The kitchen of his prison was an enlarged version of what they had in the Endeavour, and Rhys took the time to fix himself a bitter cup of tea and heat some rations stored in a cold box.

Interestingly, the kitchen devices and the cold box were made of the same metal as the building itself. Investigating a little closer, Rhys found familiar runes carved into the metal. Rhys found himself a little disappointed that these relics of the Before weren’t powered by some unknowable energy. The connector that brought power inside the building and into the appliances went underground, so Rhys wasn’t able to see the source of energy, but it was likely a standard gathering array.

The short diversion came to an end, and though Rhys felt better now he’d eaten, he still felt the weight of the situation on him. Sipping his tea helped, but he was simply too worked up to look at the problem logically.

Eventually, Rhys lay down on the bed, exhausted from the stress of the day and conscious of how he wasn’t achieving anything. He couldn’t figure out who this mysterious ally of the pirates was, and it was driving him mad.

-**-

Rhys woke the next day and automatically reached out for the tea that should be on his bedside table, grimacing as he clutched empty air and remembered where he was.

Getting up with a groan, he rubbed his face as he made his way to the kitchen to make the tea manually.

A knock at the door came as Rhys sat at the table with his drink, Giannis stepping inside a moment later.

‘Ah, dear Captain, you’re awake, good,’ Giannis said with a cheerful smile. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that Kassandra was happy with our results yesterday. Of course, this means that she wants even more progress today, but such is life.’

‘Giannis,’ Rhys acknowledged the other man with a nod, wary of the strange pirate and his odd mannerisms. The more he considered the things Giannis said, the more he felt like everything was a veiled threat; it was disturbing.

‘Ah, dear Captain, no need to take such a tone with me. After all, we’re doing so well together, and I would hate for that to change. Now, shall we continue?’ Giannis paused and looked at Rhys, clearly waiting for him to respond.

‘I’m ready,’ Rhys said heavily, taking a sip of his tea and reluctantly setting it aside for the moment. There was no way he was going to be able to avoid these rounds of questions, so he’d reserve his resistance for when it mattered.

‘Good, good, that’s the spirit,’ Giannis said with a too-wide smile. ‘Now, we’d established that you and the other names I provided were all artificers on Arn Creth, correct?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Rhys said, somewhat grudgingly.

‘Excellent. So, did you think of any projects you worked on alongside those other artificers?’

‘No, we didn’t work on any projects together,’ Rhys said honestly, not counting inquisitorial conscription as a project.

‘Very well, let’s put that to one side for now. Instead, tell me about Arn Allinor. What happened there?’ Giannis said, resting his chin on his hand and regarding Rhys with curiosity.

‘What do you mean?’ Rhys said, blinking in surprise at the abrupt change in topic.

‘Well, look at it this way,’ Giannis said, rising smoothly to his feet and starting to pace around the room. ‘The bounty on you was raised not long after you left Arn Allinor by a courier that came from the direction of the spire. Of course, this could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. So, who did you speak with while you were there? What interactions did you have?’ Giannis asked as he continued to pace, his gaze remaining on Rhys as he walked.

Kassandra had implied something similar, but Rhys hadn’t given it much thought as no one he’d interacted with seemed a likely suspect. Now though, he was reconsidering that. Rhys hadn’t realised that a courier had come from the direction of the spire; that did change things. He’d assumed it was a coincidence that the bounty changing and his departure from Arn Allinor had coincided. The courier coming from that direction could also be a coincidence, but two coincidences so close together warranted a second look.

Rhys was just as interested in whoever was behind the bounty as the pirates, if not more so. The problem now was figuring it out without giving anything away to Giannis.

‘Well?’ Giannis prompted after a few seconds of Rhys not responding.

‘Well, it was an odd visit,’ Rhys said slowly, organising his thoughts as he went.

‘Odd how?’ Giannis turned and fixed Rhys with an intent look.

‘Well, the city was being watched over by an inquisition ship. A boarding party searched the Endeavour before we even got to the spire. They were there to investigate a rogue artificer and find any associates they might have had.’

‘Another one?’ Giannis said with a raised brow and a slight frown. ‘That’s the second one I’ve heard of in the last few years. They’re normally nowhere near so common as that. I wonder what caused that.’

Rhys kept quiet on the matter, not wanting Giannis to remember where the other rogue had been found. After a moment, Giannis shrugged and continued his questions. Rhys kept to the bare basics of everything else that had happened, he might be scared of the consequences of resisting, but his life wasn’t an open book for these people.

Giannis grew frustrated when there was no obvious answer to Rhys’s movements and finally called the session to a close with a frown in Rhys’s direction.

‘Giannis,’ Rhys called out as the pirate went to leave the building.

‘Yes?’ Giannis turned with a raised brow.

‘How did you find us so easily?’ Rhys asked the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind since he saw the pirates descending through the cloud sea toward them. They should have been hidden; he couldn’t accept that it was simply luck for the pirates to catch them.

‘Ah, I wondered when you would ask that,’ Giannis said with a small smile. ‘Your mysterious enemy was able to get us access to some emission detectors, old models with some wear and tear but still serviceable. Kassandra struck quite the deal with them; the emission detectors are a cut above the equipment we normally have. Sadly, no one you’ve described would have the means to access such equipment.’ Giannis told him with a shrug as he turned back to the door, taking his eyes off Rhys for the first time since they started talking.

Rhys stared blankly after Giannis as the pirate left and closed the door behind him. Thankfully, Giannis must have thought that the shocked expression on Rhys’s face was that they had emission detectors.

Emission detectors were military equipment. Rhys was only aware of them in a vague sense because his teacher, Martin, had once repaired one. They weren’t quite as challenging to make as a ship’s core, but that wasn’t to say they were simple pieces of artifice.

In fact, now he was thinking about it, Rhys remembered that emission detectors were regulated and prohibited for non-military use. Rhys imagined that the idea was to keep them out of the hands of pirates to prevent exactly this situation.

It was the thought of it being a military product that had sparked a memory in Rhys’s mind. There was one specific event that he’d not given much thought to, but looking back now, it seemed odd and somewhat suspicious.

Captain Forsythe had been determined to get Rhys on board with whatever plan he had been concocting, far too determined. The thought occurred to Rhys that Forsythe might well be the one who’d placed the bounty on him. A respected captain in the alliance military would have access to emission detectors, maybe even enough access to deliberately lose a few older ones.

In fact, Rhys remembered that Forsythe had said that the sergeant who’d been a passenger on the Endeavour worked for him as well. Could that have been an initial attempt to find out what Rhys knew?

Rhys rubbed his face and grimaced. It sort of made sense, but not entirely so. What would Forsythe even have to gain from all this, and why would he be involved enough with what happened at Arn Creth to have a list of artificers who took part.

There were a couple of alternative suspects that Rhys could think of. Kraus and Sons were one that he was reluctant to include but probably should. While Rhys had only had good dealings with the brothers, so far anyway, there was something weird about it all. Still, in Rhys’s opinion, a large family and an odd appreciation for colour coordination didn’t necessarily make you part of a conspiracy. On the other hand, he felt like he should give them some consideration for this. There was definitely something strange going on with them.

Another one to consider was Lucien, Lucy’s so-called uncle. It hurt Rhys to think that Lucy might be connected to this in any way, but the timing was right. It could be a coincidence that Rhys met Lucien right before his bounty was raised, but all of this was based on suspicious coincidences.

Tom had agreed that Lucien seemed like ex-military, or at the least that he used to be a fighter of some sort. It was a bit of a jump to assume that he would have the reach to get an emission detector, but it was a possibility.

Of them all, Rhys favoured Forsythe the most, even without a clear motive for the captain. Sighing and rubbing his face, Rhys leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. There was just too much that he didn’t know.

Part of him was tempted to try and drop some hints for Giannis to see what the pirate made of it all, but that seemed unnecessarily risky. The last thing Rhys wanted was for the pirates to work out who it was and start trying to sell him off. Rhys had no idea how he was going to escape, so the longer he could keep things in this limbo, the better.

Thinking of how to escape, Rhys got up and started to search the interior of the building for anything useful. Sadly, the majority of the storage present was empty, leaving only a few basic cooking implements and rations for Rhys to use.

Despite the dire situation, a smile touched Rhys’s face as he considered ambushing Giannis with a skillet when he came to interrogate him. Then again, Giannis did get quite close during their talks, so if Rhys hid the pan somewhere, he might be able to pull it off. The next problem would be getting past the guard outside, and then he somehow had to find where they were keeping his crew.

Rhys sighed again and headed over to the table to slump back into his chair. The truth was that he had no idea how he was going to get out of this. He refused to give up, but that didn’t mean he had anything close to a plan.

-**-

‘You bastard!’ Giannis shouted as he burst through the front door of the building, pistol in hand and face in a thunderous expression.

Rhys was shocked to full awareness by the cold spike of fear in his gut as Giannis trained his gun on him. Jumping to his feet and putting his hands in the air, Rhys waited silently as Giannis checked the room, even kicking open the door to the bathroom.

‘How did you do it?’ Giannis asked, checking the utensils in the kitchen for some reason. Even while he looked away, Giannis kept his weapon trained on Rhys at all times.

‘Do what?’ Rhys asked carefully, his gaze caught on the barrel of the pistol pointing his way.

‘How did you kill the guard outside? How did you kill Actus?’ Giannis said, cold fury leaking through into his words as he took a few measured steps toward Rhys and levelled his pistol right at Rhys’s head. ‘Tell me, right now, or I’m ending this.’