“We have no time for scarification,” One told me when I stood up, her tone neutral.

I would only scar my hand for someone I knew personally; these bones were a stranger’s. Strange that the Indigo Minister should be so familiar with Kystrene traditions, but not the Ultraviolet.

There were more bones on the floor as we walked, though I managed not to put my foot into any this time. Glimpsing the things underfoot, I could not tell how many bodies were in the hall, how many men or women had died here a thousand years ago.

One halted the line again at an intersection in the hallways. She shone her flashlight down one way, then the other, then on the walls at the fork until the beam rested over faded old Ameng letters engraved into the walls. “Read the signs, Mr. Wren.”

I looked up at the nearly-invisible lettering. “What am I looking for?”

“Just read the signs.”

“Well, are we going directly to the data, or are we going to sightsee?”

“Mr. Wren.” One sounded impatient, if a force of nature could be impatient. “The sun is days away from going nova, which will destroy this ship and everything on it, including us. We are not going to sightsee. We are going directly to Mara Zhu’s office. If you continue to waste my time, I will reconsider your limited use to me.”

Mara Zhu’s office? Is that where the Philosopher Stone data was stored?

“Fine,” I said, and squinted up at the sign overhead. I couldn’t decide whether one of the letters was an a or an s. It was an a, I was sure of it. Captain’s—four? Captain’s… “Captain’s rooms,” I said. “Captain’s quarters, that way.”

“And this way?” One asked, her flashlight beam steady on the ancient script over her head.

“It would be easier for me to read if I had a flashlight,” I said. “When someone holds a flashlight it moves without them noticing, as they breathe or look around, right? That’s why it’s so hard to look at a flashlight someone else is holding, because it’s moving a little all the time.”

One’s flashlight beam was perfectly steady, preternaturally still. Her violet gaze was expressionless. Then she reached up and tapped something in deep blue on her collar-light.

Movement beside me in shadow; the Indigo Minister placed something hard and cool in my hand. The metal surface of one of the flashlights I’d packed. I flicked it on, head bent to conceal my surprise. I wondered if I could convince One to give Benny and Quint flashlights, too.

“Read it, Mr. Wren,” One said, in that ancient cold voice of hers, and I looked at the words my flashlight had revealed.

“A path over water,” I said, then, “The bridge. That path leads to the ship’s bridge.”

“Very good, Mr. Wren,” One said, and started down the hall towards the captain’s quarters. For a second I thought I saw something move in the shadows towards the bridge—just a flicker. Just a shadow. When I turned my flashlight back that way, however, there was nothing there.