Two nights they walked the streets, behind Ori, who stopped and stared at all the graffiti. Each night they did not find Spiral Jacobs, Qurabin’s distress became animal. Toro would trace a finger along Spiral’s marks, find signs, nod and lower his head, shove and be gone for long minutes, and then would return and shake his head: No, no sign.

Once he could not find him; once he found him but in the farthest north of the city, in the quiets of Flag Hill, scrawling his marks, unafraid of Ori as ever. There was no way for the others to get to him. Ori tracked Spiral Jacobs around the city, but until he came back to the Dog Fenn chapter, he could only be reached by Ori, who could do nothing alone.

Each day they had to live knowing the agent of the city’s destruction was walking free, that they could not touch him. They tried where they could to protect the streets of the Collective. From the river’s shores they saw a fight between two trains traveling alongside on the Dexter Line, a Collectivist and a militia, shooting into each other’s windows as they went.

There was a lightning raid by dirigibles scattering leaflets. PEOPLE OF THE SO-CALLED "COLLECTIVE," they said. THE GOVERNMENT OF MAYOR TRIESTI WILL NOT TOLERATE THE MASS-MURDER AND CARNAGE YOU HAVE UNLEASHED ON NEW CROBUZON. AFTER THE OUTRAGE OF THE BARRACKHAM TOWER ALL CITIZENS NOT ACTIVELY SEEKING ESCAPE ARE DEEMED COMPLICIT IN THE DESPICABLE POLICIES OF YOUR COMMITTEES. APPROACH THE MILITIA WITH HANDS CLEAR AND UP, HALLOOING YOUR SURRENDER, and so on.

The third night. There they were, on the streets, with hundreds of Collectivists, a last wave of mobilizations, of every race. Little snips of magic, prestidigitation of light, chromathaumaturgy sending up pretences of birds made of radiance. The rebels made the night a carnival, as it had once been.

Everywhere people were running, according to news of a militia incursion, a moment’s panic, a rumour, a nothing at all. They drank, ate whatever repulsive food had been mustered or smuggled through the militia’s cordon. There was a millennial sense. Drinkers toasted Judah and Toro and Cutter and the others as they walked under half-lit gaslamps, raised mugs of poteen and beer and cheered the passersby in the name of the Collective.

Qurabin was moaning. Low but always audible.

"Something’s happening," Cutter said to no one.