In their own strange way, the ghosts were on her side, lashing out at her enemies as they perceived them. They didn’t understand Bitterlich was not to blame for her heartache, but scraping away their bitterness left her drained and weary.

Yet her mission did not care that her limbs felt like lead and her skull ached like someone was using it for an anvil. She pasted on her professional face and convened her expeditionary council to hear Bitterlich’s report.

She, Vrain, Marie, Jean-Claude, and the Gyrine gathered in the chartroom in the soft green glow of the orrery. The Thunderclap sailed farther and farther from home. Bitterlich met Isabelle’s gaze, his furry face devoid of its usual mirth. It would have been good to see him smile, even if not at her. He straightened his cuffs and then saluted, very properly. “Capitaine.”

“Report,” she said.

Bitterlich said. “I intercepted a sloop, the Dame Formue, but she disappeared into the clouds before I could close with her.”

Djordji coughed into his hand, then cleared his throat and said, “I know the Dame Formue. Capitaine’s a man named Ivar Thirdeye: professional spicer, scout, smuggler. Canny, that one. Jean-Claude knows him of old.”

Isabelle turned her attention to Jean-Claude, who made dyspeptic noises and rubbed his face as if trying to rearrange it on his skull.

“You know this pirate?” Isabelle was not surprised. Jean-Claude seemed to know every crook and brigand on the craton by name.

Jean-Claude said, “I beat him in a game of thwarts once. He has not forgiven me.”

“Rarely have I heard so much left out of a story,” Isabelle said. “Give.”

Jean-Claude shrugged. “This was before your time. I had been sent to retrieve some letters Ivar had purloined. They were very important letters, at least to the duc who’d lost them. Charges of treason would have been involved if they’d been made public. Ivar wouldn’t sell, but he could never resist a bet. I bluffed my way into a game of thwarts. Ivar cheated, of course, wiped out the rest of the table, but it’s called thwarts for a reason, and I kept getting between him and his winnings. That didn’t bother him because once the others were sacked, he’d be free to work on me. Except that when the last other man laid a flat purse on the grid, I scooped up my share and bade Ivar good night.”

“I imagine that displeased him,” Isabelle said.