A sudden crash shook the ship, flinders sprayed through the sterncastle, the great cabin, and chartroom. Isabelle dashed inside and stopped in horror. The orrery was smashed, ripped completely from its pedestal. The emergency valves had slammed shut, and no aether leaked, but she’d lost the inflection point … unless she found another fixed point to steer by.

No, Primus said. The time has come to surrender while you still can.

Be quiet. Isabelle splashed at him and scrambled through the room picking up her navigational tools: sextant, triangle tables, timepiece.

Enough of your foolishness, Primus snapped. You claim to value evidence and reason. If so you must know you have lost. You must live and regroup. You are valuable as a hostage—

Suddenly his memory was beside her in her head, seizing control of her limbs. Her instruments clattered to the deck and she collapsed to her knees.

Isabelle grabbed him and hauled him into the everdream. We don’t have time for this.

You are correct, he said. We don’t have time. If you don’t surrender now, your foes will down this ship. Yield to me and I will save you.

No, Isabelle insisted. What had made him this way? She threw herself into his memories, entangled with his descendants through scores of lives and hundreds of years. She strode with him across battlefields and through the wide marble court of the great senate in Om. With him she plotted the conquests of nations, the sacks of cities, the ruin of enemies. And always his need was the same. He must have power. He needed control.

She found herself in a villa. A great mosaic floor ran the length of the hall and the call of shorebirds echoed down the pillared corridor, but it could not drown out the sound of sobbing, of screaming. Mother was there. Mother, who laughed with him and held him when the night terrors came. Mother, whose plumage was swan white with tips of black. And Father was there. Father, who led the army, who was master of the fleet. Father, who beat Mother with a rod of steel, covered in hooked barbs that tore out her feathers and left her bloody with every blow.

“This is my house!” he screamed. “My city, and there is nothing in it that does not belong to me. I will do with you as I wish.”

“Stop!” Primus wailed, terrified, scampering on short legs to get between his parents. “Father, please stop!”

But his father’s rage towered like a storm cloud. “Do not tell me what to do!” He swatted Primus aside with the club. “You belong to me, too, boy, and don’t you ever forget it. I am the master, and if you ever think otherwise, my scourge will remind you.”

His mother’s funeral was very well attended. Everyone was sorry for his father’s loss. How tragic and unexpected.