A wave struck the hive-glass behind them. Cold brine spurted through the caulking. Yes, Baru wanted to scream, she knew Aminata. Aminata a torturer? Aminata who’d only wanted to command tall ships? At first Baru felt sorrow, and pity. But then her heart moved with selfish gladness. Aminata had been made into a weapon of the Empire, and so she might suffer now, she might hurt as Baru hurt, she might even understand why Baru had chosen the path she now walked—

Last of all came a growling fear from low inside her.

Aminata was never your friend. She was Farrier’s agent from beginning to end.…

She was part of the Farrier Process.…

Cheetah tipped as a wave sloshed through her broken hull amidships. The force slammed the clipper against Helbride. She rebounded, swayed, and at last righted herself on her stubborn keel. There was a moment of peace. And then, with a mournful creak and a hurricane of canvas, the clipper’s mainmast snapped and twisted and toppled down across the deck above them.

Baru clutched at the cabinet with her good hand and tried to compute their rate of sink. They would be finished soon. Well, there was nothing for it.

She whirled, hard-eyed, speaking to the Prince as she would speak to the dukes.

“Your Federal Highness,” she said, “do you remember what I said at Moem?”

“All of it,” Tau said, their eyes shut tight. They were summoning their courage.

“I intend to destroy Falcrest. I am a daughter of Taranoke on a deep-cover mission to bring down the Masquerade from within.”

Tau-indi Bosoka touched their throat: one long finger drawn from their smooth chin, down a line of skin paint, to their small collarbones. They had adorned their skin in golden patterns and green stars. The full regalodermia of a Lonjaro Prince.

“I can’t afford to believe you,” they said. “You used this same trick on Aurdwynn. You told them you wanted their freedom. I fear that. I fear that use of people as pawns.”

Why, Prince Bosoka, must you refuse me? Why must you lock us into a sinking ship?

She applied her thoughts to the shape of her own logic, and corrected it.

She was not thinking like an Oriati, the people who for decades had been tricked and exploited by the Masquerade. What could you do to resist that trickery? You could stop acting in what seemed to be your own calculated self-interest. You could avoid doing what was necessary, because then Falcrest could manipulate you by changing the terms of necessity. You could focus, instead, on basic goodness, an inflexible moral code: be honest, be kind, be charitable.