The antechamber in which Eugenia is being cared for is reserved for those of the Sisterhood. It is small, and spare, and blessedly quieter than the main wards. Nobody here whispers my name. Lourette indicates where Eugenia is resting.

Eugenia is sitting upright in her cot, her head bowed. Her face is patchworked with bruising, her left eye concealed by thick pads of sterile dressing that are taped to her cheek and to her scalp. They have had to cut away a good deal of her hair to do it. More bandages show at the collar of her gown, and around her slender arms.

‘Most of her wounds will heal with time and with treatment,’ Lourette says, in a low voice.

As I watch, Eugenia lifts her hand and moves it from left to right, in and out of her narrowed field of vision.

‘And the eye?’ I ask.

‘It was too badly damaged to save,’ Lourette says. ‘We have replaced it with an augmetic. It is crude, but much kinder than the alternative.’

It is the answer I was expecting, but it settles on me like a penitent’s weight nonetheless. Ashava is discomforted by it too. By the word replace. I can feel it in the way she shifts her weight from one foot to the other as the vox-bead Lourette is wearing pips insistently.

‘I must return to my duties,’ the Sister Hospitaller says.

I nod and thank her. Lourette bows her head and goes, leaving Ashava and me alone with the wounded. With Eugenia.

I approach her cot, slowly. Speak her name. Eugenia’s hand falls away from her bandaged eye, and her face lifts to look for me. She throws back the sheet and stands before I can stop her. Eugenia wavers on her feet, but she does not fall. She salutes me, instead. One bandaged hand over her heart.

‘Sister Superior,’ she says, her hoarse voice carrying the same misplaced awe as the whispers did on the other wards. She looks to Ashava next, and nods. Smiles, as best she can. ‘Sister Ashava,’ she says.

Ashava nods in return. ‘Hello, Geni,’ she says.

Eugenia looks back at me. She does that as best she can, too. Her good eye is so lidded by the bruising that it is almost closed.

‘You broke the monster of mirrors,’ she says. ‘Spared the Navigator.’

I nod. ‘The Navigators Awaiting were killed, but the Lady Oraylis will sail. She will get us clear of the Rift.’

Eugenia nods. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Qi-Oh said as much, when she came to see me.’

I blink. ‘When was she here?’

‘Before the ringing of the bells,’ she says. ‘She told me of the purgation. That she left the lowdecks, though she shouldn’t have.’

‘She told you of Calyth,’ I say.