With a start, I realize that he dislikes the way the crowd is enthusiastically shouting for me. Karensans love a show of strength, and I’m making the Premier look weaker by comparison.

Enough, he tells me through our link.

I instinctively pull my wings back. The people let out a chorus of disappointed shouts.

The words of Constantine’s advisor come back to me as I stand here, looking out at the people. They’ve declared independence. I keep scanning the crowds for the smallest sign of dissent, watching for whispers, people with their heads turned away from the scene before them and toward one another. Watching for more signs of the Federation’s weak spots.

At first, it looks like nothing but a sea of cheering people. But then, my keen vision catches a detail here and there. Murmurs. The occasional pair of eyes that dart away the instant the Premier looks in their direction. The odd citizen who does not raise their hands in applause at something the General just said.

I watch each of them as they move away, their frowns of discontent pointing at the Premier when he’s not looking and then away at the rest of the city when he is. I make a mental note of who they are.

Soon the speeches are over, and we are ushered down from the wall and back into a carriage that takes us down another thoroughfare. In the carriage behind us come the Chief Architect and General Caitoman, along with a third one of Constantine’s advisors.

It doesn’t take long to see where we’re headed next. Some distance ahead of us, past the thoroughfare’s row of installations, there is a gap between the displayed artifacts.

Sickness returns to my stomach. Already, the workers that had moved Mara’s pieces off the train are here, followed by giant rolling platforms pulled by teams of horses. The Maran sculptures have arrived, the pieces of the Waterfall each laid neatly out along the ground. Engineers had sent the measurements of the objects well ahead of our train, and I can see that workers have set up proper slots in the earth for the bones of the Waterfall to stand. For the lintel, they’ve set up two beautiful steel pillars at least ten feet high.

The crowds hush, jostling quietly in a wide circle around the garden, as the Premier steps off his carriage and takes his place in front of the installation area. As I look on, his engineers hoist each steel bone of the Waterfall with a series of ropes and pulleys, moving them carefully into place until they slide neatly into their respective slots. Other workers rush to weld each newly installed piece securely in place while the engineers move on to the next. One after another, the Waterfall comes back into existence, until it looks exactly as it did in Mara—only instead of being a sacred place, it is now the art of a conquered land made for the enjoyment of Karensans.