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disguise.”
    Calixta scowled. Burr, Wren, Errol, and Goldenrod were absorbing the proposal with rather more success.
    â€œThese raiders,” Errol asked, “parts of their body are made of iron?”
    â€œIn the Baldlands,” Goldenrod explained, “people like me are said to have the Mark of the Vine—for the parts of me that resemble a plant. So there are also people who, instead of plant, have parts made of metal. Often iron. And many of them are raiders.”
    â€œNot all of them,” Sophia put in. “My friend Theo isn’t a raider, but he has bones in one hand made of iron. I like your idea,” she told Maxine.
    â€œWren is unrecognizable with his tattoos,” Calixta pointed out. “Why don’t we all disguise ourselves in the same way?”
    â€œA band of tattooed smugglers from the Indies would draw attention on a train in the Territories,” Maxine said. “But raiders are so common there that no one would spare you a glance.”
    â€œYou and Burr could stay here,” Sophia offered. “I know the
Swan
has sailed, but you don’t have to go north. That wasn’t part of the plan.”
    â€œOf course we will go north with you,” Calixta grumbled. “I certainly won’t stay cooped up like one of Maxine’s pigeons while all of you are merrily rolling into a war zone.”
    â€œThe other concern,” Wren said, “is that the League may have devised additional traps for us. I had not anticipated that they would set a reward for me, much less spread rumors about you and Burr. I am afraid they are proving far more intent on my recapture than I had expected. This being so, they might well have set further obstacles in our path.”
    â€œIt’s decided, then,” Burr said, clapping his hands. “We travelnorth as raiders. Maxine, what do you have for us by way of disguises?”
    She smiled, not a little smugly. “I have everything you might possibly want—and more.”
    They began the transformation in a long room on the ground floor. In the center were tables stacked with boxes, burlap bags, and hay, and the walls were lined with shelves and wardrobes. All manner of strange objects filled them: a plaster statue of a winged horse; the wooden head of a cruelly grinning bearded giant; a stuffed beaver with beady glass eyes. Sophia shuddered inadvertently. “Maxine’s house is a smuggler’s treasure chest,” Burr said, smiling reassuringly. “Sneaking a few pirates out of New Orleans is nothing compared to what she’s already done.”
    â€œI appreciate the compliment, but I believe,” Maxine said, opening one of the wardrobes, “my feats will never match those of my great-grandmother, who smuggled slaves out of New Orleans.”
    Sophia’s eyes opened wide. “She did?”
    â€œTwo hundred and seventy-three of them, over the course of her lifetime. She smuggled all of them to freedom in the north and west, long before the revolt and the formation of New Akan. I come from a long line of smugglers,” she said proudly.
    Burr helped her pull several crates from the wardrobe; they tinkled tellingly as he set them on one of the tables.
    â€œUgh, the
bells
,” Calixta complained. “I had forgotten that in addition to being unwashed and unfashionable, we also have to jangle about like human tambourines.”
    â€œStop your protests,” Burr scolded. “It is most unseemly for a pirate who has built a sizable fortune out of almost nothing and sailed to half a dozen Ages, all the while cheerfully breaking hearts in every port as if they were made of the flimsiest glass. And leaving me, often enough, to pick up the crushed and rather sharp pieces,” he added wryly. “I issue you a challenge: Is it possible to be a comely raider? I propose that it is impossible. Even you, dear sister, cannot transform the raider into an alluring