Yumia frowns too, the expression limited by the long, deep cut that runs across her face from her chin to her nose. Her left eye is half-closed by blood and swelling. She extends her hand to me, offering my second sabre as I tear a ragged strip of fabric from my tunic and wind it around my waist.

‘How did you break it, lord?’ she asks. ‘The spell?’

I think of my father pulling me to my feet. Of his words.

You know better than anyone just how real dreams can be.

‘I don’t know,’ I tell them, pulling the fabric tight and tying it.

The sound of boots approaching on the deck pulls my attention back the way we came.

‘By His watchful eyes,’ Yumia says absently.

I follow her stare to see Sister Evangeline and her squad approaching through the smoke. The Battle Sisters are bloodied and limping, their vestments torn and burned, their armour splintered and split along the seams. Sister Eugenia is unable to stand unsupported. The youngest Sister’s face is cut deeply. Deeply enough for sinews to show through the blood.

‘You banished it,’ I say. ‘The mirror-thing.’

Sister Evangeline nods. Her scars are stark against the blood and ash on her face, as if nothing can conceal or dull them.

‘The Navigators?’ Sister Evangeline asks.

‘All dead,’ I say. ‘Save for the Novator Primus.’

As if my words are what causes it, the ship yaws violently like a boat in a storm. I barely keep my feet. Pipes burst in the walls, and a massive fracture opens across the length of the deck. The superstructure creaks and groans and my stomach turns as the Vow goes into something like a formless freefall and every­thing starts to slide sideways.

‘The Chamber of Sail,’ Sister Evangeline says. ‘Quickly!’

We run through the destruction together, the deck twisting and tilting. Cracks start to spread up the walls, along the ceiling. Water and steam flood in, in equal measure. Air hisses out.

‘She isn’t whispering any more,’ Zoric says to me as we run. ‘The Novator Primus.’

I realise he is right. Over the sound of the Vow creaking and crying and tearing itself apart I hear no whispers. No pleas from beyond the last set of graven doors.

Just silence.

Evangeline

EVANGELINE