“Give me a minute to square this lot away,” he said, and turned to his crew. Even angry, Raz moved beautifully—perhaps a particular grace emerged from his anger. The crew scattered before him like goats before a lion. Bounty’s early evening business took less time to settle than she expected, probably due to the fact that Raz was three, four times faster than most humans. He blurred around the edges.

“Let’s go,” he said when he was done.

She passed him the scroll, which he skimmed as they walked over. “I don’t understand this.”

“Tara says if we took the Dream under Coulumbite authority, we can’t wake up the people in her hold. If we claimed her under a different authority”—with a meaningful nod toward the new-risen moon—“we can wake them, just like that. But since you were involved, you need to sign.”

He reread the scroll, examined it front and back. “Okay.”

“Any questions?”

“Do whatever you want, and justify it later if you don’t like the consequences. Sounds like your kind of plan.”

“That was beneath you,” she said. Dream’s gangplank was down. She climbed first, and he followed her. The cry came: “Captain on deck!” The skeleton who’d given it saluted them with a clatter of finger bone against skull.

Raz returned the salute. “Come on. Let’s finish this.”

*   *   *

Abelard joined vigil early. Outside the sanctum window, the blued sky deepened to black. Around him, the Sanctum of Kos Everburning beat like a heart. Hydraulic fluid pulsed through pumps. Steam sang down pipes. He lit incense in the Everburning Flame and knelt before the chromed altar with hands outstretched. Firelight glazed the faces of long-dead saints, women and men of faith who’d raised Alt Coulumb from river mouth port to metropolis, who’d shed their blood for God, who’d let the Lord’s heat work through them. As a novice, he dreamed of following their path.

Some felt he had.

He had been convenient to God back then, that was all.

But he could earn his place.

His voice framed the prayer. He’d knelt here so often the words seemed to speak themselves. These days he struggled to keep his heart in the ceremony, to feel the ritual as praise rather than a series of rehearsed steps.

Tonight the words formed as they should: Glory to You, Ever-burning, Ever-transforming—and within them he framed his appeal.

We need to talk.

The world around him took fire, and he was lifted.