I grab hold of the front of his jacket. ‘She is alive,’ I tell him, my voice low and urgent. ‘She has been, all of this time. Sofika is here, aboard the Vow. If you do not let me go to her, she will die.’

Zoric starts to speak again, but I don’t let him. I can’t.

‘It’s the truth, Danil,’ I tell him. ‘I swear it.’

Yumia’s eyes are wide. ‘This is delirium,’ she says. ‘The blood loss.’

Zoric doesn’t answer her. Doesn’t look at her. He keeps his eyes fixed on mine, searching. Then he shakes his head, his pale eyes glassy.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Sofika is alive.’

The corridor that leads to Sofika’s chambers is just like the others. Fouled with blood and shell casings and broken, lifeless bodies. Zoric helps me pick my way through it. I can hardly stand without him now and my breathing is short and shallow, but neither of those things stop me from trying to fight free of him when we get close enough to see that the bulkhead door is locked partway open, false starlight spilling out from inside.

‘Mia,’ Zoric says. ‘Check the chamber is clear.’

She nods, without looking at him or me. She hasn’t since she found out the truth. Yumia approaches the chamber silently, her rope darts held in her hands like knives. She crosses the threshold without a sound, disappearing into the starlit dark.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Let me go.’

But Zoric doesn’t, no matter how much I fight him, so I stop struggling and just wait for what feels like minutes before Yumia speaks again.

‘Clear,’ she says.

Zoric eases his grip on me and then helps me the rest of the way to the door. Yumia is standing stock-still inside, surrounded by the still forms of dead crewmen and vassals. I barely even spare a glance for them, or for her. My eyes go straight to Sofika.

‘Throne,’ Zoric says, softly.

My dream-taker is still, and silent, coiled in the pipes and cables of her machine. Tiny speckles of blood paint her pale skin with a pattern like stars.

‘Sofi,’ I say, and I shrug free of Zoric’s grip. This time, he doesn’t try to stop me.

Despite my shallow lungs and my numb legs I make it most of the way across the chamber before I have to stop. This time it’s not because I’m dizzy. It’s because one of the bodies at the base of Sofika’s machine moves. Breathes. Speaks.

‘S-stop,’ Efrayl says, holding up the pistol I gave him in shaking hands.

‘Efrayl,’ I say raggedly. ‘It’s me.’

‘Ahri?’ he says.

I nod. ‘Ahri.’