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Rias handed her the artifact, an amused half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, and went back to work.
    “Cavorting banyan sprites,” Tikaya muttered a minute later as she snapped the last puzzle segment into place. “Could that be it? A pictographic representation of The Lion, the Hunter, and the Trap? That title rhymes in Nurian, by the way.”
    “Naturally,” Rias said.
    Tikaya lifted the flute to her lips and played a scale. As the notes filled the bilge room, she closed her eyes and tried to detect an otherworldly influence to the sounds. If there was one, her lack of sensitivity kept her from sensing it.
    “Did it work?” Rias asked.
    “I’m not sure. I need to talk to that boy again. It is the first pattern I’ve tried that’s made sense. Er, not made sense as it were.” Tikaya hopped to her feet, intending to hunt down Garchee.
    “Good.” Rias gave her a parting salute.
    Tikaya paused and eyed him. “How do you do it?”
    “Do what?”
    “You have a knack for coming up with the solution, even when it has nothing to do with your field of expertise.”
    Rias pressed a hand to his chest. “ I didn’t come up with the solution. You did.”
    “But it was your question that sparked my idea. And this isn’t the first time things have worked out that way.”
    Rias chuckled. “All those years when I was a captain and then an admiral, do you know what I did when we were in some tricky situation and I needed to come up with a solution for a problem?”
    “You mean the solutions didn’t simply flow into your brain as gifts from the gods? Or, I suppose, Turgonians would thank their ancestors.”
    “Alas, it doesn’t work that way. Early in my command days, I gathered the officers and ask for opinions, but I realized we’d all come through the same training system and all had similar thoughts. The real brilliance came when I started chatting with the uneducated firemen in the boiler room.”
    Tikaya studied his eyes, searching for a mischievous twinkle that would suggest he was teasing her, but she didn’t spot it. “You’re serious?”
    “Absolutely. Nine times out of ten, the conversations wouldn’t go anywhere, but once in a while some grunt who’d been a farmer before joining up would tell a story of how he had, for example, carved wooden owls to keep birds out of the berry patch, and that would give me an idea. In that case, I figured out a way for my ship to appear to be in multiple places at once to protect several vulnerable targets along the coast until reinforcements arrived.” Rias gave a self-effacing shrug. “I got a medal for that one.”
    “So... you’re the equivalent of a uneducated grunt in the boiler room for me?”
    The half-smile returned as he regarded the pump and his sweat-dampened clothing. “Apropos, don’t you think?”
    “All hands on deck!” came a cry from somewhere above.
    Footlockers thumped and hatches banged open and shut.
    “I might not have time to talk to the boy after all,” Tikaya said, dread settling in her belly.
    “Go find him now, before the action starts.” Rias returned to the lever, arms pumping twice as fast. “I’ll be up in a minute.” He seemed determined to empty every inch of water before he left the task. Maybe he feared they’d need to shed all the excess weight they could.
    “All right,” Tikaya said, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what had prompted the shout from above.
    Up on deck, wan dawn light seeped through a cloud-filled sky. Seamen scurried about, trimming the sails per the mate’s orders. The captain stood on the forecastle next to the wheel, gazing through a spyglass toward the gray seas behind them. It wasn’t until Tikaya climbed up beside him that she spotted the reason for the wake-up call.
    The masts and sails of three ships—three large ships—were visible on the horizon.
    “A frigate and two galleons,” the captain muttered, speaking to himself. He didn’t seem to have noticed Tikaya.