The Bone City saw the living hull before it saw what we had tied to the mast.
Isolde brought us in slow because the scorched rib complained in the last current and because Shen Yuelan had started to hum. Not a song. A breath with a vein in it. Every time the harbor lamps caught her forearm the thin line under the skin warmed, and the thread in my chest answered it like a dog that had found the right door. Elizabeth sat three paces from her and did not blink enough. Vale stood between them with a knife she had not put away since Gray Salt.
Sable was on the quay. She counted us. She saw the house white on the bound woman. She saw the gold-brown eyes and the dried blood at the mouth. She did not ask for a report in front of the dock. That was the only mercy in the hour.
"Off," she said. "Side stair. Not the terrace."
We took the side stair.
