‘I mean to ask you something,’ she says, and she glances at the crowds of people. All silent. All watching. ‘They mean to ask, too. But they don’t. They won’t.’

‘Ask me what?’

She looks down at the candle in her hand. The flame is weak and flickering, the wick burned nearly away. ‘For a miracle,’ she says.

‘What is your name?’ I ask.

She looks up from her candle. ‘Kati,’ she says.

‘For Katherine?’ I ask.

She nods.

‘That is a good name,’ I tell her. ‘The name of our saint. She was brave, and she was strong. Full of faith.’

‘Like you?’ Kati asks.

‘I am not a saint,’ I tell her.

She shakes her head. ‘The others said you were,’ she says. ‘They said that your marks came from the God-Emperor. They said that you would deliver us from the abyss. That it would be a miracle.’

My scars burn, as if they know they are being spoken of.

‘My scars did come from the God-Emperor,’ I tell her. ‘But I cannot perform miracles, Kati. Nor am I a saint. Saints are martyred. They die and live again, by His grace.’

Kati looks at me, her dark eyes catching the firelight.

‘Then what are you?’ she asks.

Something left behind, I think. Something hollow. But I can say neither of those things to this child who wears my scars by choice, so instead I give Kati the only truth I have.

‘I am a child of the God-Emperor,’ I say. ‘Just like you.’

Kati blinks and nods. She glances once more at the candle in her hands. ‘Then you can’t deliver us from darkness,’ she says.

I go to one knee, then reach out and put my hand on her shoulder. She really is just skin and bones beneath that woven jacket.

‘We will find our way out soon enough,’ I tell her. ‘You will see.’

‘You promise?’ she asks.

Once again, I give the child the only answer I can.

‘I promise.’

A chill wind stirs the candle in Kati’s hand, then. It pulls at the weak, tiny flame, snuffing it out. I hear her whimper as the other candles in the chamber all blow out, too, plunging the vaulted space into darkness. I start to tell the child not to move. To stay with me. But my voice is stolen by an ear-splitting roar that sounds like a whole choir of devils. It is so loud that I can hardly hear the people scream as the deck flexes and bucks beneath us and objects made invisible by the darkness crash down all around us. I cannot see. Cannot hear anything but the roaring. So I take the child into my arms and I hold her tightly and I murmur words that are as lost to the noise as the screams.

‘God-Emperor,’ I say. ‘Deliver us from darkness.’