The world collapsed to a spark, all while he was coiled and compressed until thought’s whirlpool became a slow sludge spinning downward toward a drain. Curled inside Abelard’s cigarette, Lord Kos had been a flame quivering on the wick of a single soul.

But the more you work for her, the more you set us all at risk. Tara says, and Bede says, if you support her, Craftsmen will use that against you. Break you. Seize control of the city. You might die. Seril has to stand alone, or fail.

If there was a change in the God, he did not feel it. The city’s many voices receded, and he heard his own again, praying.

The God wanted to know what he thought. Not Bede. Not Tara. Him.

They know the market, Abelard prayed reluctantly. They know how the world works, and the Craft. They know the risks. I trust them.

The flame danced within its wire throne.

But do we trust each other?

*   *   *

“It’s strange,” Daphne said when the balloon reached its intended altitude. She bent over the basket’s edge and looked down upon the tops of skyscrapers and jagged streets, as if a drunken civil engineer had broken a case of matchsticks with a hammer, then dropped the pieces on a map. “The sky’s so clear.”

“It’s dirty,” Ramp replied. “Smog and smoke and steam and fumes. Though the god does give them a sustainable power source, at least.”

“I don’t mean the air,“Daphne said. “I mean the sky. No spires. No optera. No airbuses or blimps or platforms. We’re all alone. We’re all alone!” she shouted out to the north, and “Alone!” to the south, but neither horizon answered. Her words didn’t echo. They were too high up for that.

“All in good time,” Ramp said. She reclined on the nest of cushions she’d made in the basket, and paged through this week’s Thaumaturgist. A teacup lifted itself to her lips. “Be patient, and be ready.”

31

31

Glyph-lines burned around the door of the Dream’s refrigerated hold. Cat climbed down a rope ladder; Raz dropped in straight-legged, and rolled his shoulders, producing a drum line of pops and cracks. “Do I have to sign in blood?” he asked. “Naked, dancing under a full moon?”

“I wouldn’t complain.”

He smiled halfway but didn’t rise to the joke.

“Ink’s fine,” she said.

“Do you have a pen? I left mine in my other pants.”

She produced a ballpoint from her pocket; the white barrel glowed in the shadows. He reached for it. She did not offer it to him.

“So that’s why you wanted to come down here,” he said. “Privacy.”

“We need to talk.”

He spread his arms. “Cat, we each have our own problems. When we’re close, those problems get mangled together. Best to back away.”