They were just finishing up when the ship’s rhythmic bobbing stuttered and the ship lowered as if a great hand had pushed down on it. Isabelle hurried out on the quarterdeck in time to see Hailer Dok, riding a column of wind called up by his singing, descend through the rigging and alight on the capstan. He was a short, skinny man dressed in a fool’s motley of yellow and black with a striped doublet that made him look like a bee. His conical hat and upturned goatee gave his profile the shape of a crescent moon. He wore a codpiece, unfortunately just at about Isabelle’s eye level, in the shape of a grinning fool’s face wagging an elongated tongue. No mystery what he thought of himself there. The air around him swirled in constant vortex, the blazon of his Windcaller sorcery.

Isabelle put on her most stoic face and strode to meet him.

As capitaine it was her duty to plan against ways the expedition might fail, and of the catastrophes she’d envisioned, betrayal by Dok figured in a great majority. This was problematic because, being the guide who was supposed get them through the Bittergale, he was indispensible to the operation.

“Hailer Dok,” she said, “welcome aboard.”

Dok drifted down from the capstan like a leaf upon the wind. “The pleasure be mine, Capitaine. Be we ready to sail?”

“Just as soon as my last obligate passenger arrives or the clock strikes noon,” Isabelle said. “You’ll be bunking with the guests.”

“Not with you, mon capitaine?” He leered. “There’s room enough in there for two.”

“No,” Isabelle said flatly. “And you will not make such a suggestion again, nor will you make such overtures to any of my women.”

Dok laughed. “Surely ye knows a jest when ye hears one.”

“I hears no jest,” said a gravelly voice. Dok spun to see Jackhand Djordji’s grim figure emerge from the chartroom onto the quarterdeck.

Hailer Dok’s face lost several shades of color. “Friend Djordji—”

Djordji said, “Don’t you ‘friend’ me. I sees a blackguard who hashes every chance he gets to be more than the thief the world wants him to be.”

Isabelle had never seen anyone flatten Dok before. Not even Grand Leon at the height of his power had squelched the man so effectively.

Dok said, “Capitaine, no. This man be cursed. He’s an ill wind.”

Djordji said, “So says the man who flies false colors and claims the Black Rain Clan. Ye take upon yourself the Breaker’s livery and dare call me cursed?”

“I breaks no rules,” Dok said. “Besides, Capitaine knows my cause is just.”

“Your stated cause is noble,” Isabelle allowed dryly.

Djordji asked, “What does he say he’s after?”

Dok leaned in toward Djordji as if to skewer the old man with his pointed nose. “I means to lift the anathema.”