Marie’s voice was but a breath in the fog. “You just looked right through everyone, grinned a bit and said, Cosa succede se conto su questo?”

“It means ‘What if I’m counting on that?’” Isabelle said, rubbing the base of her skull. Alas there was no more healing to be done from that end. “I pulled out of it, though. I just need to adjust my dosage again.”

“What did you see?” Marie asked.

“Don Luggia,” Isabelle said. “He was one of Primus Maximus’s men, and he was standing right there, as plain as you are. And I knew who he was and what he wanted.” She shuddered at the memory, which was as real to her as any other conversation she’d ever had.

“Your visions are getting worse,” Marie said.

“It comes and goes,” Isabelle hedged. “I think they were trying to give me advice. I mean, he was telling me to go along with Dok’s idea of downing the Dame Formue.”

“Advice that you did not take,” Jean-Claude said.

“Would you have?” Isabelle asked. “I don’t like having Thirdeye back there, but right now he’s giving us more information than we’re giving him. It was never a secret that we set sail for Joubert’s Folly. Ivar can only report that we are doing exactly what we said we would. In the meanwhile, he gives us a thread to pull on from this end. The next time we spot him, I want to try making contact. If he’s as mercenary as you say, he may sell out his current master.”

“And what if he won’t bite?” Jean-Claude asked.

“Then we make use of our other strategic advantages. Joubert’s Folly is the Imperial Navy’s supply depot, not his. Every day that goes by, he is using up supplies he can’t replenish. After we are done taking on supplies, we break for the open sky. We’ll put up every sail we can manage and outrun him and his allies. Since they don’t know where we’re going, they have the choice to chase us with low provisions or turn back.”

“And if his allies attack us before we reach Joubert’s Folly?”

Isabelle stared at the orrery. It was still such a long way to their fort on the Spiral Archipelago. Anything could happen.

“We run,” Isabelle said. “And if that doesn’t work, we fight.”

CHAPTER

Nine

Curtains of lightning flashed all around the Thunderclap, and cold rain sheeted down, trying to scrub the decks of human life. The bruised sky boiled with clouds intent on murder.