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room, run by a combination of gears and hydraulics so complicated it’s almost a work of art. All designed for just one thing: to kill anyone who goes inside.” Armitage’s gazed shifted past Mira. He had a habit of not quite looking at you when he spoke, Mira noted, as if there were always something a little more interesting just behind you. “But for what? What could the Id have been so desperate to guard?”
    “How the hell should I know? Building cities in the middle of lakes isn’t exactly the sanest thing you could do, is it? Place like this, seems like you ought to expect a few eccentricities.” Mira had had enough. Wherever this was going, she wanted it over with. “Look, you’re a talker, you like to show off, I get it, but if those posters are here it’s a safe bet the bounty hunters are, too. So can we just cut to the part where you tell me what you want?”
    Armitage’s eyes slowly refocused back on her. “What I ‘want’ is for you do something no one ever has. I want you to beat the Machine.”
    Mira was silent a moment. Then she laughed out loud. “I’m no safecracker. You need a thief, not a Freebooter.”
    “That’s the first thing you’ve said tonight that’s wrong. Plenty of thieves have tried to beat the Machine. Good ones, too. They’re all dead now.”
    “You’re not doing a great job selling this to me.”
    Armitage lifted his feet off the table and leaned forward. “Think on this: Doesn’t the punishment for Freebooters in Winterbay seem a bit … extreme to you?” He meant the death sentence, of course.
    “Like I said,” Mira replied. “Floating city on a lake. Eccentricities. And they hate artifacts here.”
    “But artifacts are already banned,” Armitage countered. “No one sells or trades them—the punishment’s death for that, too—so why not let Freebooters into the city? Why try so hard to scare them away from even coming inside?”
    “I feel a theory coming,” Mira said.
    Armitage smiled. “I believe the real reason Freebooters aren’t allowed in Winterbay … is because only a Freebooter can beat the Machine.”
    The idea was simple enough, but its implications made Mira pause. She thought about it, but it didn’t add up. “Without their artifacts, a Freebooter’s just like anyone else.”
    “You know that isn’t the case. Even without artifacts, a good Freebooter’s still got instincts. They can survive the Strange Lands, a place where you either think on your feet or you die. Someone like that seems a pretty good bet to beat the Machine to me. Especially if they had artifacts.”
    At that last part, Mira’s gaze hardened. She could sense in his tone a hidden meaning. “You have artifacts,” she said. “ In Winterbay.”
    Armitage’s gaze shifted, staring past her again. “I’ve been waiting for this a long, long time, Mira. A skilled Freebooter with the right reasons to risk coming here, the kind of problems she’d do anything to solve.”
    Mira shook her head. “Yeah, but that’s the thing. If this Machine’s as dangerous as everyone says, the risk isn’t worth it. I can find what I need somewhere else.”
    The door opened again and Reiko returned, carrying a big black metallic case with two handles and a colorful symbol on top that Mira couldn’t make out. Looking at it, she saw something she’d missed before. Something she never expected.
    On each of the three middle fingers of her left hand, Reiko wore a ring. Each was made of what looked like smooth crystal … and each glowed in a different, bright color, as if they were imbued with some kind of energy: red, blue, and green. It was all Mira could do to contain her shock. She knew what those rings were, had seen ones like them a few times, but she had no idea what it meant for them to be here right now.
    “It’s true, I suppose,” Armitage said as the girl put the case on the table. “Little legwork, a few weeks, a month, you could find what you need. But … what if I