And Baru remembered how genuinely Apparitor had grieved for Tain Hu. How truly he had liked her. Pity. Very briefly she pitied Apparitor. To lose so many of his staff at the Elided Keep, to lose his hope of befriending Tain Hu, and to gain only this feral arithmetic-ghoul named Baru, who would rip him from his lover and send him into exile.

They’d almost confided in each other, on that day when they came to the Llosydanes. Apparitor had talked about his doomed voyage east, and meeting Lindon, and … and then he’d said something cruel. You know the best class of pawn?

And they hadn’t, really, been even a little friendly since. Why?

It was obvious, when Baru put it in economic terms. He’d offered her confidence. She hadn’t returned it. She hadn’t told him anything about her past, or her lovers, or her plans. He’d offered an ante and she had not matched.

“I—” she began, looking at Iraji wonderingly, unsure whether to take him at his word, or to defeat this clever insinuation.

Then the game began again.

“ROCKETS!” The shout came down from the masts, relayed by the officer of the watch. “ROCKETS TO THE EAST! SHIP IN DISTRESS!”

Baru bolted for the stairs, slammed her head, and reeled up onto the deck cursing and spitting. Apparitor was halfway up the mast, dripping from his bath, wearing nothing but a skirtwrap. “What is it?” Baru shouted to him.

He climbed down lightly to the deck. His face was grim.

“It’s Cheetah,” he said.

“Excellent!” Baru cried. “I’ll make ready to go aboard.”

“You don’t understand. They’ve been attacked. They’re sinking.”

19. Cheetah

19

CHEETAH

THE Prince-ship Cheetah drifted, kraken-struck.

Her distress rockets had cried out unknown ship in pursuit. She was a clipper, and she must have run from that ship with all her clipper speed, but it was not enough, she had not escaped. Cheetah’s predator hadn’t murdered her in the ordinary ways: her masts had not come down under a crush of stormwind, her back hadn’t been broken by a mine, her wood and canvas hadn’t ignited under the cackling spray of Burn.

No, her wounds were more subtle, and Baru tallied them with unease—something new had done this work.…

She snapped her fingers for the acting master-at-arms (Diminute having run afoul of Tain Shir at the Elided Keep). The habitual motion did not work: she poked her stump with her thumb and gagged in pain.

“What was that?” the master-at-arms called. “Are you all right?”

“Get Shao Lune up here,” Baru snarled. “I want to know what she sees.”