An attempt to touch or speak to Eva was not forth-coming. The half-dragon's attention flicked back and forth between the sailors who were too busy securing cargo and readying the [i]Sapphire[/i] for her voyage. As the lean, reclusive woman leaned her hip against the railing, she began to play a mental game that helped pass the time. In her line of work there was a lot of waiting. Waiting for guards to pass, waiting for a mark to arrive, waiting for the delivery of her money. The game was simple. She would look at a person and try to guess to the best of her ability how she would strike if they were a mark. What valuables could she see, and what might they be concealing in their clothes? How would she escape them? How would she fight them? It was a grim or even morbid contemplation, but she liked to think that it kept her sharp, helped her avoid attachments. 

Serendi was in the process of wondering if an angular bulge in the back pocket of a particularly rude-looking sailor was a cigar case or a shard-powered pistol when a flash of something bright red caught her attention. Tilting her horned head slowly, she watched Eva scribble something down in a book, a journal more likely, and then tuck it away again. It was curious that Serendi hadn't noticed the hidden object before. The Game still on her mind, she couldn't help turn those thoughts on Eva. She suspected that apart from the arrogant boatswain, the human girl was likely the only other person on deck carrying an unwise amount of money. She looked like a girl from a wealthy family. Perhaps she would find jewelry on her. She suspected the girl would be easy to rob, likely too shocked by the act to put up much of a fight, too demure of personality to make much fuss, and she didn't look like she had any kind of martial skill. It was all guesswork, and as usual the shadow-weaver didn't expect to ever have a chance to discover if her assumptions were correct.

Not that she actually intended to do any such thing, though the callous mindset was reflected in her silver eyes. Her black eyebrow twitched up as Eva passed her by, but she did not follow her or comment. A few moments later there was a barely perceptible whine and the constant thrum of energy from belowdecks tripled. 

They were under way at last, drifting out on the salty waves until they were clear of the docks. The blue and silver sails stretched tautly above filled with wind and the deck gave a forward lurch, a shift that was repeated a moment later as the vessel began to rise. Water glittered and streamed from the hull back down to the surface of the sea as the Sapphire took to the skies, a marvel of wind-power and the combined might of magic and clockwork engineering. 

Serendi reached up to curl her fingers around a single rope of the rigging, looking out across the horizon as it sank below the railings, replaced by fluffy white clouds.

Down in the stuffy darkness, hot and full of the repetitive clunks and whirrs and steamy blastings of the ship's workings, Eva had yet to be discovered. Voices muttured secretively through a vent into a neighbouring room, partially obscurred by the noise of the engines.

"...dangerous this time of year."

"The [i]Kingfisher[/i] never made it to port. I hard it was pirates..."

"...it was a bad idea to take on so much cargo. And two women...that's bad luck!"

"Well, only one woman. The other one is nothing but a dragon-bitch..."

There was a reason that the engines were not being watched during the launch. The crew in charge with such a task were loitering, gossiping like fish-wives at a market.