Pale Lights

She could barely make out her father's corpse through the curtain. Only the outline of his silhouette, laid on the bed as if to let him rest. His arms were crossed over his belly, still in a way they had never been in life. Father had moved them ceaselessly, talked with his hands as much as his voice. The priests had placed the bier flowers around him already, Maryam could smell the heavy scent of the carnations. Like cinnamon and nutmeg.

Father would not pass entirely into the Nav before his kin burned him, but she hoped he was already most of the way there. He deserved better than to hear politics instead of mourning around his last bed. She tugged at her mother's sleeve, to try and say as much, but Mother gestured sharply at her without even turning.

"Go on, then," Mother said.

"They are calling in debts," Queen Adrijana said, pitching her voice low.

Father's first wife was old, over a decade older than him even though he had passed first. She was wrinkled and bent, with watery blue eyes. The queen did not like Mother, or Mother the queen, but they had never been enemies. Neither of them were a threat to the inheritance of Queen Adrijana's eldest child.

"There are no debts," Mother said. "Goran was too clever to give them that toehold."

"The governor claims that we never had right to impose levies on Malani trade, so their merchants must be reimbursed," the old queen said. "It is decades of trade, Izolda. The sum they ask for is…"

"They know Volcesta cannot afford it," Mother said. "What did they demand in private?"

"The land," Queen Adrijana said, troubled. "They claim that, given Goran's great debt, Volcesta is their property by right. They will rent it back to us, but they intend to build forts on both ends of the pass and garrison them. It will be war otherwise."

"It is already war, Adrijana," Izolda Cernik harshly replied. "It has been war since they took Zarla's Drift and brought down the walls of Dubrik. We just fled from it into the hills, and now it has finally caught up to us."

"The Staresine does not agree," the queen said.

"And will the Staresine fight, when in a few years the Malani demand freedom of the city at cannon-point?" Mother challenged. "Or will they saddle their horses and run? They tremble in their boots, the mewling cowards. You wanted my advice? Here it is: act now, Adrijana, while you still can."

"My son-"

"Will promise to make terms with the Malani, else they will proclaim Matea's boy to rule over Volcesta instead," Mother hissed. "You know this. The only chance is to call a great council in Volcesta while you are still regent, to force their hand by dragging in the other kings."

Maryam tugged at her mother's sleeve again, earning an irritated look.

"Go stand in the hallway, darling," Mother said. "This is too-"

It felt like a finger pressed against the inside of her skull.

Her eyes fluttered open, expecting the smoky glow of lamps in Father's death room but instead finding distant light in white and gold. Maryam swallowed, still tasting the carnations against the roof of her mouth, and let out a ragged breath. One of her hands found the stone of the wall she was leaning against, the rough grate against her fingers helping her ground herself. She was a long way from home, across the night-black waters. Port Allazei, the Rainsparrow Hostel.

So far away it felt like another world entirely.

Glancing either way from the corner of her eye she could see there was no one close, but Maryam still pulled her hood further down and pitched her voice down to a bare whisper.

"I cannot tell when I fell into it," she said. "Was I asleep?"

Hooks slipped out of her, whispering against her ear. They could not risk tracing against the veil, not for some time yet. They were still too… muddled.

"It was a daydream, I think," her sister said. "The transition was almost instant."

She gritted her teeth. So any drift in her attention was a potential trance, then. But no, it couldn't be that. She was not that leaky a ship, else Captain Yue would have noticed during the observation period. There must be another factor that made a difference, one that was not a concern within the bounds of the Abbey.

"At least you can snap me out of it now," Maryam muttered.

"I'll keep an eye out for them," Hooks promised.

She sounded like she felt guilty, and Maryam had to push down the reflex to trace comfort on their veil. It was not likely that such a light touch would rip the boundary between their souls, but neither was it impossible.

"We did not know," she whispered instead. "Now we do. That is not nothing."

Hooks pulled back into her, saying nothing, and Maryam sighed. They had been told there would be risks to doing as her sister wanted. To take a plunge inside the Cauldron, reaching for answers and secrets, had been so obviously dangerous that she'd been able to dissuade Hooks from attempting it for the rest of their year after Asphodel. But as months passed her sister had grown increasingly discontent, boiling over into constant arguments as break approached and Maryam's objections accordingly lost strength. When, Hooks had demanded, if not then?

Much as part of Maryam would have liked to dump her sister's favorite hairpins in a pond instead, she had conceded. Further obscuration was not urgently needed, and Yue had been willing to supervise the entire affair. Eager, even, which had been somewhat distressing. And for all that Maryam disliked the risks, it was true that the potential prize was nothing to scoff at.

Hooks had turned out entirely right that what they'd learned from the Cauldron would let them pull ahead of their rivals among the Akelarre. The stringwork alone, with how it could be used along with wind carding, would have made the uncomfortable experience worth it. But the aftermath was proving… difficult.

Reasserting the boundaries of her own mind after plunging herself into the Cauldron had been necessary if Maryam did not want her consciousness to dissolve like salt in water, but it had also dragged back to the fore a great many memories she had once suppressed or fed to Hooks. For the first week merely looking at some objects had sent her into hour-long fugues that her sister fell into alongside her. Not even Yue had been able to ease them out.

It had been even worse when they slept. Their dreams were bright in the aether and entirely consuming. A mara could have slurped up all their insides in a single night, Captain Yue said, without either sister noticing. In the end they had stayed two months inside the Abbey and then some, to fretting by the others. Even now they had to be careful, though Yue had cleared them to leave anyway. Hooks was taking the persisting vulnerability worse than her, in some ways. Attempts to ease her guilt only seemed to make it worse.

Sighing again, Maryam pushed off the wall. She looked up at the Orrery lights. While she did not own a watch, pale-and-gold ought to mean they were slightly past noon. The others should be arriving soon. The front door of the Rainsparrow Hostel opened a heartbeat later and she straightened, but it was only some young man in black. One of the new first years, by the lost look on his face. The first ones had begun arriving a few days ago, though today would be the first by cutoff – when most Watch ships returned and many of the new princelings as well.

Maryam returned to her post and it was another two minutes of silence, which she spent forcing herself not to daydream, before company arrived. Izel was first out of the door, dark eyes scanning the street and finding her almost immediately. She waved at him in acknowledgement and he walked towards her, Tristan following him out a heartbeat later. Maryam leaned forward, twisting to peek at the door, but no third cabalist followed.

"No Tredegar?" she asked.

"She sent word to the room she would be running late," Tristan said. "The Watch keeps track of some goods in port, you see, and when someone buys multiple barrels of the strongest blackpowder up for sale that warrants a conversation with the garrison."

Maryam choked.

"She what?"

Then a frown followed as she fully grasped what she had just heard.

"Wait, why is she buying up blackpowder? Our stocks are fine for at least another three months."

Izel cleared his throat.

"I can only offer a guess, but she did begin asking me about powder strength shortly after reading a monograph on basilisks."

"Is she planning to blow up the Acallar?" Maryam asked, amused. "The way I hear it, more than a few garrison men would buy her a drink afterwards."

Talk was that the local blackcloaks considered being assigned to the Skiritai training grounds an even worse punishment duty than Arsay Avenue night patrols, at least one in three of which turned into a lemure attack.

"I'm sure we can get it out of her later," Tristan shrugged. "Anyhow, she wrote she would join us directly at the docks. We can head out without her."

Having no reason to object, she pushed off the wall of the Rainsparrow and fell in with the other two. It was mere minutes from Hostel Street to the gatehouse, then through the Allazei gates – that worn but elegant stretch of stone bearing the pillars marked with the words and symbols of the seven covenants.

After passing through that quiet, contemplative stretch of shade what lay beyond smashed into her like a wave of sound. Never before had any of them seen the Port Allazei docks like this, she fancied. No wonder the garrison had asked to beach her skimmer away from the port and even paid her for it.

The docks were packed tight, a roiling mass of walking and laughing and chatter. Shouts in half a dozen languages sounded from ships and jetties while hired men brought down luggage onto solid land. A pair of black-sailed Watch cogs unloading munition crates were dwarfed by the ship to their side, a heavy-bellied galleon flying a flag Maryam did not recognize. A brightly painted Izcalli galley shared a pier with a tall three-masted carrack whose main sail proudly displayed the name of its trading house in Cathayan characters.

In the distance a slender, knifelike caravel of Malani make was sailing into the harbor, its brass railings shining in the Orrery light, but Maryam's gaze skipped over that and three more ships to fall on what could only be a skimmer.

Much larger than her own, it looked like flat barge with a rising aft deck and three slender silver masts rising to support some sort of oval metallic structure. There were great whirring blades inside the clockwork and the device was even larger than the ship beneath it – though it must be mostly empty, for the skimmer did not sit heavy in the water. Maryam could not get a good look at the mechanisms, for much of the device was covered by colored stones of green and yellow that formed the silhouette of a crocodile in the Izcalli style.

They had all stopped, stunned by the noise and sight, and Maryam let out a whistle.

"There were nowhere near so many ships last year," she said. "Or as nice."

"That skimmer is a genuine Izcalli flatship, Maryam," Izel said, sounding disbelieving. "I cannot recall the last time one was used for anything but war or carrying royal envoys."

Tristan snorted.

"Why are you lot so surprised?" he said. "Enough of our year survived that powerful sorts would be willing to send in the students whose life they don't care to gamble on unknown odds."

She cocked her head to the side.

"You think we'll get worse princelings than our current batch?"

The thought of the likes of Sebastian Camaron being on the wrong end of the do-you-know-who-my-father-is conversation did have a certain charm to it.

"No, of course not," Tristan said.

A beat passed.

"I know we will."

Her lips twitched while Izel sighed.

"Or perhaps we will find the first years are sensible, professional sorts come to make the most of this opportunity," he reproached them.

Maryam caught Tristan's eye, her thief stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"Second year Medicine covers some diseases of the mind," he said. "I can probably lean to treat that optimism, though it does seem like a severe case."

Izel let out an offended noise, crossing his arms.

"A regular dose of Scholomance ought to cure him," Maryam solemnly said. "A drastic treatment, I know, but…"

"If left to linger, the disease could turn chronic," Tristan agreed. "Any day now he'll begin speculating that our yearly test will not be wildly murderous and potentially impossible."

"It might not be," Izel protested. "It isn't like they're trying to get us killed."

"It's too late," Maryam whispered to Tristan. "You'll have to operate."

"I got souvenirs for everyone on Kalkhea," Izel mildly said. "I have been keeping them until everyone is back, but see if I don't give yours to Song and Angharad."

"These first years will be the finest of us, I never doubted it," Tristan instantly pivoted.

"Every last one will be as a brother and sister to me," Maryam tacked on without missing a beat.

Izel stared them down for a long moment, then sighed.

"Song is right," he said. "You are bad influences on each other."

Tristan offering a charming grin, clapped the tall man's shoulder.

"Come now, dear friend, no need for such dolor," he said. "Song's ship has yet to arrive, so why don't we go and have a look at that skimmer?"

Maryam perked up. She rather wanted that herself.

"I can tell you are bribing me," Izel said.

"Are you saying you don't want to have a look?" Tristan replied.

"No one said that," Izel groused. "I only mean that it'd be polite to make it less obvious, Abrascal."

"Ah, but then I'd lose out on the pouting," Tristan told him.

They bickered all the way to the skimmer, this 'flatship', and it had Maryam smiling under her hood. Let it stay up. Much of her year at Scholomance had ceased staring whenever she entered a room, but a port full of sailors and new students would not be so domesticated.

The crowd was thick enough they had to elbow their way through, though the hired hands usually gave way at the sight of their black uniforms – the sailors knew themselves to be guests here, and that it was best to tread lightly. Other students come to either welcome back some of their cabalists or some fresh arrivals they had been forewarned about were not so meek, elbowing right back, and between that and piled crates there was quite a bit of navigation required.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Still, they made their way to the flatship eventually. They stayed at a respectful distance, in sight of the skimmer's captain and his animated argument with the black-clad harbor officer eyeing him stonily. The flatship's upper structure was fascinating: through the stone ornamentation protecting the machinery from the elements one could glimpse the oval metal frame supporting the aether engine itself. She could feel the quiet ripple of the machine in the aether, its timing identical that of the spinning blades she could make out in the 'belly' of the crocodile.

It was a handsome machine, Maryam thought. She was not the only one so impressed.

"See those two pipes, in the crocodile's mouth?" Izel said, leaning towards her.

"I see them," Maryam replied. "What are they for?"

Unlike the rest of the machinery inside the oval frame their metallurgy was clearly modern. These were steel pipes the likes of which could be made in any foundry on Vesper, not something the Ancients had crafted.

"They dissipate heat," he said. "Flatships all use the same kind of engine, a two-step aether ratchet. It's a simple mechanism: the ratchet is made of paired materials that exist in both aether and the physical, so when a current makes it spin in the aether it also spins in the Material."

He leaned in further, eyes gleaming.

"Half the machinery in there is meant to create an aether current that will move the ratchet, the other half is meant to turn the ratchet's spinning into something that will move the ship," he said.

"Only there is no material in existence that can perfectly exist in aether and the Material simultaneously," Maryam said. "That difference will create heat."

"It used to be that any flatship sailing for more than a day would begin breaking down from the gears dilating," Izel confirmed. "Many elaborate fixes were suggested, but in truth the solution was as simple as inserting a compartment full of water near the source of heat and sticking pipes through the machine that will feed that water cool air."

Aaaah. Since the translation imprecision causing the heat was minor, its real danger to the machinery came from accumulation over time. The cooled water would greatly extend capacity, if not necessarily fix the problem outright. And all for the cheap price of two pipes and basin. Tristan cleared his throat, startling them both out of their musings.

"What happens if the air around the ship is warm?" he asked.

Izel coughed into his fist.

"The sole time a Grasshopper King tried to sail a flatship down the Upratha River to invade the Someshwar it blew up, taking six princes and a fleet of river barges with it," he admitted. "They have been restricted to seafaring journeys ever since."

Tristan's brow rose.

"Let us all be grateful for the winter, then," he drawled. "All these ships around our Izcalli friends will be carrying blackpowder."

Maryam winced at the prospect of what an exploding aether engine would do to blackpowder even as Izel began assuring Tristan of the improbability of such an accident. From the corner of her eye she saw that the flatship's captain had finished arguing with the garrison officer, papers and coin trading hands though neither seemed all that happy about it. The colorfully dressed Izcalli whistled sharply, which had a sailor knocking on the door of the structure filling the aft deck.

Moments later a woman emerged in tailored black, Maryam's eyes widening at the sight of her. She was a tall, striking Izcalli beauty but that was not what caught the signifier's attention. The Izcalli had painted her face: her forehead was red, split by an unpainted line in the middle, while two thick black stripes went laterally across her face at the height of her nose and chin. Maryam frowned, for she had seen such a pattern before. On one of the small statues that Captain Totec burned fat for, she recalled.

"Izel," she quietly said, catching his eye before discreetly gesturing at the woman now making her way out of the ship. "That face paint, what does it mean?"

The tinker followed her movement, catching sight of the woman, and in the heartbeat that followed he froze.

"Oh fuck," he gasped out.

Immediately he tried to duck behind her and Tristan, but that was not unlike a bear trying to hide behind a pair of scarecrows. While Maryam enjoyed being treated to the rare sight of Tristan Abrascal utterly taken aback, Izel's sudden movement actually caught the eye of the woman from the flatship and she frowned in their direction. Tristan 'coincidentally' stretched out, his cloak spreading to hide Izel's face, and Maryam decided that the tinker's generosity with her skimmer entitled him to a trick or two.

Tracing a Sign was not exactly discreet, but then Maryam was not merely a signifier. Or alone.

"Hooks," she murmured. "Distraction, please."

Hooks hummed in agreement against her ear, and while Maryam Khaimov made sure to keep both her pale hands visible so there could be no accusation of foul play a darker hand slipped out of her side under the cloak. Hooks pulled on a mere wisp of Gloam as Maryam's mind rode along her sister's to feel the Craft, watching as Hooks shaped the wisp and blew it away like a dandelion seed on the breeze. The stranger had a bag slung over her shoulder, and when that mote of Gloam landed on the leather cord it would eat through just enough of the cord the bag would come loose and distract her.

That'd been the plan, anyway.

Instead the wisp of Gloam flared and ate through a chunk of the cord and the cloth surrounding it as if someone had splashed acid on them, the Izcalli dropping her bag with a startled shout as both Maryam and Hooks froze in surprise. That should not have been possible. From a simple wisp?

"Density," Hooks muttered.

The obvious answer, yet Maryam had watched her as she shaped the Craft and she had barely condensed the Gloam at all. How had this happened?

"Well," Tristan evenly said, "that's one way to do it. Now let's get out of here before they start looking for signifiers, yeah?"

Maryam let herself be dragged along by the arm as shouting began, Izel accompanying them bent over like he was trying to roll himself up like a scroll. While fear and confusion emerged in the wake of her accidental attack, the four of them slipped into the crowd and let a procession of loudly chattering Tianxi sailors cut them off from sight. Tristan led them towards a pile of crates, which he guided a still-mute Izel to stand behind. The large man stood slightly bent over, still looking as if he just seen a ghost and said ghost had then promptly socked him in the stomach.

"I am going to guess," Tristan said, "that you know who that was."

Izel began to speak but his voice broke. He cleared his throat. Maryam would have been amused, if not for the way he seemed genuinely distressed.

"Yes," he managed to get out.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"That face paint, Maryam, belongs to the House of Acatl."

Tristan choked.

"As in Coaxoch Acatl?"

Izel mutely nodded while Maryam frowned.

"Remind me where I heard that name before," she asked.

"He's the reigning Grasshopper King," Tristan said.

Ah. Yes, that might be it.

"So she's a… member of the house, a retainer?" Maryam tried.

"From a branch house, not the main line," Izel said. "Though she is still titled Princess Yaotl."

"You have met her before," Tristan said.

Izel suddenly found the ground very interesting.

"Yes," he said, then swallowed. "We were, uh."

A cleared throat.

"Betrothed," he finally managed.

Maryam breathed in sharply.

"And you broke off the betrothal when you enrolled into the Watch," she said.

Izel grimaced.

"Well, no," he said. "I, uh, didn't say anything when I ran. In truth I have no idea if we are still betrothed. I had presumed no longer."

"Oh dear," Tristan mildly said. "And this princess scorned, did she ever mention an interest in the Watch before you boarded a ship headed for Tolomontera?"

"No," Izel miserably replied.

Maryam shared a look with Tristan over Izel's bent head. He, too, was smelling trouble.

"Well," she finally said. "Look on the bright side: this is Scholomance, there's always a chance the school will eat her."

"I don't want her to die," Izel immediately said, drawing up in affront. "We are friends. Were."

Good to know. Getting a reaction was half the reason she had made the joke.

"Let us find out if she thinks that as well, before taking murder off the table," Maryam advised.

"We will not murder anyone on my behalf," Izel insisted. "She is not wrong to scorn me for running. I will face my dues and settle the matter."

Breathing out, he straightened a bit.

"Thank you for your help," he finally said. "But I will handle this myself. I was merely startled by the sight of her in such an expected place."

Maryam glanced at Tristan, who inclined his head ever so slightly. He'd look into it, then. Good. No doubt Song would want to get involved as well when her ship docked. The three of them still needed to wait for their captain – and Angharad, whose meeting must be running late - but the size of the crowd should be enough to hide them from the princess. Instead of retreating they merely moved towards the opposite end of the docks. It was where the last pier with empty docking space stood, anyhow, so it was sure to be Song's destination.

They were not the only ones waiting there. Sitting on a nearby stone bench was a skinny Malani in a black coat full of sown-on pockets, a feathered hat angled to cast so shade over his broken nose. Tristan's brow rose at the sight of him and he immediately headed there, resulting in introductions with the stranger and huge Izcalli besides him.

"Maryam, Izel, may I introduce you to Silumko," Tristan said. "He is a colleague."

Silumko gallantly took off his hat and nodded at her, to Maryam's surprise. She had not expected such manners of either Malani or Mask.

"A pleasure," Silumko said. "With me is Yaq, whose silence I hope you will forgive. He is a man of few words."

The Izcalli in question turned to offer them a nod and Maryam could not help but marvel at the size of him. Not much taller than Izel, but broader and with muscles like an ox. He also had scars enough for two men, including one that looked like fangs had taken a bite off half his cheek. There was some light chatter, the Thirteenth mentioning they were waiting for their captain and Silumko sharing he was waiting for a first year on behalf of his own. They would be on the same ship, and like them Silumko had been told by letter to expect an arrival early in the afternoon.

Not inclined to linger overlong, they slightly distanced themselves from the pair from the Twenty-Ninth Brigade and found a pair of barrels to idle around. The caravel Maryam had glimpsed earlier was being moored close by, leather-skinned Malani sailors tying the ship to the posts. Izel and Tristan were arguing about paprika, retreading an old debate about whether it came from Izcalli or the true original was the red powder brought up the Meridian Road, but Maryam let her thoughts drift.

She kept half an eye on the caravel – it had a gray seal for prow figure, that animal ever a bad omen – and pulled down her hood to soak in the warmth from the Grand Orrery lights. She closed her eyes, almost considering a nap, but the talk she overhead from the caravel crew caught her attention. She could not quite make out the words, but she could make out the accent: these sailors were not Malani but Pereduri.

That had her cracking an eye open again, watching with mild interest as a richly dressed young man walked down the ramp onto the docks. A first year, she thought. Short and strongly built, with closely cropped hair and beard framing a round face. His clothes drew the eye more than his looks. The doublet and hose were simple Watch black, but the jerkin he wore over it had stripes of fur belonging to that large spotted Malani running cat – cheetah, she recalled it was named. He wore a headband of fur as well, and both his neck and wrists were adorned with heavy golden rings.

Two men wearing sailor's clothes but with the bearing of soldiers followed him down the ramp, pistols and knives tucked away on their belt. Guards, she guessed. He must be some noble's son.

Losing interest in the princeling, Maryam let her gaze wander again. It caught on the ship once more, or more precisely someone on the ship. Atop the caravel's main deck was a pale-skinned man with dark hair, wearing a tunic embroidered with a gray seal over the heart. Not a hollow, Maryam thought as she blinked in surprise, for he stood in the Orrery lights without a hint of discomfort. The man must have felt her looking, for he put down the chest he was carrying and turned her way. Middle-aged, she thought, and those twin scars beneath his eyes were familiar. Too even, too neat to be accidental.

A thickset woman whose skin was just as pale came to stand by him, asking a question Maryam was too far to hear. And gods, a third – a boy, hair dark as the man – began bringing a gilded chamber pot down the ramp. Maryam's heart caught in her throat. Could it be they were… her field of vision was suddenly filled.

"What are you doing idling about? Go fetch my luggage, girl."

Her gaze snapped back to what stood before her. The young man she had watched walk down the ramp was frowning at her in open impatience. His two guards stood a few steps behind him, stone-faced. She glimpsed a third further back, talking to one of the real sailors.

"Excuse me?" Maryam said.

"Triglau lazybacks," the man scoffed. "Go fetch my luggage, you lackwit. I don't have all day."

He flicked a glance up and down at her cloak, frowning.

"And why are you out of livery? That is ten strikes with the rod, you ought to know this."

There was a soft curse from Tristan and she heard movement, but she did not spare anyone but the stain in front of her another thought.

"Excuse me?" Maryam coldly repeated.

Irritation flickered across the young man's face and he raised his hand. Maryam realized, after a beat, that he meant to slap her. The Gloam hand ripped out of her, Hook's ripple of rage echoing her own. It felt like a shiver in her bones and the arm that erupted out of her chest seized the man by the throat, squeezing even as Maryam drew her hatchet.

"You dare?" the man gasped. "Guards-"

She rested the edge of her hatchet on his gold-ringed neck, flicking a glance at the guards he'd called out for. Sailor's clothes were pulled open, revealing padded vests beneath as they drew pistols and knives. There was not only a third but a fourth as well, who elbowed aside the boy carrying the chamber pot to draw and aim his pistol.

"I am a Morcant, you whore," the Pereduri said. "Sergeant Keli, make her-"

The gray seal, she belatedly realized, had not been some affectation. It had been true heraldry, for this was a genuine bloodline son of the zeljezari. The ironmen, that worst of the slaving companies: kin-thieves, child-snatchers. Hooks' hand tightened around the man's throat, cutting off his words, and Maryam only wished it had gone all the way through. Burned through his wretched spine and let his charred head roll across the stone pier.

"Release him, Triglau," the tallest of the guards – Sergeant Keli, she guessed - said. "Now, else you sprout a hole in the head."

There was a sharp ringing sound as a coin went spinning up, Maryam catching from the corner of her eye how the skinny Malani from earlier snatched it out of the air. A heartbeat later his Izcalli companion was on his feet, a pair of large leaf daggers in hand.

"Sold," Silumko agreed.

Tristan stood at his side, already drawing his own pistol, and Izel stepped into the middle of the guards with his roundhead mace gripped tight.

"Weapons away," the tinker ordered, voice flat. "This is your only warning."

"I am Nknonisathi Morcant, child to the ruling lady of Port Cadwyn," the man in her grasp forced out. "I will have you all strung up for-"

The guards were uneasy – they no longer had the numbers, and the sailors around the caravel were backing away. Hirelings, or simply unwilling to get into a scrap while unarmed? Either way, the crowd around them was giving the scene a wide berth but they were drawing quite a bit of attention. It was just a question of time until the garrison arrived. Maryam hesitated. It was Sergeant Keli who broke the stalemate, by grabbing the boy with the chamber pot and putting a pistol to his head.

"Lord Nathi goes free," Sergeant Keli said, "or this one dies. Quick now, witch."

The boy's eye went wide in terror and he froze, too scared to try and wriggle out of the grasp. Maryam saw red but mastered herself, forced down the urge to let Hooks snap the neck of the worm in their grasp.

"Do not worry," Maryam told the boy in Recnigvor. "We won't let him hurt you."

His head snapped her way, startled, and she felt eyes from the deck of the ship as well.

"Sergeant, you are foreign soldiers bearing arms on Watch territory, threatening violence against members of the Watch," Tristan said. "You are exactly one misstep away from all your heads ending up on spikes. Leave the boy and get back on that ship while you still can."

That had the guards muttering, Sergeant Keli looking to the Morcant under her blade for instructions. The slaver eyed her with disdain, wrinkling his nose.

"Evidently a mistake was made," Nathi Morcant conceded. "I mistook you for a servant, which you are not. Let us all sheathe our weapons and part ways, there is no need for violence."

"How many?" Maryam asked.

His brow creased.

"How many what?"

"How many of my people do you have enslaved on your ship?" Maryam icily asked.

The man looked at her like she was some sort of idiot for expecting to know.

"Keli," he called out. "How many?"

"Five, lord," the sergeant said. "Your sister's gift was our whole set of Orels."

Orels. As in slaves called Orel, like having the same name made them some sort of… novelty trinket. Gods, but she wanted to kill them all.

"There," Nathi Morcant said. "Happy? Let us end this farce before it gets out of hand."

Maryam thought of just killing him. She could almost taste the scream, Hooks' limb roiling like an oily dark wind at the prospect. She might even get away with it: the man hadn't picked up a plaque yet so it was debatable whether the Scholomance rules applied to him already. But she knew it was the smart thing, taking the deal. Pistols away, blades sheathed, everyone taking a step back.

Slaves back into the hold, like the things they were.

"Tristan," she began, then halted for the words failed her.

How could she ask them to step in, when they had no duty? No cause to take the risk, to put their lives on the line for strangers from across the sea.

"I have you," Tristan simply said, and something in belly clenched.

She found Nkonisathi Morcant's eyes.

"I would rather," Maryam Khaimov coldly said, "get out of hand."

She drew back her arm even as Hooks tossed the Pereduri to the ground. It was a dozen things at the same time, after that. Sergeant Keli aiming at her before she could throw the hatchet in his skull, pushing away the chamber pot boy – only Tristan's shot to drill through the soldier's temple and emerge as red mist. Izel pulping a man's throat in a single swing, taking a shot in the arm with a grunt of pain. Hooks flowed out of her, swallowing a bullet that would have gone through her belly before bursting like broken glass.

Maryam finished throwing her hatchet but it went wide, over the third soldier's head and clattering against the side of the caravel before falling into the water. The fourth soldier dropped, gurgling blood as the scarred Izcalli from the Twenty-Ninth flicked the blood off his daggers. The woman the hatchet had missed raised her pistol, but she never got her shot off – a saber cut off the gun hand at the wrist, Angharad Tredegar, casually bringing her wrist down in a second blow to send the guard's head rolling on the pier.

"Apologies for the tardiness," Angharad casually said. "There was some ruckus on the other side of the docks."

"Oh, and now Tredegar's here," Silumko noted, not yet having taken out a weapon. "I think we can stay out it now, Yaq. If these fine sailors want to commit suicide by Unluckies, it's nothing we need to be involved in."

Nathi Morcant, having produced a knife while still on the ground, twitched at the words.

"Tredegar of Llanw Hall?" he called out. "Those Tredegar?"

"The very same," Angharad replied, and Maryam's jaw clenched.

No. Surely she wouldn't…

"The Triglau began the violence," the Morcant told Angharad, throwing away his dagger. "You must help, Tredegar. I am unarm-"

"You are the side that put a pistol to an innocent boy's head," Angharad Tredegar icily cut him off. "Shame on you twice, for the noble name you drag into this."

Maryam pushed down the twinge of guilt. No, of course she wouldn't. It had been ill done of her to even think it.

"You cannot kill me," Nkosinathi Morcant insisted, rising to his knees. "I am enrolled in Scholomance, that makes me Watch."

"You haven't claimed a plaque yet," Maryam said. "You are under no protection, Morcant."

"So you'll murder me before half a hundred witnesses?" he said.

"No," Maryam said. "You get one chance to buy back your life."

She stepped closer, enjoying as he scampered away.

"Free your slaves," Maryam said. "Do that, here and now, and you get to live."

Tristan was suddenly at her side, handing her a sheet of paper and producing a charcoal pen as if the Spring Queen had ordained him for her. She almost asked him where he got the paper, before noticing it was slightly blood-flecked. She checked and the other side had the caravel's shipping manifest written on it.

He had already looted the corpses? Impressive.

"Best get it in writing," her viper said. "We wouldn't want anyone to walk it back afterwards, yes?"

There was not a speck of warmth in his gray eyes as he looked at the noble, no matter how pleasant the smile.

"You cannot be serious," Nathi Morcant said.

"They are leaving with me," Maryam told him, gesturing at her countrymen lined up on the deck. "The only part still up for debate is whether they will be walking over your blown-out brains when doing so."

"This is robbery," he bit out. "I will not forget this, Triglau."

"That would be best, for your sake," Maryam harshly replied.

He whined and he blustered but Nkosinathi Morcant signed back five of the lives his house had stolen, kneeling in the middle of the Allazei docks. That was when the trouble started. Because when her five dazed countrymen were brought out on the pier, all dark hair and skin as pale as hers, one of them took a single look at her and gasped. The old man fell to his knees.

"Khaimov," he said in Recnigvor, half-weeping. "Vranekceri, last princess of the Izvoric."

Oh, Maryam thought. You fool. Not him but her. She had not left behind the war but fled it, fled it across the sea.

And now it had finally caught up to her.