this will alert him to divert fleet resources to Jean-Claude’s aid. If he asks, tell him that Travers is headed for the Bittergale.”

“If this helps Jean-Claude, then I will do it,” Heinrich said. “He saved me from such torture as you cannot imagine.”

CHAPTER

Twenty-Six

Jean-Claude felt the noose of time tightening around his neck. He reckoned Hasdrubal would wait until the last possible moment to bring Dok aboard the Potencia, and now that moment was at hand. The galleon drew up on a Skaladin sloop, one of the ships from the raid on Fishers Point, and the smaller ship sent over a launch.

Watching with his clockwork eye through the hull of the ship, Jean-Claude could make out few details, though the vortex of Dok’s Windcaller sorcery glimmered like ripples on a lake. Jean-Claude watched from one deck down as they chained him in a cell newly partitioned off from the great cabin.

Hasdrubal’s people also brought aboard a large iron-bound chest. It was the sort of thing Jean-Claude did not expect to be able to see through even with his artifact eye. But something in the center of it glowed in his sight like a single star shining through a cloudy night.

The key. Hasdrubal didn’t have it on his person, probably because he could not shift it away when he changed shape.

That meant the ring was at least possibly in reach, if Jean-Claude could figure out how to get into a locked trunk surrounded by guards in a secured room without being cut to pieces.

Whatever he attempted it must be soon. If Dok could get the Potencia through the Bittergale, then no pursuit could reach them. For days on end, Jean-Claude had evolved and discarded plans for killing Travers and Hasdrubal, to cut off the head of the snake, but both men were personally powerful and very well guarded. He might kill either one of them, but the chance of getting both was vanishingly small.