"That is, indeed my name. So very glad you're literate. And it doesn't, no," Alice said, folding her arms. She didn't look shaken by the use of her name. She knew she'd just sent him about five dozen photographs, all with her name attached - any tuppenny half-wit charlatan in the back alleys could have repeated her surname back at her.

But something about his voice made her blood run cold, and her hands itch for the shiv she'd tucked under her apron string.

"Anyone else would be trying to learn about this city, or looking for a way back or how to deal with their rather grotesque shadows," she continued, puffed with bravado. "But you're interested in a run down old ship."