"Do you own an evening gown?"

Leslie had asked that with such a twinkle in his eye that it had made Anita heart skip about, and stole her breath. There was a certain promise in the man's tone, a question in those warm brown eyes that looked at her, that brought up such a longing it made her weak at the knees.

Anita opened her mouth to say something, long before she knew what might come out. She hesitated, sputtered, and to her own crushing horror, laughed. It slipped out of her like a blocked valve under too much pressure. She doubled over, the first laugh followed by a dozen more that came out so quickly it was hard to tell them apart. Her knees gave out, and she gave up on any pretence of dignity as she rolled on the floor.

"I think that's a 'no', Mister Madrigan," her captain said.

"Why in the endless blue," Anita managed to pant, slowing her laughter and pushing herself back up to a sitting position. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Would I have cause to own something that fancy?"

"Feel like I'm being accused of not taking my crew anywhere nice," Vincent remarked.

"You couldn't have afforded it until Nottle paid us," Leslie said. Anita looked at him, hoping to somehow apologize, to take her laughter back and replace it with something more honest. But Leslie wasn't looking at her anymore, and his expression didn't give any hints about what he might be feeling.

Moments weren't machines. Mistakes weren't parts that could be swapped out.

"True. Can we pick up something here suitable for a gala on this pestilent hovel?" her captain asked. The question wasn't directed to her, Anita could see that, but he was looking at her out of the corner of his eye, with that studious expression of his that made her suspect he had read her like an open book.

"Hey!" the sheriff exclaimed.

"Drummond's hold is a pirate's den putting on airs," the captain said, and the Sheriff bit back her retort. Actually turning to Anita, Vincent added, "I know it won't be an Olencian silk gown, but this also isn't the Calmoori sun court. Something local ought to be fancy enough to get you through the front door."

Anita thought back to the hats she had seen at the stall, and the thought of wearing any of it made her sick to her stomach. "I ain't providing patronage to a slave-owning tailor on this island," Anita insisted.

"Would it help if we robbed them instead?" Vincent asked.

Anita laughed again, and clapped her hands.

"You know the holding cells are only a hundred feet away, right?" Lila Abercrombie, using her thumb to point over her shoulder.

"Right. We'll get back to that option," Vincent said. Anita couldn't help but smile as the captain refused to completely remove the option. "Mercy, could you lend her a gown?"

"It wouldn't fit," Mercy said immediately.

"Wait, you own a gown?" Anita asked incredulously.

"Four. There were a lot of officer dinners back on Volante," Mercy said. Anita blinked in surprise. It took her a moment to recall that much like Captain Locklear, Mercy had been a commissioned officer. "And none of them will fit her, captain."

"Why? You're not that much taller," Vincent mused.

"Captain," Mercy said, somehow fitting an exasperated sigh into the middle of the word. "Do you remember that grain freighter we were escorting to Valeron a few years ago?"

"The Fat Friar, wasn't it? Overloaded by nearly eleven thousand bushels? Listed in a gale as it was descending, and broke one of the tether chains. Showered half the city in oats and barley?" Vincent asked.

"The very same," Mercy said. "Now with that in mind, let's just say my dress' top deck couldn't hold her cargo."

"Understood," The captain said. He looked up, and found something interesting on the ceiling to stare at. Without looking down, he added, "so we're back to robbing a dress maker."

"Please stop plotting crimes in front of the sheriff," Lila Abercrombie pleaded. She rubbed her temples with her finger and thumb, but looked at Anita thoughtfully. "I might have something in forfeiture. We seized a couple of crates half a year ago that were meant for the Aventila sky markets. I'll have them brought over."

"Ah yes, judicial asset forfeiture. Banditry with uniforms."

"Says the man openly discussing robbery."

"Touché," her captain said. "Leslie, I imagine getting dressed for this little affair is well within your wardrobe's capabilities?"

"I might end up being overdressed," Leslie said. There was no boast in his words.

"It couldn't hurt them to know what real nobility looks like. I'll accompany you back to the ship, and get the Child prepped for departure. Mercy, Anita, we'll meet you a few blocks away from the Charter House. Hopefully we can get the Sheriff what she needs and be on our way in a few hours," the captain said. He walked to the exit, with Leslie following close behind, just in time to hold the door open for a pair of constables carrying a crate between them.

"Take it into the empty office over there," Lila Abercrombie directed. Anita got up, mystified by a budding excitement that had her skipping as she stepped, an awkward indulgence in the weak pull of Drummond's Spite. Mercy hand to help coax her back down to the ground.

"Eagerness is carrying you like a ballon," Mercy said, a knowing smile on her face. "I ain't seen you this airy, less you were working on an engine."

Mercy was slipping back into her wayfairer accent again, a legacy that even her years as an officer in Volante's Navy had taken from her. "I'm surprised by it. Didn't think of myself as someone eager to get dolled up. You ever feel this kind of jitter, at those officer galas?"

"No," Mercy said, as she held the door open for the constables who had carried in the crate. Once the door was shit, Mercy drew her cutlass and used it to pry open the box. "But I never looked forward to them. The gown was armour, to ward off the spite of officer wives and noblewomen. And a disguise, to look like I belonged."

Anita understood. Not everyone welcomed the Wayfarer. Especially the wealthy, who often viewed them as islandless vagabonds, too free to slip through trade embargoes and ignore claims of sovereignty. And Mercy, with her wide cheekbones and distinctive skin colour —too light for Calmoori, not light enough for Olencia, a different shade than Volante or Aventila — was unmistakably a Wayfarer.

"And what we're aiming to find here," Mercy continued, obvious to Anita's musings. She popped one corner of the crate open with a quiet grunt. "Is camouflage. The plan is, after all, for one of you to secure the office ledgers, the ones that actually decide how their money is spent. And that role's likely going to be yours, rather than Leslie's."

"Now why is that?"

"Leslie is Calmoori nobility, and will dress the part. The merchants should look at him like a pheasant just flew into an eagle's nest." Mercy pride open the last corner with a triumphant shout, and tossed the lid to the side. She reached inside, and started drawing out so much fabric Anita suspected she could make a ship's sail out of it. "So the challenge here is to make you presentable enough to get you inside, but not so much that you stand out."

A small thought came to her. An unworthy sort of shallow thought, but also a worry she had carried since she was a little girl. "You're worried that you can't get me dolled up enough to pass unnoticed?" she asked

Mercy looked at her as if Anita had proclaimed the sky was red. "That ain't our problem. If I'm less than careful, this mission will go bust because Leslie spends the afternoon fighting off your suitors."

*******

Mercy worked on her for nearly an hour.

She emptied the crate and bullied the constables into brining two others. She cajoled Anita into trying on over a dozen dresses, absconded with the sheriff's makeup kit, and was busy performing some kind of Wayfarer witchcraft on her hair.

"I can guarantee you, no one in that gala has ever seen hair done up like this," Mercy said, bruising Anita's hand away as she tried to reach for a mirror. "There are things that can only be done in the weak pull. Holding your hair up like this would be impossible on one of the great isles."

"Can't rightly say I've ever seen you like this, Lieutenant. It ain't too late for you to take over this op," Anita said. She raised her left hand up to her hair, to try and feel a bit more of what Mercy had done to it.

"Might like to, but the Captain was underselling how unwelcome a Wayfarer would be. Especially to any part of Volante's Merchant Charter. They see the Wayfarers as endless disruptors to commerce, freeloading off the trade of their betters."

"Just the Merchant Charter?"

"Mostly. The Navy has its own opinions. Their prejudices are present, but they made me a commissioned officer," Mercy said. Anita reached for the mirror again, and managed to grasp it while Mercy was distracted. She turned it around, and angled it to face her head.

And saw what Mercy had spent nearly half an hour working on. Her hair, normally a mess of frayed curls blacker than the Child's fuel pellets, was now somehow cascading over her head like mist rolling over a mountain, waving slowly into the air nearly a foot to her left side. Anita put her hand to the waving curls, not believing what she saw in the mirror. "Mercy, I..." Anita trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

"Like I said, some things are only possible beyond the pull of the great isles," Mercy said.

Anita was certain she had never seen the woman staring at her in the mirror.

"I thought you said I wasn't supposed to attract attention?" Anita shook her head as she asked, and watched her curls dance.

"Sometimes, blending in is standing out," Mercy insisted. Anita raised her eyebrow, and flared at Mercy until her old lieutenant's grin crinkled up, as she tried and failed to hold in a laugh.

"Besides, we don't have the time it would take to disassemble that." Mercy glanced down at her pocket watch. Her eyes widened slightly, and she tucked it away in a hurry as she reached for her coat. "We might have already kept them waiting."

"Then we'll be fashionably late?" Anita asked.

"No, we'll just be late. My fault, but we do have a mission," Mercy said. Anita was surprised by the shift in her friend's tone, as she slipped the crisp tone of authority back on along with her coat. "On your feet, engineer."

"Aye, ma'am," Anita said, as she stood and followed Mercy out.

Anita tottered a little as she walked. Mercy had found her a pair of some kind of heeled dinner shoes, and wearing them in the weak pull of Drummond's Spite was a very peculiar experience. It was too easy to drift sideways, and hard to use the shoes to stay centred. Her next step to righten herself pushed her all the way off the ground.

"The trick is to take dainty steps," Mercy said. "Kick off with your toe a little, and let yourself fall. Try to avoid using your leg muscles to step, as much as you can."

Anita tried, as they left the Bailey and crossed the first street. After a couple hundred steps she was reasonably confident that, even if she didn't quite have the hang of it, she wasn't about to fall over.

Because of her trepidation as she walked, it took nearly half the trip for Anita to realize that these were the same streets she and recently run through. Merchants were back at their stalls, workers had returned to their tasks, bar patrons and beggars had taken up their posts at street corners and on the front porches. Despite the dozen or more armed bandits who had raced through these same streets, despite the thugs her captain had injured or killed, life had returned to normal on Drummond's Spite as if banditry and murder were just a change in the weather.

"I hate this place," Anita murmured. Her jaw hurt, a small ache that seemed to spread behind her eyes. It took her a moment to realize it was because she was clenching her feet. "It could be home."

If Mercy heard Anita mutter, she didn't respond.

To both Anita's trepidation and relief, the next turn brought them in sight of the Merchant Charter House. And in the shadow of a nearby building, Vincent and Leslie were waiting.

Or at least, a man who bore a passing resemblance to Leslie. Certainly, the face was the same. As was that impressive athletic physique, now neatly tucked into finery the likes of which Anita had never seen before. He wore a light brown coat, with a pale green waistcoat, both of which had that glimmer distinctive of velvet made from Orlesian silks. His pants were that unnatural white only ever seen in galas and royal courts, with brown boots that gleamed so strongly Anita suspected she could see her reflection in them.

Beside her, Mercy whistled. "Surprised no one tried to rob you on the way here," she said as they approached.

"They did," Vincent replied, though there was a musical sort of laugh in his voice. "And they weren't wrong to. I could sell his coat for enough to buy a ship."

"Not a nice ship," Mercy said.

"No, not a nice ship. A small schooner, at most."

Leslie stepped up to her, looking warily at Vincent and Mercy. "I'm worried they've begun thinking about mugging me. If I turn up face-down in a rainwash ditch, well, you know what happened."

Anita stepped up to him, and gently brushed his shoulder with her finger to test the shoulder pads. Only to discover there weren't any. "I rather doubt they could get the price they think they could. No one else who can afford clothes like this have arms like yours."

"Flattery mixed with consolation, and a gentle dig at the others. I could make a court woman out of you yet," Leslie replied.

Something in his remark made Anita's cheeks warm. She turned her head away, to hide the blush, and wished her dress didn't draw attention to any change in her breathing.

"You are a vision, by the way," Leslie added softly.

And in anther turbulent twist of emotions, she was both relieved and enraged when Vincent interrupted. "You both remember the plan, right?"

"Of course, captain," Leslie said. Even his accent had shifted, ever so subtly. Gone were the rough intonations of a sailor's speech, the harsh pronunciation necessary for being heard over a strong wind or between cannon shots. "Make a distraction so that Anita can slip into the private offices and secure their important ledgers."

"Not quite," Vincent shook his head. "First, your distraction has to be dramatic enough that it works as an excuse for the constabulary to enter the building. If you have to light the building on fire to make that happen, I will consider it a job well done."

Anita nodded, admitting to herself that she had missed the scope of the first part of their mission. Vincent then turned to Anita, and fixed her with a look that instinctively made her stand up straighter, with her right arm twitching to salute. "And second, you need to secure those documents. Because there will be people inside tasked with taking incriminating information out, or destroying it if they can't."

Vincent looked down at her waist, and drew his pistol, extending it with the barrel pointed at the ground. "I see Mercy left you your small toolkit in that dress. Take this with you, just in case. Your best option is probably to find the room where those documents are, and lock yourself in until the constabulary arrive. Failing that, find what you can and throw yourself out a window."

"Aye, captain," Anita said. Leslie repeated it a moment later.

"Good. And Anita, did Mercy tell you that hair style you're wearing is a bridal tradition among the Wayfarers?" Vincent asked.

Anita sputtered, and gaped as she looked from Vincent to Mercy. Vincent laughed, Mercy gave her a wry grin, and Leslie's face had a distinct blush to it.

"Try to get this wrapped up soon. The Sunward Matilda's probably making about twelve leagues for every hour we're stuck on this cesspit of pretence," their captain said, before he stepped back and turned away. He left with a short wave, Mercy following close behind.

"Bridal hair?" Anita asked aloud, feeling the cloud of hair still swirling in place. Leslie recovered enough that he could look her in the eyes. And something in his gaze had her staring, searching. Hoping, even.

"Mercy has an odd sense of humour," Leslie said, though Anita barely heard him. "Still, I'm glad she did it."

Leslie stepped to her side, and extended his arm. "Care to accompany me into this viper's nest?"

Anita set her arm on his, and smiled. "Happy to," she said. And meant it.