Turn 4 of 7

Press Grieve on where the aetherite went and who bought it

"Where did it go, Grieve?" You step closer, and the heat of the boiler presses against your left side like a living thing. The engine room is narrow enough that you can put one hand on the hull plating and the other on the frame of the door at the same time. Grieve watches you do it and does not step back. She respects a person who does not retreat from a hot room.

"Twelve canisters loaded at Serault, signed for by Vos and witnessed by me," she says. "That's the real number. But the customs manifest says twenty, which means someone added eight ghosts to the count. You do not add ghosts unless you are planning to sell them — or unless you are planning to make real canisters disappear and blame it on a number that was never true." She sets the wrench down on the boiler housing with a deliberate clang.

"Three days after we docked, Vos hired a lighter to move cargo off the ship at night. I was not told. I noticed the weight shift in the hull when I checked the trim the next morning."

"You saw the lighter?"

"I saw the manifest stub. He left it in the fuel ledger — stuffed between the pages like a bookmark. Third-tier lighter, registered to a chandler called Rusch and Sons." She crosses her arms again.

"I did not follow it. I should have. But Vos was quartermaster and I am the engineer, and there is a hierarchy on this ship that has kept us all from killing each other for six years. I assumed he had a reason. I assumed wrong."

You press her on the buyer, and she shakes her head.

"I don't know who bought it. But I know aetherite does not sit in a warehouse on the third tier. It moves fast — too fast for a chandler to handle. Someone with a smelting operation, someone who can refine it further or move it east. That is not Rusch and Sons. That is someone using Rusch and Sons as a name on a receipt." The engine ticks behind her, settling into its idle rhythm. You can feel the deck plates vibrating under your heels, a low steady pulse that says the ship is ready to move even if the situation is not.

Grieve uncrosses her arms and leans forward, lowering her voice.

"There is one more thing. The night the cargo moved, I saw Captain Ferran on deck at the third-tier quay. Two in the morning. She was watching the lighter pull away. She did not stop it. She did not say a word to me about it." That lands. The captain knew. She watched the cargo leave and she watched Vos's scheme happen, and she has not appeared on deck this morning. From above, through the companionway, you hear Anneke's boots on the gangplank. She has not left. She is waiting.