Nico immediately realized that the door was a problem.

  There were no guards, but it was too central: it was between the buffet tables and the stage where the bards were performing. In addition, waiters were passing back and forth with glasses in their hands.

  The plan was simple, at least on paper.

  Nadia and Kiah were to stop a short distance away and start an argument, accusing a player of cheating, then slip away after stirring up enough chaos. Gareth would take a long detour, as if he were looking for the bathroom. Nico and Peter, along with Keily, would approach the door and enter as if they were being escorted through the door after losing everything.

  Nico wasn't convinced, but he had no better alternatives. They all positioned themselves in formation, in different areas but still close to the door.

  Nadia raised her voice, accusing a distinguished man with a thick beard and white hair, wearing a top hat and tailcoat. She shouted,

  “He's cheating, I saw him! He tapped the table and the dice moved!”

  Kiah gestured, looking genuinely annoyed. “What are you talking about? Are you crazy? You've had too many beers.”

  Then, turning to the gentlemen at the table, she added, “Gentlemen, excuse my friend. If the gentleman wants to cheat, we don't care, right?”

  Then she turned back to Nadia: “Come on, let's go.”

  Someone turned to look at them, and another person joined in the discussion. Nico laughed.

  “Good, Gareth is moving,” Peter murmured.

  Nico turned to the side, trying to be discreet: he saw Gareth pass behind a group of customers without being noticed. Keily set the tray she was holding on one of the buffet tables and approached Nico and Peter. The two started walking toward the door, with Keily following a few steps behind.

  As they began to move, Nico also saw Kiah and Nadia slip out of the discussion and head for the door.

  Then one of the waiters stopped right in front of it. He leaned the tray against a column and took a cigarette out of the pocket of his tight sequined shorts, which he lit with a match. Two of the three bards approached him, while the third created atmosphere by strumming a lute.

  Nico and the others, scattered around the door, stopped as if to discuss and chat in small groups, waiting for those people to move.

  Time passed and the situation in the rest of the room had almost returned to normal: there was no more commotion, everyone had returned to their tables more or less quietly, and the chaos caused by Nadia and Kiah had subsided.

  “It's over,” Nico muttered, almost to himself.

  Peter sighed softly.

  “Get a move on, I'll give you a little time,” he said. Then he turned toward the main hall.

  He walked decisively toward the stage. He climbed the steps without asking permission and picked up one of the lutes lying on the ground, belonging to one of the musicians. Someone around the stage muttered something.

  Then Peter spoke. He said something about a bad day, about how sometimes you need a song to make things right. Nico looked around, then looked at the door: the bards standing there had rushed towards the stage, but by then Peter had already started strumming his instrument and had caught the attention of the whole audience.

  All heads turned towards the stage.

  The waiter put out his half-smoked cigarette and, with a smile, grabbed the tray with the glasses and moved away from the door.

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  Nico gave a quick nod to Nadia and Kiah.

  They moved immediately. Gareth was already close by. Nico reached the door last, with Keily following him.

  No one was looking that way. Everyone had their eyes on Peter. Nico closed the door behind them and the noise in the room suddenly subsided. They immediately found themselves in the boiler rooms, just as Keily had said. Nico immediately felt the heavy, hot air, a hot and unpleasant whiff, and his forehead beaded with sweat. It was dark, and only a light at the end of the corridor illuminated the maze of pipes, metal, and wood that was the belly of the ship.

  He moved aside to make room for Keily and, with his shoulder, touched a hot pipe. He burned himself and stifled a curse. Keily went on without hesitation, moving confidently.

  The passages were narrow. Pipes ran everywhere, above their heads and along the walls, and hot steam hissed softly from some of the joints.

  They came to the dim light that had guided them there. It was an oil lamp illuminating a man at work, dirty, covered in engine grease and various grime. With large hands, covered by thick, holey gloves, he was clamping a tool onto a pipe that wouldn't stop hissing.

  The man gave Keily a toothless smile. “Hey, beautiful. More suckers?”

  Keily replied with a friendly smile. “We all fall for it, Frank.”

  The man laughed. It was a deep, throaty laugh that came out with a cough that lingered for a while, even after they had turned the corner.

  They entered a room where men and women dressed in rags, covered in grease and soot, worked tirelessly. Their hands were black and scarred, their faces tired. They clutched keys and tools, tapped on pipes, checked them one by one, or shoveled coal into small buckets from a pile in the corner and passed them to others, who disappeared down another dark corridor, moving like ghosts with dull eyes. Nico and the others passed by them, but almost no one gave them a glance.

  After a bend and another even narrower stretch, Nico realized they were arriving. Keily pointed to a door in front of them. “I hope you have a plan to get your friend back, because we're here. That's the control room.”

  Nico entered the control room, wrinkling his nose. The sweet smell was strong there, and it didn't take long for his head to feel heavy again, but what really caught his attention was what he saw. He paused for a moment in the doorway: it took him a few seconds to understand what he was looking at. Half of the room was a real bridge, with levers, gauges, and maps projected onto an absurd and anachronistic digital screen, with codes scrolling down one side of the monitor. The other half was a game room. Green tables, slot machines, and coins everywhere. In the center, where he would have expected the helm, there was a roulette wheel fixed to the floor.

  Giacomo was waiting for them, clean-shaven and well-groomed. His brown mustache was neatly trimmed, as was his slicked-back hair.

  He was impeccably dressed in a white suit that hung straight on his sturdy, solid frame. The man took out his watch, the chain hanging from his pocket.

  One leg of his trousers ended in a shiny black shoe. The other, the left one, was pulled up. From the knee down, there was a metal prosthesis, made of different pieces, scrap metal held together by large bolts. When Giacomo shifted his weight slightly, the prosthesis emitted a low squeak. The captain smiled, watching them all with his one good eye.

  Leo was there, sitting at a table with the old beggar, the pale-faced woman, and others whom Nico had only seen briefly. He was playing a game. Kiah called him, but he didn't answer or even look up.

  The captain's deputy, the man Nico had seen talking to Nadia, approached Keily. He was wearing a dark blue suit, impeccable on his lean figure, his face clean-shaven and sharp. He had a bag in one hand. When he threw it to the red-haired girl, the contents clinked with an all too recognizable sound.

  Nico turned to look at Keily. His eyes slid over the bag without immediately making sense of it. It took him a few seconds to connect the dots.

  “Sorry, handsome sailor,” Keily said, looking at Nico. “But these are for playing games. I can win my freedom.”

  With that, she turned and walked out of the control room. The man, the first officer, stood in front of the door.

  Giacomo watched them silently, one by one. Then he spoke, his voice calm and gentle.

  “You can go,” he said, looking at Gareth and Nadia.

  He paused briefly, as if giving them time to react.

  “But they stay,” he concluded, looking at Nico, Kiah, and finally Leo.

  He moved to the side, shifting his weight onto his prosthesis. The metal of his leg creaked again.

  “What do you want from us?” Kiah roared.

  Malaspina laughed. “What spirit, I like that.”

  A man at the ship's controls pulled a lever, laughing along with the captain. The first mate intervened: “She'll calm down soon, Captain.

  Either that, or we'll put her to work shoveling coal in the boilers.”

  Malaspina nodded. His good-natured face turned to Kiah, like that of a father ready to give an indulgent scolding. “That's where we put the most unruly ones. But you'll be good, won't you?”

  Kiah darted toward the door. The first mate roared:

  “Get them.”

  [AUTHOR'S NOTE]

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