Which only left the problem of ink. So I went back to Bosa and drew blood from her. I told Surt what I needed and after that same hesitation I’d seen in Strambli she convinced herself to come round to my way of thinking as well. Surt showed me to a chemical in the medicine supply that stopped the blood from thickening up too quickly once I’d loaded it into a pen. It flowed nice and steadily then, and didn’t clog up too fast. It wasn’t as good as ink, but it made a permanent mark, and that was all I needed.

‘I’ll take a little blood each time,’ I told Bosa. ‘Not enough to weaken you, but just enough for my purposes. And you may die before I’m done, and if so you’ll have died a good death, all things considered. If Adrana comes back to me, and I’m satisfied that she’s all right, then I’ll give you that good death myself. You won’t suffer.’

‘And if she doesn’t come back to you?’ she asked me, with a sort of distant curiosity.

‘She will,’ I said. ‘She’s my sister, and she’s stronger and better than you ever knew. But if I doubted it, I’d make paper out of you.’

Bosa nodded slowly. ‘It’s good that we’re clear.’

‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘Oh, and by the way, this ship has a new name now.’

‘What is it?’

‘My business, not yours.’

I left her then, and went back to her cabin. The cracked glass globe of Paladin’s head rested before me, still dim, but if I believed anything it was that there were thoughts going on in that glass, and sooner or later he would speak to me again, as he had spoken in Mazarile, because he was a hero of the Twelfth Occupation and I had a feeling history wasn’t quite done with him yet. Call it faith, I suppose, just as I had faith in my sister.