Ormsment’s frigate Sulane stood silhouetted against Moem in a holocaust of burning timber and arching rockets. Two Oriati ships had tried to swarm the frigate—dromon galleys with banks of oars, nimble and quick, well-suited to fights near shore—and Ormsment had destroyed them. A third dromon closed with Sulane nose-on to ram. A fourth fled east, her oars working like millipede legs, and that galley alone flew the gold-and-jade banner: the Oriati Prince’s ship, Tau-indi’s ship, protected by diplomatic right. Sulane fired no rockets after her.

Baru gasped in relief. Xe and the rest of Tain Hu’s house were, with any luck, aboard that ship, going home.

Where was Helbride? Where was Apparitor?

The third dromon swung aside at the last moment, baring her flank to Sulane’s nose. Explosions boomed and crackled down her side: a weapon that shot puffs of smoke from little black tubes. In wonder Baru watched blurred projectiles skip off Sulane’s copper-jacketed hull.

Whatever the weapon might be, it didn’t work.

Sulane’s rocketeers swept the dromon’s deck with their hwachas. Marines tossed incendiary grenades down onto the Oriati ship. It drifted away in a pyre of wood and sailcloth, oars dragging in the waves, ropes curling and lashing in the flame.

A few rogue rockets had landed on the islands nearby Moem.

The date groves were burning.

When she looked down from the fire, Iraji was reaching for her, Iraji in Helbride’s whaleboat, Yawa and Iscend and a gaggle of sailors behind him. She groaned and arched again to get Execarne up from the water, and then she tried to get to Iraji’s hand. Their fingertips slipped. A sailor grabbed Baru with a boathook, tangling it in the harness that bound her to Execarne, and dragged them in.

“Your hand,” Iraji gasped. “Your hand’s hurt—Baru, why are you tied to the Morrow Minister?”

“He’s the Morrow Minister?” He’d said he came here from Falcrest, to look after vital intelligence work—but she hadn’t thought he would be the spymaster, the lord of all Falcrest’s agents. “Oh.”

Yawa took Execarne gently in her arms and cut him free of Baru. “Old fool,” she murmured, checking the bloody crossbow bolt. “You old fool, you should have been faster. Ach. He might live. If the wound stays clean.”

She tore off her mask and threw it into the bilgewater. Baru flinched and tried to guard her wounded hand, which bumped against her shoulder and made her curl up yawning in agony again. Yawa’s alien blue eyes measured everything: only, when Baru twisted to put Yawa on her blind right, she thought Yawa looked confused and lost, not cruel.

“We failed,” Yawa croaked. She stripped her gloves to check Execarne’s breath. “I don’t know where we go next. I didn’t get anything from the prisoners. My niece…”

“Tain Shir again?” Iraji asked, in a terrified hush.