“My first forays down this route were to look at the various things that fly without wings. Now, I’ll spare you the details of my schemes. Most of the plans are . . . here, if you’re interested. A subcutaneous self-inflating mini-dirigible; a transplant of mutant wind-polyp glands; integrating you with a flying golem; even something as prosaic as teaching you basic physical thaumaturgy.” Isaac indicated the notes on each of these plans as he mentioned them. “All unworkable. Thaumaturgy’s unreliable and exhausting. Anyone can learn some basic hexes, given application, but constant countergeotropy on demand would take a damn sight more energy and skill than most people have got. Do you have powerful sortilege in the Cymek?”

Yagharek shook his head slowly. “Some whispers to call prey to our claws; some symbols and passes that encourage bones to knit and blood to clot: that is all.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. So best not to rely on that. And trust me when I tell you that my other . . . er . . . offbeat plans were unworkable.

“So I’ve been spending all my time working on stuff like this, and getting nowhere, and I realized that whenever I stop for a minute or two and just have a think, the same thing comes into my head. Watercræft.”

Yagharek frowned, drawing his already heavy brows into an overhanging crag of almost geological aspect. He shook his head to show his confusion.

“Watercræft,” Isaac repeated. “You know what that is?”

“I have read something of it . . . The skill of the vodyanoi . . .”

“Bang on, old son. You’ll see the dockers doing it sometimes, in Kelltree or Smog Bend. A whole gang of them can shape quite a bit of the river. They dig holes in the water down to where spilt cargoes lie on the bottom, so the cranes can hook them. Fucking amazing. In rural communities they use it to cut trenches of air through rivers, then drive fish into them. They just fly out of the flat side of the river and flop onto the ground. Brilliant.” Isaac pursed his lips in appreciation. “Anyway, these days it’s mostly just used to arse about, make little sculptures. They have little competitions and whatnot.

“The point is, Yag, that what you’ve got there is water behaving very much as it shouldn’t. Right? And that’s what you want. You want heavy stuff, this thing here, this body—” he poked Yagharek gently in the chest “—to fly. Are you with me? Let’s turn our minds to the ontological conundrum of persuading matter to break habits of aeons. We want to make elements misbehave. This isn’t a problem of advanced ornithology, it’s philosophy.