In the saloon the lanterns burned on, warding away the dread of a lonesome sea in an expanse of black night, though Jeanne and Brigitte were fast in Elixir-induced sleep on a shared barside divan, and Emma La Berche curled upon a wide seat with a journal tipped between her fingers, trembling with the hypnagogic jerk of coming sleep.<br/><br/>Giselle proceeded to wipe clean the saloon bar, when news came down of the coming storm; and return the bottles to their proper places, and tuck the unused seats up beneath the decorative bar lip, and fasten the shutters of the bar enclosure one by one.<br/>"I won't be long," she told Aloisa. "But someone must do it, else the saloon will be in quite a sorry state come morning. You needn't wait for me."<br/>Eloise made an effort to lift one of the Cocoa House ladies from the divan, but found Brigitte uselessly limp and beyond waking, and surrendered the attempt to Aloisa. "What is the harm in leaving them here?"<br/><br/><hr/><br/>In the narrow corridor outside of Corinne's cabin, one lantern was missing from its fixture. In its absence was a stretch of darkness and long shadows, and Zoe accompanied Corinne through it into the private cabin.<br/>"What manner of laboratory do you take with you on a ship," Zoe wondered, and when they were inside, when the door was shut behind them, she stood small peering about at the instruments of a woman of science. "How curious."<br/><br/>"Are you with the White Egg, come to study the birds of paradise," Zoe asked, "or with the Antiquitists, going to study the history of the island? I have heard of the basalt-carved giants there along the coast, hands cupped to the sky and imploring the sun or moon. It has the romantic sound of those marvels of the ancient world."<br/><br/>"We are going to give the good word of Saint Ezra to the natives," said Zoe. "Camille, Hannah, Eloise and I. They are called squat, dark things, with features a peculiar shade more animal than man. It makes one wonder, doesn't it, whence the ruins of Markovia originated. I should like to find out."<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Within Danae's cabin, Hannah accepted a glass of dark narcotic, sniffed the perfumed chemical cocktail.<em>Drink it in one swallow, </em>that was the prescription, but Hannah had not the courage. She took one gulp, and coughed, freckling her linen shift. "Bitter," her voice cracked.<br/><br/>It did not hit her the way it took hold of Danae, whose body seemed primed and ready to receive the rush. Hannah sat thinking, thinking about how the opium made her feel, considering the glass, debating another sip.<br/>"If this chalk should put me into a deep slumber and entirely at your mercy, Lieutenant, both are preferable to that wakeful state of torpor I inhabit these nights."<br/><br/>Hannah rose from her chair to find Danae's eyes tracing patterns on the ceiling. The chill of storm through her damp clothes seemed to affect her all at once, huddled, shivered, drawn to the warmth of the wide cabin bed which dominated Danae's domain.<br/>"You seem exhausted. May I help you prepare for sleep?"<br/>Her hands, on the shiny embellished buttons of uniform jodhpurs, letting out tension. When her actions came under scrutiny, her hands retreat with a jump, but there had been a moment when the unfastening drew her smiling into reverie.<br/><br/>The courage rallied in her to more than halve the remaining opium in a stiff-tongued swallow. It was not a pleasure, it was Juliet's poison.<br/>"Out here, we are as safe as the blessed children of Ezra's garden."<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The very fringe of a storm to the horizon descended on the Charlotte in driving rain, a patter on the deck turning quickly to hiss and roar, a torrent from the sky. Buffet of wind hit sails ready to receive, and twisted the ship on Captain Thoubold's orders, lurched the hull with a sudden lean which sent unanchored bodies tumbling and unsecured belongings rolling over cabin floors.<br/><br/>The thunder was close enough now for all to hear its growl. Beyond each porthole window, flashes of it came bright between grey waves of rain pouring down the ship's hull, lending the illusion that the Charlotte was submerged below the Sea of Sorrows, looking out into the world aquatic, strummed by the deep sounds of whales and kraken.