‘This seems a grand place to meet,’ she says.

I tried to have Ashava suggest a place as the others did, but she refused me, saying that we knew each other well enough already. She bade me choose, and said that she would follow.

‘It is grand,’ I tell her. ‘But it reminds me of the convents.’

‘Of home,’ she says.

I nod, and for a moment we both remain silent, listening to the agony of the Vow as it fights the tides. Everything around us trembles with it in a terrible, asynchronous rhythm. The constant sound of weeping follows us even here, echoing up through the ship’s ventilation systems and spiralling up to the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling.

‘I have never known tides like these,’ Ashava says.

‘Another blame we can lay upon the Great Rift,’ I reply.

‘Surely,’ she says, and then she looks at me. ‘You look troubled, Eva, and I think it is by more than just the tides.’

I glance sidelong at her. ‘I thought this meeting was meant to expose your thoughts, not mine.’

She smiles thinly. ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘I will tell you what I think. I think I understand better why Adelynn chose you.’

I look at her properly, now. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We all of us were fierce. Strong fighters, full of faith. But you have no pretensions, Eva. You stood before us in that chapel and began by admitting your mistakes. That shows humility. It is honest. You have always been that way. That is why Adelynn chose you.’

Honest. Perhaps the word might have fitted me before, but not now. Now I am anything but honest. I am as much made of secrets as I am scars. I very nearly tell Ashava so when she speaks again.

‘You need to have faith in yourself. Adelynn did. I do.’

‘Not Qi-Oh,’ I say, before I can think better of it. ‘I think she finds me a disappointment.’

Ashava shrugs. ‘Save for the God-Emperor Himself, Qi-Oh finds everything a disappointment,’ she says. ‘She is prideful, and closed-minded.’

‘If her mind is so closed, how do I change it?’

‘Challenge her. Fight her. Or be so kind to her that she has no choice but to listen,’ Ashava says. ‘Just do not accommodate her, Eva. Do not allow dis­respect. Adelynn never would have.’

I shake my head. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘She wouldn’t.’

Ashava glances down at my hands, where I am still turning the wax figure.

‘Where did the little eagle come from?’ she asks.

‘Eugenia,’ I say.

‘Ah. Of course.’

‘I thought it would be the others who I struggled with,’ I say. ‘Qi-Oh, certainly. Perhaps Haskia who has lost so much, or Veridia who has forgotten herself. But it is Eugenia that I cannot take. She is so young. So earnest. Hungry to prove herself.’

‘Hmm,’ Ashava says. ‘That sounds like somebody else I know.’

I shoot a look at her. ‘That is poor humour.’