steady as a tremendous wave of seawater doused them. He nudged the boat closer, and closer, until they were nearly ten feet away from the galleon.
“Now!” he whispered.
Berenice planted her imprinter level on the hull of the fishing boat and fired at the galleon. The slug smacked into the hull and stuck fast.
For a moment nothing happened—and then, with a terrifying jerk, the scrivings sprang to life, and they were ripped across the waters until the two hulls kissed.
Sancia had to fight not to scream. She was sure that Berenice had fired a little high or low, and they were going to be tipped backward or forward and tossed from the boat—but they were not. Their ship creaked a little unpleasantly, but everything held together. They were adhered to the side of the galleon like a bloodfish stuck to the belly of a shark.
Gregor let go of the wheel and cautiously stepped away. The ship held fast. Then he and Sancia crouched and began to assemble their gear: espringals, imprinters, stunning bombs, lights, scrived rapiers, and adhesion plates.
“We will scale the ship,” Gregor whispered to them. He pointed up into the fog. “There should be a hatch over there that Sancia can break open. Once we’re in, you lot break away and trail behind us until the job is done. Got it?”
Berenice and Orso nodded, though both of them were plainly terrified.
“Good,” said Gregor. “When we’re finished, Sancia and I will use our air-sailing rigs to escape the ship and come to you.”
“Provided the foundry lexicon in the ship is still working,” said Berenice. “If not, they won’t work.”
“Then we will attempt to board shallops,” said Gregor. “Is that clear?”
“They nodded.”
“Good. Then we’ll begin.” He and Sancia fitted the adhesion plates over their hands.
“Good luck,” said Berenice. She reached out and squeezed Sancia’s shoulder. Sancia nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth she might vomit.
Then she and Gregor approached the hull, activated their plates, and began to scale the side of the ship like builder ants crawling up a wall. Though the going was not exactly easy, she found herself wishing she’d had tools like this back in her thieving days: she couldn’t count how many times she’d worn her hands bloody trying to scale this or that wall.
Once they were about twenty feet up, she flexed her scrived sight and peered into the fog until she saw a tangle of locking logic floating in the gloom. She gestured to Gregor, and he followed her across the hull until they came to the hatch. She had to slide her hand out of one plate so she essentially dangled from the hull one-handed—she was intensely aware of the wide, churning ocean below her—but then she grabbed the hatch’s handle, and listened, and spoke to it.
The hatch’s locking logic was quite simple—obviously this entry point had not been considered a vulnerability—and soon she’d popped it open. She slipped through, gasping with exhaustion and terror, and slid over to allow Gregor to do the same. Then he shut the hatch behind them, and they were inside.
9
This deck of the ship—whichever deck it was, Sancia had no idea, or even if the idea of decks was applicable on a vessel of this size—was almost completely dark. She assumed this was just ordinary naval protocol, but then Gregor whispered, “Why are the lights off?”
“Sh-Should they be on?” stammered Sancia.
“All interior lights should be on at night except for those in the quarters. Otherwise it’s a dangerous tripping hazard—among many other things.”
Sancia had to pause at the idea of Gregor worrying about tripping hazards at a time like this. Then she flexed her scrived sight, and recoiled at the amount of information pouring in through her eyes: being inside the galleon was like being inside a giant sea beast, only she could see all its bones and veins and muscles around her, all at once.
She’d initially worried this would be like the Mountain of the Candianos—the giant dome in the center of their campo in Tevanne, which had been scrived to act as a