Chapter 17: The Queen's Call

Thirty bosses stood in the warehouse at the edge of the docks, and not one of them believed in ghosts.

They had come from five countries in eight days on Duncan's word.

Each of them had buried Cinder in his head the night Interpol took her.

Astrid stood on a stack of crates with her arms folded and a rifle on her back.

Duncan stood at her left.

The big woman with the scarred hand stood at her right, and behind her stood two hundred of the old crew in black.

"Six months in Devil's Isle," said a heavy man at the front, the smuggler who held the northern docks. "Nobody walks out of that place."

"I did," Astrid said.

"The papers say you shot twelve guards."

"I did that too."

A murmur went around the room.

"And the papers say you are the daughter of Everard Swinton, who pays half of this city's police."

"Also true," she said. "He is the reason I was in the cage."

The murmur grew.

"Then why should we follow you?" the smuggler said. "You have no territory, no ships and no money. You have a story."

Astrid smiled.

It was the innocent smile, and it had never once been a comfort.

"Bring him in," she said.

The warehouse door rolled open.

Two of her crew dragged in a man with a bandaged hand and a gold tooth.

He had taken her old bar in Port Verrin and laughed at her in front of his men.

He had also taken a bribe from Celia Swinton to ambush her in a bakery, and he had lost.

They threw him on the concrete floor, and he looked up at the faces of thirty bosses.

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