During the third warp jump, the Unbroken Vow’s training halls and corridors and hangar decks are repurposed as refuge halls and holding pens and makeshift hospitaller’s wards. People pack into them as if they are seeking sanctuary, though there is nowhere to go to escape the storm. They lay out bedrolls and build temporary altars for prayer. They huddle around snapped and twisted candles, their hands outstretched for warmth and for any kind of light.

As I walk through what was once the tertiary training hall with Ashava and Qi-Oh, I see Order vassals and armourers. Priests and serfs. Ship’s crew whose responsibilities disappeared when the lower decks were breached. I see the old and the young. Those who are alone, and the rare but inevitable families that arise when an old ship is served by the same crew for long enough. Some are wounded. Some are dying. All are desperate. They huddle together, wrapped in blankets and jackets because the temperature is falling with each passing hour. There is little talking, so the chamber resounds to the groaning of the Vow’s tormented structure, and her labouring engines. To the sounds of murmured prayer, and of weeping. As I pick my way carefully through the crowd, I hear my name whispered amongst the prayers, though I never catch sight of those speaking it. It seems to surround me, like the wind might. Follow me, like smoke might follow fire.

Evangeline, they say. Evangeline.

‘Eva,’ I hear Ashava say softly. ‘Look.’

I look where she is looking, and I see them. Dozens of people in amongst the crowd, watching me. In the dim and wending candlelight I see that they have all painted their faces with chalk or blood or dirt. The old and the young. Those who are alone, and those who are not. They all wear the same markings.

Spread wings, around hollow eyes.

‘This is idolatry,’ Qi-Oh says in a low voice.

Ashava shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘This is hope.’

At her words, one of the marked figures slips through the crowd and approaches me. It is a girl, too young to be of the crew. Too young to be without a family. She seems tiny to me. Just skin and bones, wrapped up in an outsized tunic and trousers and a Navy jacket that is larger still. Her pale brown hair is cut roughly, as if by hand, and her feet are bare and bruised. She is holding a single, unlit candle in her hand. I can hardly stand to look at it. At her.

‘Sister Evangeline,’ she says, her words misting the air.

The Vow seems to quiet itself at her words. The marks on the girl’s face are smeared and smudged. Between the streaks of ash, her eyes are dark and wide. Intent on me. I crouch down in front of the child as Qi-Oh and Ashava continue the patrol ahead of me.

‘Speak,’ I tell her. ‘Please.’