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“Look, I don’t know if you’re keen to how things work around here, so I’ll lay it out simply. Santa Elena picks the best from the ranks to be her trainees. She teaches us the ins and outs of leading this ship and pays us a cut above the rest. And one of us is going to take her place someday. I fought tooth and nail to get where I am on this ship, and I wouldn’t give two shits about you if my own neck didn’t depend on it. But the captain’s gone and made this one of the perverted hoops I have to jump through if she’s ever going to name me as her successor. So if you could just shut your mouth, work with me, and not try to off yourself again, that’d be great. That’d really do me a favor.”
    We’re alone in this empty hall, with the captain locked away in her throne room and the other crew members dispersed. I’m starting to pick up Swift’s patterns. She’s a squall, a tantrum of hatred and stubbornness when someone’s around to watch. But when it’s just her—just her and someone she considers so far beneath her that their presence isn’t worth acting for—Swift’s just a survivalist.
    I can almost respect that.
    Almost.
    I feel skewed, as if someone’s taken my values and tugged them so far away from me that it seems ludicrous to reach out and try to grab them again. I can’t be empathizing with these people. Survive , I remind myself. Everything is secondary to keeping myself alive. If I play my cards right, I can escape this boat, and no one will ever know what I had to do to get there.
    So I’ll play Swift’s game until the time is right.
    â€œI don’t exactly have a choice,” I tell her, making another attempt to break her grip. She lets me go this time, but her hand immediately drifts down to the gun on her belt. The imprint of her fingers lingers on my flesh, and I cringe.
    â€œRight. Fine. Basics of the Minnow . Follow me.”
    I wait for her to grab me again, but it doesn’t happen. Swift stalks away, and I realize this is the first time she’s turned her back to me. She seems smaller. My gaze flicks to the nape of her neck, to the place where a guillotine’s blade would fall, and I spy a little smudge of ink. Her Minnow. Santa Elena’s words come back to me all at once, and in that moment I understand a little bit more about Swift.
    If a brand on the back of her neck is how she sees the ship, we have a lot more in common than I first thought.

7
    Swift’s introduction to the ship is about as half-hearted as I expected. First she leads me up a ladder to the main deck and breezes through the ship’s arsenal, including the two massive guns at the fore and aft. Phobos and Diemos, she calls them, then warns me never to call them that around the captain. I stare up at them, fighting to keep my expression unchanged as I remember their fury, the blaze of the guns pumping as they drove round after round into Durga’s hide. My eyes burn, and I squeeze them shut before anything escapes.
    Then it’s on to the Splinters, the needle-like gunboats tucked against the Minnow ’s hull by a set of pneumatic braces. Swift introduces them like a tour guide at an art museum, but her boorish accent keeps the impression half-baked.
    I lean over the railing to get a good look at the Splinters. I’ve seen ships like this escorting vessels too small to have Reckoners. They’re tiny and terrifyingly fast, and Santa Elena didn’t need to deploy them to take down the Nereid .
    I lean a little farther, letting the railing take my full weight as my gaze shifts to the night-dark ocean flying by beneath us. For a moment, I feel weightless. For a moment, I forget.
    Then Swift yanks me back by the collar and gives me a warning look.
    There’s a beat of awkward silence. She glances around the deck, the wind whipping her hair as she searches for something else to point out to me,