Hava always became respectful and almost shy around Annet, a remarkable transformation Giddon had noticed but couldn’t begin to understand. Annet was Monsean, in her mid-thirties, with ruddy pink cheeks, hair she kept tied back, and wire glasses. As the ship’s captain, she was steady, competent, commanding, but so were a lot of people in Hava’s life, and only Annet seemed to have this effect.

“We were hoping you could provide cover for us as we do some sleuthing,” Hava said. Then she proceeded to tell Annet, with perfect honesty, everything they knew and suspected about the sinking of the Seashell. Everything! Without even checking with him. Giddon trusted Annet, but that didn’t mean he would’ve told her everything.

Annet listened with a crease between her eyebrows. “So, you need to ask these boat people questions, but you don’t want to be witnessed doing so?”

“Exactly,” said Hava.

“What boating company is it?”

“One called Ledrami.”

“Ah,” said Annet. “They’re here now and then.”

“Here on the Monsea?” said Giddon, surprised.

“Our Ozul is friends with some of that crew. She used to crew for a boating company in Ledra before she came to the Royal Continent. We all visit each other in the harbor here,” said Annet, smiling. “We have a card game in the salon pretty often. There’s always someone off watch.” She pushed herself up from her stool, went to the wheelhouse door, and shouted up at the sky. “Ozul!”

When the Keepish girl came stamping into the wheelhouse a few minutes later, she smiled to see Giddon and Hava, her eyes filling with tears. She was brown-skinned and tall, broad, strong, a scarlet scarf at her throat and a fur hat pulled over her hair.

“Ozul,” said Annet, switching into Keepish, “are any of your Ledrami friends coming over today?”

“I think so,” she said.

“Can you come back in a few hours?” Annet asked Giddon and Hava.

—

At the harbor amble, where Hava and Giddon went to kill some time, the glassy eyes of fish stared up at them from tables. Children played jacks, sitting on uneven flagstones in alleys smelling of fish guts.

When a small rubber ball bounced sideways, Giddon caught it without even thinking, then dropped it into the waiting hand of a little girl who came marching over to glower up at him as if he were a thief. “Royal Continent?” she demanded in Keepish. “Where are you from?”

“We’re from Monsea,” said Giddon politely.

“We have a Monsean clock in our shop,” said the girl, then pointed with her entire arm at a shop across the street that displayed a thousand small devices in the window. She was glaring at Giddon with outraged expectation.

“Lovely,” said Giddon. “Thank you.” Then he crossed to the shop.

“If I were six, would you do whatever I said?” asked Hava, following him.