I SEE IT ALL. THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE. THE GRIEFSTRUCK WORKMAN. ARTHRITIS. PROSTATE CANCER OF WHICH HE WAS UNAWARE.

“Do you have the blasting plan?”

I HAVE ALL THE BLASTING PLANS. I HAVE HIS KNOWLEDGE.

“Good.”

HE KNOWS THE ONE KNOWN AS PEARL. I SENSE RESPECT. AND FEAR. AND A MEASURE OF AWE.

“We’re not worried about Pearl.” Sorago pauses. Candlefly isn’t concerned. Mookie Pearl is a thug. Just like Spall or Lutkevich. He’s a pawn in a game he doesn’t even understand. Unless… “Should we be worried about him?”

On this, the Vollrath is silent. It pulls away from the corpse of Davey Morgan and hovers there behind, rippling in a non-existent wind.

WE HAVE WHAT WE REQUIRE.

Sorago hesitates. “Good. Then if you’ll excuse me.”

He kneels down by the body, plunges his fangs into the dead man’s neck, and begins to drink in great coppery gulps. As the blood slides down the back of his leathery throat, he already feels the warmth of his stomach wound begin to tingle and itch.

And ultimately, heal.

Candlefly paces.

He opens and closes the blade of a cigar cutter again and again, each time imagining Mookie Pearl’s nose, thumb, or balls getting snipped.

But once in a while Ernesto’s mind wanders and he imagines his own flesh inside the cigar cutter’s razor mouth – this is his fault, isn’t it? He thought to dismiss Pearl. Just some thug. Twice now he’s disrupted their plans – a child kicking over a sandcastle. He stopped them from taking the knowledge from Davey Morgan’s brain. And now? He thwarted the attack on Daisypusher.

Which means they don’t have the Ochre.

Which means…

He cannot abide that thought.

Renata will be gravely disappointed in him. She will tell the children. Oscar won’t understand. But Adelina, she is a cruel girl, in her way. Like Mookie’s own.

His wife is not a Candlefly, not by birth, and the others will laugh at him. They will mock his ambitions. Ambitions they expect him to serve alone.

A spike of anger at that: the families want him to fail. They expect him to do this alone. They don’t understand what’s at stake. They believe him incapable.

He’ll show them.

He receives a text from Sorago:

It is done.

There. One part of the puzzle down.

He does not do this “texting” thing – so instead he just dials Sorago.

“The attack on Daisypusher failed,” Sorago says.

“Yes, I’m well-aware. The Vollrath here know all.”

“We should have sent them. I should’ve gone. Let me go still–”

“No. I’ll need you here soon. Take Sirin and Sarnosh. Find the girl. I have a new idea.”

“The girl.”

“Nora Pearl. Find Nora Pearl.”

On the run. Hungry. Tired.