‘Scared?’ I say, wanting to taunt him. ‘Of you, Marianne? You don’t have what it takes.’ My foot rests on a cutlass that’s fallen from a dead man’s grasp, and I flick it up and catch it, holding it in my left hand. Now I’m the one with two weapons. ‘My name is Mairin of the house of Vultura. Star of the Sea. And I have exactly what it takes.’

