The Whisper was everything the Empress of Tides was not.
If the Empress was a floating palace, The Whisper was a floating coffin. It was a forty-foot cutter built for speed, not comfort, powered by a modified mana-engine that had clearly been salvaged from a scrap heap. The engine didn't hum; it coughed, rattling the hull with a rhythmic, mechanical shudder that vibrated through the floorboards and straight into Revas' teeth.
"It sounds like the ship has tuberculosis," Revas complained, staring up at the low, wooden ceiling of the tiny cabin.
He was lying on a bunk that was six inches too short for his frame, his boots dangling off the edge. The air in the cabin was thick with the smell of alchemical fuel, salt, and unwashed wool.
Mirabelle sat on the floor, oiling her boots by the light of a flickering aether-lamp. The lamp's crystal was cracked, casting erratic, dancing shadows against the peeling paint of the walls.
