Masgard stared at her a moment, then let out a roaring laugh and sheathed his sword. “Look! The airling has a pretty girlie to keep him from harm!”

His crew laughed with him, and Hester blushed patchily and tugged up her old red scarf to hide her face.

“Come and find me later, girl!” Masgard shouted. “I’m always at home to a pretty lady! And remember, if you have a city’s course to tell me of, I’ll give you thirty in gold! You can buy yourself a new nose!”

“I’ll remember,” promised Hester, pushing Tom quickly away. Anger flapped inside her like a trapped crow. She wanted to turn and fight. She was willing to bet Masgard didn’t know how to use that sword he was so proud of… But the dark, murderous, revengeful part of her was something she tried to keep hidden these days, so she contented herself with slipping out her knife and quietly severing the lead of Masgard’s microphone as she passed. The next time he tried to make an announcement the laughter would be directed at him.

“Sorry,” Tom said bashfully, as they hurried down to the docking ring, which was crowded now with traders and sightseers fresh in from Arkangel. “I didn’t mean — I just thought — ”

“It’s all right,” said Hester. She wanted to tell him that if he didn’t do brave, foolish things like that from time to time he wouldn’t be Tom, and she might not love him so. But she couldn’t put all that into words, so she pushed him into the space under a tier-support and, after making sure that nobody was looking, wrapped her skinny arms around his neck and pulled her veil down and kissed him. “Let’s leave.”

“But we don’t have a cargo yet. We were going to look for a fur-trader or-”

“There are no fur-traders here, only Old-Tech, and we don’t want to start carrying that sort of stuff, do we?” He looked uncertain, so she kissed him again before he could say anything. “I’m tired of Airhaven. I want to be back on the Bird Roads.”