The bell tolled three times before Captain Iola Vex stepped onto the deck, and by the third the harbour had already learned to be afraid. Salt hung in the rigging like a held breath; the skyship strained at its moorings as though it longed to be gone before the tide of soldiers reached the quay.

She did not run. Running was for people who believed the world would let them — and Iola had buried that belief a long way south of Quill's Reach, in a grave she had dug with her own two hands.

"Cut the lines," she said, quietly, and the crew moved as one, because a quiet order from Vex was the loudest sound a sailor ever heard.