A couple of yachts across from the trimaran we were stealing, a minimally-clad blonde woman waved giddily at me. I lifted the Erkezes cigar, also stolen, in cautious salute, hoping she wouldn’t take it as an invitation to jump ship and come over. Isa had music she swore was fashionable thumping up from below decks, but it was a cover. The only thing going on to that beat was an intrusion run into the guts of the trimaran Boubin Islander’s onboard security systems. Uninvited guests trying to crash this particular party were going to meet Sierra Tres or Jack Soul Brasil and the business end of a Kalashnikov shard gun at the base of the companionway.

I knocked some ash off the cigar and wandered about in the yacht’s stern seating area, trying to look as if I belonged there. Vague tension eeled through my guts, more insistent than I’d usually expect before a gig. It didn’t take much imagination to work out why. An ache that I knew was psychosomatic twinged down the length of my left arm.

I very badly didn’t want to climb Rila Crags.

Fucking typical. The whole city’s partying, and I get to spend the night clinging to a two-hundred-metre sheer cliff face.

“Hello there.”

I glanced up and saw the minimally-clad blonde woman standing at the gangplank and smiling brilliantly. She wobbled a little on exaggerated stiletto heels.

“Hello,” I said cautiously.

“Don’t know your face,” she said with inebriated directness. “I’d remember a hull this gorgeous. You don’t usually moor here, do you?”

“No, that’s right.” I slapped the rail. “First time she’s been to Millsport. Only got in a couple of days ago.”

For the Boubin Islander and her real owners at least, it was the truth.

They were a pair of moneyed couples from the Ohrid Isles, rich by way of some state sell-off in local navigational systems, visiting Millsport for the first time in decades. An ideal choice, plucked out of the harbourmaster datastack by Isa along with everything else we needed to get aboard the thirty-metre trimaran. Both couples were unconscious in a Tadaimako hotel right now, and a couple of Brasil’s younger revolutionary enthusiasts would make sure they stayed that way for the next two days. Amidst the confusion of the Harlan’s Day celebrations, it was unlikely anyone was going to miss them.

“Mind if I come aboard and take a look?”

“Uh, well, that’d be fine except, thing is, we’re about to cast off. Couple more minutes, and we’re taking her out into the Reach for the fireworks.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic. You know, I’d really love to do that.” She flexed her body at me. “I go absolutely crazy for fireworks. They make me all, I don’t know—”