The Thunderclap’s cannons roared and the ship rocked as they pummeled an uncharted stoneberg as part of live fire drill. Gun smoke filled the air and stung Isabelle’s eyes. Iron shot smacked into the tumbling rock. It chipped and cracked. Isabelle checked her timepiece. A broadside every three minutes was the accepted standard. Vrain wanted to get it down to two and a half or two.

The empirical part of Isabelle’s mind bubbled up ideas to improve the cannons themselves. Given that most shots missed even at close range, improving accuracy would be more efficient than increasing rate of fire.

Those thoughts made her uncomfortable. She had never before turned her mechanical talents to designing weapons of war. Empirical philosophy should be used to understand the world and improve people’s lives, not to sow death and destruction. Yet if she were forced into battle, would she not want a superior weapon?

Thankfully the question was moot for the time being. She lacked a foundry to forge new parts, and transforming anything as big as a cannon with her l’Étincelle would likely kill her.

Cowardice does not deserve command, her chorus sneered, voices rambling over one another. If she wasn’t willing to kill, she had no business on a warship. Even now, with her latest potion fresh in her veins, the ghosts tugged the shadows at the periphery of her vision, making them slither along the deck and stick to her boots. She could hardly tell her ancestors’ thoughts from her own. The breach to the everdream remained stubbornly open, red and raw like thoughts of revenge.

Was the potion losing its efficacy? Most likely it was the strain of command that overwhelmed the drug. She could compensate for that. She must. She would not let herself be ripped apart by ghosts like a rabbit caught by starving curs. She and Gretl had spent several weeks getting the dose strong enough to work without impairing her ability to function. Perhaps she should increase the dose or decrease the interval between doses.

One who does not wish to lead must meekly follow. That was Primus, yearning as always for control.

“No,” Isabelle muttered. This is my life. You had your chances. She might as well be shouting at the wind.

The guns roared again. Round shot sheared off one face of the stoneberg and sent it tumbling. Two and a half minutes. The stricken rock tumbled onto a new vector. She adjusted course to keep it in range.

Something moved behind her: a looming shape that blotted the sun, a heavy tread, and the stink of fetid breath. Her pulse quickened and she turned to face the brute.

There was nothing there, not even a cloud to blot the Solar. It was just a ghost stain leaking through.