and Frey stared at each other: a test of wills. Dracken’s finger twitched on the trigger. She was sorely tempted. Then she took the gun away and stepped back.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You get to live. Duke Grephen will want a signed confession out of you. Besides, there’s someone else who may be more willing to talk. I understand there was a woman flying the Ketty Jay that night when you stole my charts. I don’t see her here. Where is she, Frey? Won’t she know the codes?’
Frey didn’t reply. Dracken spotted one of her men coming out of the Ketty Jay and heading over to her. ‘Let’s find out,’ she said. She addressed the crewman, a whiskery, heavyset fellow with a steel ear to replace one that had been cut off. ‘Anyone else inside?’
‘One,’ he said. ‘In the infirmary. She’s dead, though I ain’t sure what of.’
Trinica looked at Frey for an instant. ‘You’re sure she’s dead?’
‘Yes, Cap’n. She don’t have a pulse, and she ain’t breathing. I listened at her chest, and her heart ain’t beating. I seen a lot of dead men and women, and she’s dead.’
‘She hit her head,’ said Frey. ‘When you shelled us.’ He indicated Malvery. ‘The doc tried to help her, but he couldn’t do much. All the damage was inside.’
Malvery caught on, and nodded gravely. ‘Terrible thing. Fine young woman,’ he murmured.
Crake felt a chill go through him. He was remembering that night on the Feldspar Islands when they’d gone to Gallian Thade’s ball at Scorchwood Heights. The night when Jez had really fallen and hit her head. Fredger Cordwain, the man from the Shacklemore Agency, had taken her pulse then, too. He’d also been convinced she was dead. At the time, Crake had assumed he was mistaken in the heat of the moment, but now he wondered.
How had she managed to fool them both?
‘You want us to get rid of her?’ the crewman asked Dracken.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Leave her where she is. We’ll need the body to show the Duke. How are they getting on with the golem?’
‘Coming out now, Cap’n,’ he replied, gesturing at the half-dozen men who were manhandling the inert form of Bess down the ramp.
‘What are you doing with her?’ Crake blurted in distress, before good sense could intervene.
Dracken’s black eyes fixed on to him. Crake had a sudden and dreadful feeling that he’d done something very foolish in drawing her attention. ‘That thing is yours, is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re the daemonist? ’
Crake swallowed and tasted ash in the back of his throat. Dracken sauntered over towards him, raking her gaze along the line of prisoners as she went.
‘Very clever, what you did in Rabban,’ she murmured. ‘And surprising, too. I’d have expected a daemonist to abandon their golem and make a new one, but you actually rescued it from my cargo hold.’ She studied him with an intensity that made him squirm. ‘That’s very interesting.’
Crake kept his mouth shut. He had the impression that anything he said would only damn him further.
‘Still, interesting as it is, I’m not stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice,’ she said. ‘And I’m not having that thing wake up on the journey back. So your golem is staying here.’
Crake felt weakness flood through him. The horror of it almost made him stagger. He looked around wildly, taking in the endless, trackless expanse of grey that surrounded them. There were no signs of life
