Isaac tried to meet his eye, to murmur some apology, to tell him how sorry he was, but Andrej could not hear him for fear. Isaac turned away, aghast, and Derkhan met his eye and grasped his hand quickly, thankful that someone finally shared her burden.

There was much to be done.

Isaac began his final calculations and preparations.

Andrej squealed through his gag and Isaac looked up at him despairingly.

In curt whispers and brusque expostulations, Isaac explained to Derkhan and Yagharek what he was doing.

He looked over the battered engines in the shack, his analytical machines. He pored over his notes, checking and rechecking his maths, cross-referring them with the sheets of figures the Council had given him. He drew out the core of his crisis engine, the enigmatic mechanism that he had neglected to leave with the Construct Council. It was an opaque box, a sealed motor of interwoven cables, elyctrostatic and thaumaturgic circuits.

He cleaned it slowly, examined its moving parts.

Isaac readied himself and his equipment.

When Pengefinchess returned from some unstated errand, Isaac looked up briefly. She spoke quietly, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. She gathered herself slowly to leave, checked through her equipment, oiling her bow to keep it safe under the water. She asked what had become of Shadrach’s pistol, and clucked regretfully when Isaac told her he did not know.

“A shame. It was a powerful piece,” she said abstractedly, looking out of the window and away. “Charmed. A puissant weapon.”

Isaac interrupted her. He and Derkhan implored her to help once more before she left. She turned and stared at Andrej, seemed to see him for the first time, ignored Isaac’s pleading and demanded to know what in Hell he was doing. Derkhan drew her away from Andrej’s snorts of fear and Isaac’s grim industry, and explained.

Then Derkhan asked Pengefinchess again if she would perform one last task to help them. She could only beg.

Isaac half listened, but he shut his ears quickly to the hissed imploring. He worked instead on the task in hand, the complicated job of crisis mathematics.

Andrej whimpered unceasingly beside him.

Chapter 48

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Just before four o’clock, as they prepared to go, Derkhan embraced Isaac and Yagharek in turn. She hesitated only a moment before holding the garuda close. He did not respond, but he did not pull away either.

“See you at the rendezvous,” she murmured.

“You know what you have to do?” Isaac said. She nodded and pushed him towards the door.

He hesitated now, at the hardest thing. He looked over to where Andrej lay in a kind of exhausted stupor of fear, his eyes glazed and his gag sticky with mucus.

They had to bring him, and he could not raise the alarm.