And Frey was surprised to realise he felt a little bit good about that.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Dracken’s been catching us up ever since she set out to get us. She was behind us when she got to Quail, she almost had us at the hermitage, and she was even ahead of us at the Winter Ball. She knows that we know about Gallian Thade, and she’ll assume we’ll keep on after him. But what she doesn’t know is that we know about their secret hideout.’
‘We don’t even know what this secret hideout is,’ Jez pointed out.
Pinn looked bewildered. He wasn’t sure who knew what any more.
‘Crake heard Thade and the Duke talking about Trinica and some secret hideout,’ Frey said. ‘They mentioned charts and a device of some kind. Seems to me that if we get those charts and that device, then we can find our way there too.’
Pinn raised his hand. ‘Question.’
‘Yes?’
‘Why?’
‘Because we need proof. We know Duke Grephen arranged Hengar’s murder. We know he’s planning a coup. But we don’t have any way to prove it. If we can prove it, we can shop those bastards to the Archduke.’
‘What good will that do?’ Jez asked. ‘We still blew up the Ace of Skulls.’
‘You think they’re going to care about the trigger-man if they’ve got the mastermind?’ Frey asked. ‘Look, I’m not saying they’ll necessarily forgive, but they might forget. If the Archduke gets his hands on them, he won’t worry about us. We’re small-time. And without Duke Grephen putting up that huge reward, Dracken’s not going to waste her time chasing us either.’
‘You think we can actually get ourselves out of this?’ Malvery rumbled. He was standing behind Frey, at the stove. He’d stopped stirring and was staring at the pot of dessert.
‘Yes!’ Frey said, firmly. ‘We play this right, we can do it.’
The crew were exchanging glances, as if looking for support from each other. Did their companions feel the same? Were they being foolish, to believe that they could win out against all the odds?
‘Whatever’s going on at this hideout is something to do with all of this,’ Frey said. ‘The answers are there, I’m sure of it. There’s a way out. But we need to hang on, we need to go a little deeper first. We need to take the risk. Because I’m not spending the rest of my life on the run, and neither are any of you.’
‘You said we’ll lure Dracken into a port,’ said Jez. ‘How are we gonna do that?’
‘Parley,’ he said. ‘I’ll invite her to talk on neutral turf. Face to face. I’ll pretend I want to cut a deal.’
‘And you think she’ll agree?’
‘She’ll agree.’ Frey was horribly certain of that.
Nobody spoke for a few moments. Slag looked up, puzzled by the pregnant pause in the conversation, then went back to snacking on his rat.
Frey felt the weight of Malvery’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Tell us the rest of the plan, Cap’n.’
Frey stepped off the iron ladder that ran from the mess up to the main passageway of the Ketty Jay. He stopped there for a moment and took a breath. Explaining his plan had been unusually nerve-wracking. For the first time he could remember, he’d actually worried about what his crew thought. There were a few good suggestions, mostly from Jez. Outright shock as he revealed the final part. But they’d
