“I didn’t tell her to die for it,” said Mercymorn snappishly. With a sudden clunk, the open door to the shuttle started descending, groaning into place where the ramp had disappeared. It fell into its housing with a ker-chunk. “Her going full atria was perfectly over-the-top. The crew on your horrible flagships are always trying to martyr themselves whenever you so much as ask for an orange juice.”

“I’m telling Sarpedon to give her a commendation,” he said, tapping at his tablet. “That will have to do. It’s not exactly an appropriate thank-you for nearly bleeding out.”

The communicator at the pilot’s chair crackled. The admiral’s voice in question said clearly, “My lord, you’re cleared to leave. We await your word.”

“Loose the clamps,” said the Emperor.

“The clamps are set for release,” said Admiral Sarpedon. Then he cleared his throat and began what you now thought of as the common prayer: “Let the King Undying, ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death, look upon the Nine Houses and hear their thanks—” and from behind him joined in the tinny voices of the entire docking crew: “Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to him…”

You peered over your shoulder at the porthole. The dimmed interior of Docking Bay Fourteen was lightening: they were opening up some outer airlock, and the shuttle itself was travelling on rails as though to be offered to space like a sacrifice. The velvety blackness of the outside world became naked; cold stars burnt in the distance. The Body came to stand next to you all of a sudden, and you had to school yourself not to reach for the hem of her dirty white shift, the pallid dimpled flesh of her calf. You were leaving, for where you did not know, and you did not know how to feel.

Ianthe kept her eyes downcast, modest and pliant, as though this sickening and poorly acted rôle would convince anyone with a brain. She sat with her rapier belted at her hip beneath her robe, raising bumps beneath the mother-of-pearl cloth, and when you caught her gaze beneath those pallid lashes you could see the hot anticipation in her eyes—one blue, one purple—of someone about to be announced for an award. She was deeply excited. That starry, far-off gaze refocused on you, and she whispered coyly: “Should we hold hands, in girlish solidarity?”

At your expression, she puffed away a strand of colourless hair and remarked, “You’re the one who investigated my tonsils.”

Over the prayer still crackling through the speaker grille, Mercy said, “Releasing in thirty,” and the Emperor, “Don’t triangulate. We don’t want to put them in danger. We’ll hold course until the Erebos is out of our radius.”