“Hmm.” He finished the last bite of his fish and set down the backbone. “Let’s try catching Kebes in the spring.”

We walked out of the restaurant and I found myself in a cooler, lilac-scented day. There was a schooner tied up at dock among the fishing boats, the fabled Goodness of course, twin to our Excellence. It gave me a shock to see it. It was missing a mast, and patched on the near side in a lighter-colored wood, but nevertheless immediately recognizable. Ma was captain of the Excellence and I’d practically grown up aboard her, which is how I’d gained my love of sailing. From this angle, looking across to the grey-flecked sea, everything looked simultaneously familiar and bizarre. I now knew exactly where I was in the Lucia I knew, hundreds of miles from the ocean. But in this light, with the waves lapping, beneath a clouded sky, it reminded me much more of the harbor at home. It was almost as if I could have stepped onto the Phaenarete and headed out around the point with Jason and Hilfa.

“That’s his boat,” I said to Hermes as we strolled towards it. Walking in the slightly heavier gravity made me aware of how tired I was. I guessed by the light that it was morning here, but my body knew it was late at night after a busy day. One of the birds was perched on the rail of the ship. It took to the air as we came close.

“Ask if he’s aboard.”

“Is Matthias here?” I called to a sailor. He jerked a thumb backwards to where a burly man in a cap was leaning on the rail, in a stance that reminded me a little of Ma. “Someone for you, Matthias,” he called.

The man, who must be Kebes, met my eyes and straightened into immediate alertness. “No. Not again. Not for anything. Go away. I want nothing more to do with you. Leave me alone!”

“I suspect,” Hermes murmured, “that we had better try earlier.”

10. Crocus

10

CROCUS

I. On the Physical Form of Chamber

Chamber is the first building I remember, and indeed it was the first building in the City. It was built by Workers under the direction of Athene before there were any humans here at all. The first gathering of the Masters, when Athene drew together all those who had prayed to her to allow them to help make the Republic real, took place inside it. I must have been there, and perhaps participated in the construction, but I do not remember. Like everyone else here now, I know because I have been told.