Finally, Dug’s nostrils flared with a deep inhale. Something in his posture softened, and her friend was back. He nodded—a slight twitch in the angle of his neck—and finished his coffee, tilting back his head to break eye contact. The insolence was gone out of him. For the moment, anyhow.
“Besides,” she said, satisfied, returning to the point Dug had been trying to make as though they’d only paused to sip from their cups. “A setup doesn’t mean the ring isn’t worth having.”
Chapter 7
Talis didn’t press the issue of Dug’s violent carelessness any further. It was done. She knew they’d have to balance that scale with Hankirk and his crew someday. For her own crew and ship affairs, all she’d needed was to point out his own misjudgments. Looked like the message was received.
Blood still up, Talis was tempted to go to the cabinet for something stronger than coffee, but while they were still on the subject of the ring, she wasn’t about to have her wits addled. This was an argument that she intended to win. Sure, she had the same doubts as Dug about their ability to sell the thing. But that was something she couldn’t afford to admit, even to herself. Their cargo hold was empty, and their ship did need that blasted engine component before they could take another contract. Sophie didn’t have to remind her; it had been on her mind. She needed to make this a quick sale, and without too much loss. Maybe half price would be enough to get the ugly thing off her ship and let them move on with their lives. Placate the crew, put this behind them.
Tisker tucked a toothpick into the side of his mouth and spoke around it. “Right, why bother sending us after the ring at all if it’s worthless? There are other ways to entrap us that are faster and less involved. Maybe they wanted to make an arrest, but I agree with Cap. They wanted that trinket in the bargain. We’ll find a buyer.”
Sophie frowned. With Dug off the hunt, she was alone in her defiance of their captain. She was a smart girl. She knew those odds for what they were. “Not flashy enough to sell just anywhere, is it?”
The signet ring’s pewter surface was scratched and abused, but Talis could see raised motifs swirling around the bezel and halfway down the shanks of the band. It had probably been a handsome thing when it was made, but it was old enough that those days were long forgotten. The pearl cabochons to either side of the raised seal were chipped and wobbled in their settings like loose teeth. The center was worn at the edges, obscured by a dent in its surface that made it look like it had been assaulted with a chisel, so that the design was illegible. Sized for a large hand, the band was wide and solid. In contrast, its inside surface was barely damaged at all. As though it had been handled roughly but almost never worn.
The ring sat, silent, between them, refusing to divulge its secrets. Talis still felt like it was watching her.
She leaned both elbows on the table and cradled her forehead against the heels of her palms. No doubt the ring was ancient. Maybe pre-Cataclysm. On the other hand, The Emerald Empress was nowhere near that old. From her captain’s uniform and the style of her winches, fittings, and lift system, Talis would wager the airship sank only a decade ago, no more than two. So maybe that captain had found the ring, and it had gotten lost again when they went down. But who sent them down? And how did Talis keep her own ship from sharing that fate?
“How did Hankirk come to know of it?” Dug produced a knife from one of the folds of his loose pants, and pushed its tip against the pads of his fingers. The skin paled at the pressure, but he knew what he was doing, and the flesh didn’t break.
Talis’s mind took a moment to come back to the conversation, and for a moment she thought Dug was asking about The Emerald Empress. She frowned, dredging up half-forgotten memories for the second time since Hankirk stepped onto her deck. He had been in her graduating class at the Imperial academy before she’d decided on a different career path. He was smart. Quick, mentally and physically. They might have been friends if they’d had a touch more in common, or if they hadn’t both been so competitive. They had dabbled in dating, but that relationship quickly reached its nadir. He always triggered her alarm bells when he’d talk about—
“Oh hells.” Talis sat up straight in her chair.
“What?” Sophie stiffened as though Talis’s curse had been a gunshot.
All three of them looked at her in confusion.
“That absolute bastard.”
“You’re just figuring this?” Tisker cocked a smile at her. “Thought you said you knew him.”
She ignored him as her mind furiously worked it out. “I’ve been sitting here feeling like I was missing something all night, and by The Five, I’ve got it now. Our man Hankirk grew up in the capital, privilege-fluffed, his career all rolled out for him like a carpet before the empress. Look at him. He’s already an Imperial captain, and The Serpent Rose is no insignificant ship. It’s barely been in the skies long enough to require a polish.”
“Okay, so?” Tisker prompted, still looking more amused than alarmed.
Sophie shushed him and turned her eyes back to Talis, her sour mood over the engine part forgotten for the moment.
Talis drummed her fingers lightly on the table. “Wager you don’t know
