The arithmetic slowly clicked into place. “That’s why you asked me to kiss you.”

“And to bring me home,” he said.

Isabelle groaned a little. “Saints, I thought you were just being an insufferable romantic.”

“I was. I mean, who could resist such a tale, a dashing sky capitaine waking her equally dashing marine major with a kiss.”

“You could have been more clear,” she said, poking him in the shoulder to punctuate each word.

“Ow. Ouch. My apologies, but I was in a great deal of pain at the time. Thank you, by the way, for saving my life.”

“You need to thank Rebecca for that,” Isabelle said. “And I need to go capitaine my ship.” Then, more gently. “I’m glad you’re going to recover.”

“So am I. You look absolutely stunning, by the way, and stylish.”

Isabelle brushed some nonexistent lint off her new waistcoat and cravat. “Thank you, but if you’re going to start judging me by my pulchritude, I’m going back in the sack-cloth.”

“Saints forbid,” he said. He extended a hand, almost touching her chin. “May I?”

Isabelle warmed all through her chest. She didn’t have time to dally … much time, anyway.

“You may,” she said, her voice rough.

He touched her chin with the pad of his finger and guided her mouth to his. The touch of his lips sent sparks flying that had nothing to do with her sorcery. The taste of him woke a hunger that warmed her whole body.

With a great effort she pulled away, unsated and unsatisfied. She wanted not to drink from his well but to swim in it, drown in it.

“I’ll let Rebecca know you’re awake,” she said, and left before desire led her into neglecting her duties.

Up on deck, she called Rebecca and gave her the good news. Her eyes lit up, her scales shimmered with relief, and she flew belowdecks to talk Bitterlich’s ear off.

Isabelle found Similce, who pointed out a white speck in the distance. “It’s the Potencia.”

Isabelle trained her glass on the ship. It had apparently seen them and was taking flight from the edge of an abandoned naval camp. It headed away from them.

“See that inlet?” Similce pointed to a crack in the sky cliff just beside the camp. “I’ll bet that’s where the Conquest wreck is.”

“Then that’s where we go. The Potencia is a decoy.” Isabelle said. That’s where Travers and Hasdrubal would go. That’s where Jean-Claude would be if he possibly could.

“I don’t like leaving an eighty-gun galleon behind us,” Similce said.

“Neither do I,” Isabelle said, “but I don’t want to fight it, either, and we don’t have time to chase it around the sky. We need to stop the reliquary from getting to the Vault of Ages.” Memories of Czensos’s annihilation goaded her on. What sort of madness seethed in Hasdrubal’s brain that he would do that to the whole world?