Jean-Claude hated to admit it, but Dok was right. If Dok could get them through the Bittergale and Jean-Claude could get on land, then he might defeat his enemies in detail.

The door creaked. Jean-Claude’s attention whipped round like a snake. If he were caught, he’d at least make his enemies pay a price for his blood. But the noise came from someone brushing against the door on their way by.

His pulse rushing, Jean-Claude pointed in the general direction of Travers and his allies. He mimed slashing throats. Then he pointed to Dok and then to himself. He put them in an invisible basket and made his much-practiced flying-away gesture.

“Aye,” Dok said. “You kills them, and Aria and I brings you home.”

Jean-Claude had no idea how Dok might manage such a feat, but he imagined the Windcaller had no desire to die and no intention of staying trapped on the Craton Auroborea. He folded his piece of paper so it just said Isabelle, and showed it to Dok, then he mimed whispering and sending that whisper on its way.

Dok nodded slowly. “Aye I can do that.”

Jean-Claude motioned him to hurry up. Dok sang very softly, a light breeze gathering about him. The zephyr tugged the words from his mouth and wound them up in its flow, a braid of sound that looped round and round until it finally flew to the window, where it circled and scratched like a cat until Jean-Claude let it out.

“And now I sings to Aria,” he said.

He built up a slower, longer string of music. The words were opaque to Jean-Claude, but the melody spoke of longing and affection.

Motion outside caught Jean-Claude’s attention. Travers’s bloodshadow slid across the wall like a monstrous tongue. With le comte came Hasdrubal, entering the Skaladin cabin.

Jean-Claude’s bowels nearly gave way in fright. He stuffed Dok’s head back in the leather mask, cutting him off mid-song. Dok struggled, so it was like trying to shove a piglet into a sack two sizes too small.

Fortunately Jean-Claude had been raised on a farm. He got the hood on in a wink, buckled it tight, and toppled through the window just as the cell door unlocked. He pressed the window shut and held it closed while crouching under the sill.

Through the boards he watched Travers and Hasdrubal enter the cell. A pair of Skaladin aeronauts secured Dok and removed the hood Jean-Claude had so gently replaced.

The wind shrieked and moaned, but Jean-Claude made out Travers’s voice, “what you … brought here…”

They unhooked Dok’s chain from the wall, heaved him to his feet, and dragged him away.