Hailer Dok drew a breath that very nearly voided the cabin of air. He looked like a man who’d been ground up into sausages and then slapped back into shape by an unskilled sculptor. His face was nearly fleshless, raw skin stretched tight and covered in blisters and sores, his nose nearly crushed by the ill-fitting mask. He squinted and hissed at the cabin’s dim light.

Jean-Claude’s fear climbed a notch. Would he even be able to see, or had his time in the dark made a blind cave fish of him? Worse, would he scream and smash the place to bits with a windstorm, or just alert the pirates in the next room?

Streamers of air spiraled about his head, whispering winds murmuring in his ears. Jean-Claude could not make out the words, but he thought he heard several voices. After a few moments the whispers faded and he subsided, letting out a long sigh.

Jean-Claude shook his shoulder. He needed to get those manacles off him and get him on the move. Off this ship was the only chance they had.

Dok blinked blearily and said in a low, rough voice, “Monsieur musketeer, either I goes to Torment or you comes back. Can’t tell which. Or is that still you behind that thing of gears?”

Jean-Claude pulled from his coat a sheet of paper and showed it to Dok. It read: We need to leave. We take the quick launch.

Dok mouthed the words out, then shook his head. “Nay. I’m staying. I fetches Aria.”

Jean-Claude gave him his most incredulous look and swept his hand to include the Potencia and every wicked thing aboard.

Dok returned his look bemusedly. “Lost your tongue? That be a point in favor of paradise, by my reckoning.”

Jean-Claude cast an exasperated look at the heavens, then gestured to the cabins full of enemies, then to Dok and made a throat-slicing gesture.

“Kill me? Nay. They needs me to get them through the Bittergale. I gets ’em through all right, but I don’t brings ’em back.”

Jean-Claude leafed through the other notes he’d written. We will rejoin Isabelle.

Dok looked skeptical, “But she’s not here, is she? I hear she loses her ship, has to steal a new one. So now l’Empire’s own navy hunts her, and Travers sends some pirate to shoot her down. Your lass is a fine woman, I gives her that, but I don’t fancy bobbing about in a punt with the grubbiest lubber who ever lived while Travers, Hasdrubal, and their whole cursed squadron tries to get us back. If you want to win this, you has to see it through. Gets the bastards through to the craton, see. The closer they gets to the treasure, the less they wants to share. That’s when they’re ripe for plucking.”