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picked up his oars and started silently moving them upstream again. He stuck close to the banks as they turned into the main cleft, clearly unnerved by the great floating prison ships anchored in midstream. There were redcoats on all the decks, Elijah was glad to see. Perhaps they would head off the riots.
    They tooled silently along, the drip from the oars drowned out by the frequent howling shouts coming from the shore.
    â€œIt’s up ahead,” Twiddy finally said with a grunt.
    Elijah leaned forward, braced on the gunwale, andcaught sight of the golden pearl that was the Peregrine. From this distance it seemed to be a glistening dream from a fairy tale, shimmering from the touch of a magic wand. But between them and the yacht floated two broken-down hulks, prisons for men who rotted in chains.
    â€œMost of them don’t live the first year,” Twiddy said. It was like a curse under his breath.
    Elijah had argued against the hulks for years now. “In fact, one-fourth die in the first three years,” he said.
    Twiddy’s oars froze. “You know about them? I thought none of you even thought about them.”
    â€œI fought for a bill against using the hulks as prisons. I lost.”
    â€œA bill.” He spat.
    â€œIn the House of Lords.”
    They drifted slowly past the first ship. The decks were thronged with guards. Clearly they, if not the king, knew about the impending riots, though whether they would be able to stop the conflagration hitting their own boat was debatable. One more ship lay between Elijah and the yacht.
    Twiddy was edging along the shore, so close that reeds bent into the rowboat and brushed past Elijah’s elaborate coat. “Hist,” he said, so quietly that his voice was just another shush from the reeds.
    Elijah looked. The last hulk had no redcoats on the deck. It wasn’t thronged with marauding prisoners either, though.
    â€œEmpty,” Elijah breathed.
    Twiddy shook his head. His oars came up and Elijah saw that his hands were shaking. Elijah took off his signet ring and handed it to Twiddy. They both stareddown at the sapphire; it caught the light of the torch and sent back a flare of blue fire.
    â€œBring it back to me if we’re separated,” Elijah said.
    â€œTell them it’s my pass if you’re caught.”
    Twiddy’s hand closed on the ring and it disappeared into his clothing.
    They were almost past the hulk, sliding up to the king’s yacht on the far side. Music spilled from the deck and Elijah could see brilliantly colored forms meeting and separating. He watched as a plump woman laughed, tilting her head so far back that her tall wig was in danger of toppling.
    Twiddy steered to the side of the yacht and threw a rope up to a servant, who reeled it in after a quick look at Elijah. “I’ll fetch the duchess,” Elijah said. “She’ll see it as an adventure. We’ll continue on—”
    At that moment the yacht lurched, as if a giant hand had lifted it slightly into the air and thrown it back down.
    â€œIt’s started,” Twiddy said with a harsh gasp of air.
    The black, silent prison ship, the one that had appeared devoid of life, had broken free of its moorings, struck the Peregrine , and rebounded away.
    Elijah gave a mighty heave and pulled himself onto the deck. “Two minutes!” he shouted, looking down at Twiddy. The footman had run off, so he tied the rope from Twiddy’s bark to the gold-plated railing and plunged into the throng of screaming nobles.
    His heart was pounding and he forced himself to walk rather than run. Where was Jemma? He saw many he knew: one of the royal dukes; Lady Fibble fainting in the arms of her husband; Lord Randulf looking particularly idiotic, with his wig knocked askew.
    He had to peer around high piles of white curls,looking for his wife. She might wear roses and jewels in her hair, but never sailing ships or replicas of bridges.
    There