A bomb had exploded, not far away. Lord Chrism got slowly to his feet and walked out to the edge of the balcony. The sky was almost dark. Clouds of smoke reeled over the rooftops. The old man sniffed the air. “It smells like gunpowder,” he said. “Come in.”

A captain of the purge was standing hesitating in the doorway. He was holding the feet of a dead hawk—the bird stretched snowy white almost to the floor. “Sir,” he said. “A message from Father Orison, with the army. Aspe has moved his tent. He’s not ten miles from the city walls.”

“Thank you, Captain. What’s the fighting like outside?”

“Fierce, sir. We’re holding them at Slaver’s Gate.”

“Thank you. Is everything prepared?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let us start.” Lord Chrism lifted his hand up to his disciple. “Will you help me downstairs?”

Men were already waiting for them in the Courtyard of the Sun and Stars. Soldiers had built a pyramid of wood. And on marble bleachers all around, the council of the Inner Ear sat in their richest clothes. The oldest, deadest ones had been propped up on golden cushions along the higher seats, their headdresses slipping from their naked skulls. Farther down, the priests were mountainous, gorgeous in their scarlet robes, the gaslight shining on their fat. Seminarians and nuns sat cross-legged on the tilestones, with scared, shaved faces and shaved heads.

Through the fingers of the council writhed their telepathic cord. It hummed and crackled, and as the bishop made her appearance it seemed to glow, a ribbon of light snaking between the seats. There was a clamor of voices. At the four corners of the pyre, soldiers held torches.

The bishop stood surrounded by parsons at the end of a long colonnade of soldiers, and Lord Chrism met her there and offered her his arm. Bombs and fireworks burst above them in the darkening sky, and by their intermittent light she appeared pale, dressed in her simplest white shift, her black curls tangled around her shoulders, her beauty undisturbed.

“You have been found guilty of an imperfection, my child,” said Lord Chrism gently. “A chemical impurity.”

She nodded, and with slow ceremonial steps, in rhythm to the drumbeats of a hidden orchestra, they made their way down towards the pyre. In his most spidery voice, Chrism recited the invocation for the dead, and in their solemn progress, they stopped from time to time to receive offerings and blessings from the priests, and sprinklings of holy vinegar, and invitations to parties up in Paradise. But before they had progressed halfway, the council’s ribbon seemed to glow even brighter, because a change could be perceived in the bishop’s gait and she seemed to move hunched over, her hands hanging to her knees.