"Where to now, captain?" Anita asked, as she followed Vincent out of the Port Authority office.

Asking questions doubled as a distraction. The less she looked around at the market — at the clothes and foodstuffs, at the exotic spices and precious gems set in silver and gold — the less she had to see of that tiny island somewhere in unknown skies.

The island that belonged to the monsters that had stolen her childhood.

"We're going to take a look at the records in the Mercantile Charterhouse," Vincent answered, and his response managed to pull Anita from the dark path her thoughts were taking her.

"But why?" Anita asked. "What can we learn that the port authority hasn't told us? Eight dockhands means they're stocking for at least a week's flight, unless their engine is near as efficient as ours. We just find a heading, and could catch up to them in a few days."

"The Charterhouse can tell us what kind of fuel they bought. As well as how much of it, what kind of foodstuffs, if they picked up another job or two while they were here, and any number of other thing," Vincent explained.

Anita frowned. "Other things?"

"I'll explain if I have to start worrying about it," the captain said, and it was less that mischievous tone he took on when things were going well, and more that icy anger he had taken on the day he burned the Victorious.

He lead them as if he knew the path, which Anita suspected was close to the truth. She hadn't noticed it at first, but the crowds offered them a wide berth as they passed. And since Anita had never in her life known people to be afraid of her, she suspected it had something to do with her captain.

He still looked the part of a naval officer, despite the black and red coat and the civilian attire. Clean and polished, cat-like in his movements, and a gaze that seemed to seek out and challenge every passerby. His rapier was the same one he had worn commanding the Hood, his pistols were the same ones he had carried the day she first crashed aboard his ship.

Because they could flow through the crowd with ease, they made very good time. A short but brisk walk brought them to the tall wooden doors of a massive stone building. The white stone was smooth, with green creepers climbing up the walls and tall, thin windows.

"New money putting on airs," the captain said, looking up with obvious disgust.

"Am I missing something?" Anita asked.

"Insecure new money usually builds their important structures like this," Vincent said, pointing at the doors. "Made to look like their wealth has a sense of permanence, like being rich has always been their lives. I'd be surprised if someone inside hasn't tried to buy a title from a struggling Volante nobleman."

Anita shrugged. "It's their money to be parted from."

"True," Vincent said. He stepped up to the door, shoved it open without knocking, and pushed it wide enough to admit them both.

And through that door, it felt as if they had stepped off of Drummond's Spite, onto a very different island.

Light streamed though a ceiling made with so many windows it dwarfed even the observation window on the Ravens' Child. The vaulted ceiling was also magnificently tall, nearly four stories over their heads. The slightly acidic twinge of sweat vanished at the building's threshold, and the cacophony of crowds was replaced by the sound of waterfalls and elegant music. The walls were littered with stained glass windows, depicting stories of naval battles, settling distant lands, and artistic achievements. The floor was polished marble, as were the pillars that supported the ostentatious ceiling.

"As I said," Vincent said, and Anita was surprised at how indifferent her captain seemed about the splendour in front of them. "New money putting on airs."

Vincent started ahead, rounding the nearby fountain. Anita stopped for a second to look at the statue in the centre, a strange creature shaped much like a ship, with massive fins on the sides and a tail nearly a third the size of its entire body.

Anita was so engrossed with the statue, that she nearly didn't see the well dressed man in a top hat neatly intercept Vincent. "Apologies, sir. I don't recognize you, and I thought I knew every captain who frequented Drummond's Spite."

"Understandable, sir," Vincent replied, and he extended his hand. "My ship is new to the skies, and I'm afraid I've burned a considerable hole in my pocket on her. I was hoping to remedy my finances, if you understand my trouble."

"Oh, I can sympathize, sir," the dandyish man replied with a small bow and a swing of his hat. "That arduous point in a ship's life where you have yet to recoup the money you spent building her. I imagine more than a few gentle folk here would be happy to wish you good fortune. Or offer ways to assure it. What did you say your name was, sir?"

"Vincent Locklear," the captain said.

The man's face fell like an overloaded grain barge without a lift balloon. He very nearly took a step backwards in fright before he got control of himself. "C-Captain Locklear? Look, the Merchant Marine wouldn't look kindly on having a naval captain poking their noses about too closely. I won't tell anyone you came by, but-"

"Relax, sirrah," Vincent said, and he clapped the man on the shoulder. "I've been stripped of my commission. I'm what you might call a private actor, now."

"Private?"

"Indeed. A private actor, privateer even," Vincent said, with a distinctly false air of levity. "An independent captain with both naval intelligence reports on the piracy in the skies, and the activities the navy itself takes up."

The man began to nod, and his fear was slowly washed away by another emotion. Anita recognized it eventually. Greed, which could overwhelm any wariness.

"Now, I brought my chief engineer with me. I was hoping she could pop down to the accounts and records clerks and get to the business of stocking my ship with the supplies I might need to make us some money," Vincent said.

"Yes of course!" the man said, and he drew a small piece of paper out of his coat pocket. He handed it to Vincent, who passed it on to Anita. "Just have her show that to the clerks, they'll accommodate any request she has. Down one flight of stairs, first door on the right."

Anita stared at the piece of paper for a long moment with her mouth open. Her stupefying confusion lasted long enough that her captain felt he needed to step up beside her, and tap her on the shoulder. "This is exactly what we need," he said in a whisper. "Go find out what you can, I'll meet you down there."

"Don't get them too worked up, Captain," Anita said. "He's already drooling."

She watched for a moment longer, as the foppish man lead her captain away, talking excitedly about 'quasi-legal substances' and 'seasonal market fluctuations'. But once another large pair of wooden doors were thrown wide, and Vincent was ushered through, Anita left him to his fate.

She followed the stairs down, and couldn't help but notice the clearance of the ceiling decreased dramatically as soon as she left a place the moneyed people went. Gone were the tall doors made of the trunk of a single massive tree. Instead, little more than a thin plank with a handle blocked the way out of the stairwell. Past the door was nothing any more dramatic, with low ceilings and only the barest hint of the same sunlight that had steamed through the glass in the floor above.

Anita walked up to the nearest clerk, a weary looking woman carrying a foot-tall stack of papers, and deliberately put herself in the way. "I was sent to find the records clerk, to get my ship resupplied."

"Down the hall, third door on the left," the woman said gruffly as she passed. Anita grinned and walked on, humming happily as dodged around a pair of workers carrying a filing cabinet. Seeing all this activity, these studious records, being worked at by so many people brought some relief.

As much as this place might tolerate some of the cruelties she remembered on that Corsair's isle, this paperwork meant Drummond's Hold was still in reach of a place that cared about laws.

She reached her door and stepped through, and quickly noticed that she had just interrupted a conversation. Two very young men, with soft fuzz beneath their noses, looked up at her from their seats with wide eyes and open mouths. Anita wondered if their reactions would have been any worse if she had stepped in with her pistol drawn.

"Gentlemen," Anita said as she walked into the middle of the room. "I have some business to attend to, assuming you're not too busy."

"Oh no, ma'am," one boy said, springing to his feet and rushing over to a nearby desk. He opened it, and began flipping through the pages. "Just taking a break from cataloging. Important to keep the fuel purchases in order. A lot of catching up on recent orders."

"I can imagine," Anita said, and she set her note on the table. "Was sent down here to ask about fuel previous purchases, actually. Ship's name is 'Sunward Matilda', was in a day or two ago."

The clerk stopped flipping through the pages, set his hands on the book, and looked up at Anita. "That isn't exactly information we just hand out."

Anita clenched her hands into fists, to keep them at her sides. "Storm full of spit and smoke!" Anita swore, startling the clerk. "Does every stumblebum on this pretentious rock expect to be bribed to do his job?"

"Bribed?" the noise that came from the young clerk at the counter was genuinely, even adorably indignant. It succeeded in stopping Anita from extending her tirade. The clerk picked up the note she had left on the desk, and frowned as he read it. "Just this note's a little brief for permission to fish around in our records. Keep in mind, some things are kept in the master office upstairs, where the Charter keeps the accounting ledgers."

"Ah. Well, the dandyish fop who signed that was eager to impress my captain," Anita said. She sighed, and made a show of looking exhausted. "We're on an assignment from the Admiralty, that ship missed its scheduled check-in. Now that we found out they made it here, my captain just wants to make sure they'll make it to their destination."

"I see," the clerk said. "Well, I can't see any harm in it. Not like you're part of some pirate skimmer's crew, not with sodium grease stains."

Anita's eyes widened in surprise, as she looked down at her shirt. "You can tell these apart?" she asked, pointing at the stains.

"Sure can. Apprenticed with the engineer of the Fiverall Ferry. I just do work here between flights, to help pad my personal accounts," the young clerk said. He squinted at Anita's shirt in a way that might have offended her in a different social context. "Can't say I recognize some of those blotches, but it looks like you run a mighty complex engine. What was your ship called?"

"The Ravens' Child. And we just managed the trip from Wiskeyjack's Roost in less than five days," Anita said, and she couldn't help but grin a little as she said it.

"Under a week from Idlewind? That's some ship," the clerk said, gawking in awe.

"Yep."

"Cast me adrift," he murmured, as he started flipping the pages of his ledger again. "Ah, here it is. Sunward Matilda, I have her down with about fifteen hundred pounds of coal."

"Fifteen hundred pounds?" Anita's eyes widened in surprise. She frowned, and turned away. "Assuming the Matilda burns five pounds of coal per hour they run the engine, and having enough for a round trip, they're headed somewhere six days away."

"They don't list a charter destination," the clerk said. He squinted, and leaned forward at the notes. "That's strange, though it explains all my paperwork."

"What is it?" Anita asked.

"There were a lot of coal purchases that day," the clerk said. "Almost a week's worth. Strange, because we didn't have a lot of ships transiting through. Usually, large fuel purchases are done by long haulers, trading sloops and the like. But we didn't have much more than the skiffs and small schooners that normally dock here.

Anita was struck with a sudden worry, one that took her unawares and made her shiver. "How many of these purchases happened after the Sunward Matilda?"

The clerk frowned and scanned over the page with his finger. When he stopped at the bottom of the page, his eyes were wide even as his brows were furrowed. "All of them," he said. "Every single purchase happened within nine hours of the Matilda."

"I could use an honest answer for this one," Anita said, and she set her hands on the clerk's desk. She looked him in the eyes, and hoped he was the kind of man inclined to honesty. "How bad is piracy around these parts?"

"If you have an understanding with the Merchant Charter, not bad at all," the clerk said. "If not, it's as bad as any part of the skies."

A sound like a clap of thunder sounded just behind Anita. She whined around, her hand reaching for a pistol she hadn't bothered to carry from the ship. But as the door bounced off the wall and swung about again, it stopped against her captain's black boot.

"Anita, time to leave," Vincent Locklear said, casting a glance back down the hall. "Afraid I might have kicked a hornet's nest."