“It will take four days to reach Scourse,” the ship reported. “Please enjoy the amenities aboard until then.”

They ignored the amenities and planned. They did not speak of their dead just yet; the company had taken heavy losses before. We thought we’d escaped a possibility of it happening again, Niko thought ruefully, but the universe moves as it will. Best to carry on for now, and pick a better time to mourn later.

After the ship’s announcement, she took inventory of what gear everyone had brought. She knew Dabry’s, which consisted of 90 percent cooking gear and supplies, 5 percent heavy ordnance, and 5 percent personal items.

Milly’s two matching suitcases provided few surprises. The little case held toiletries, feather spray, and a few bits of jewelry while its counterpart contained clothes. Like Dabry, she hadn’t been able to resist some of the tools of her trade, but she had been more reasonable: a bag was filled with frosting nozzles, while another held a small airbrush and molecular glazer.

Gio had brought his good knives and a large number of guns, lesser knives, caltrops, garrotes, throwing stars, vibrochains, and other assorted gear. He shrugged at Niko’s twitched eyebrow.

“Started as battle souvenirs,” he signed, “but then people kept bringing interesting bits to trade. Little nifty tricks.” He picked up a small box containing six purple marbles. “These are smoke grenades—you’ll be surprised how many cubic meters’ worth. Nice, dense smoke too.”

Niko snorted.

“Man’s gotta have a hobby,” Gio signed, his lips curling back in amusement but covering his canines.

“Pretty good hobby,” Niko said. “I’m not saying anything to the contrary.” She patted him on the shoulder and he hooted in appreciation, settling down to sort through his hastily packed gear and rearrange it to his satisfaction.

Lassite had several packs. The smallest held his few belongings: a change of robes, a ritual knife, a box that he said contained “sacred tools of prophecy.” (They all had seen these in action and knew them to be small dice, carved from what Lassite claimed were the knucklebones of an ancestor, figured with different symbols.)

Beside it he laid an oddly patterned bag, made out of scaled leather, supple and fine, sewn into a boxy shape, with a handle on one end. It squirmed as he put it down. Everyone jumped back.

“What the hell is in there?” Niko demanded.

“I brought some of the ghosts,” he said.

“What?”

“The Derloen ghosts.”

“How did you catch a ghost? And what’s keeping them inside the bag?”

He looked at her with dignity. “I am a priest. I learned to make a ghost trap as part of my training, though they are not my specialty.”

“How many are in there?”

“Three.”

“If you could catch ghosts, why did we spend so much time redecorating around them?”