Isabelle stood on the quarterdeck, enjoying the rolling surge of the ship and the air scrubbed clean of the fetid smells of the city. The Towering Coast carried Rocher Royale slowly away south while the Thunderclap set a course as near to northeast as the wind allowed. A fleet of gulls accompanied them some way out, their harsh cries an accent on the creak of the timbers and the hiss of the wind.

Having achieved free sky, Isabelle summoned Vrain, Bitterlich, and Jean-Claude to the passengers’ quarters, a room she had subdivided off the great cabin. Quill had been put to bed. He’d looked absolutely wretched when Bitterlich had brought him on board, and he looked even worse now. His bruises had expanded their reach, spreading across his face in a purple wave.

“I understand you have something to tell us. Revelations you failed to make plain to l’impératrice, or do you wish to claim infirmity?” Would he speak of Pyros, Hasdrubal, or both?

Quill winced and sat up slowly, the difficulty of his tremors compounded by the pain of his beating. “Infirmity is not a valid excuse for ignoring the Builder’s work.”

The rest of Isabelle’s invitees crowded in. Isabelle stood, so nobody sat save Quill. His sky trunk had been secured, but not before he’d removed from it a green notebook embossed on its face with the sigil of Saint Gossamer, patron saint of gardeners.

“So you come before us in the Builder’s service,” Isabelle said. “Is this Temple business that you withheld from us before?”

“I serve Enlightenment in the Builder’s name,” Quill said. “I disagree with the Temple’s ruling sect as to how Enlightenment is to be obtained, and by whom.”

Quill picked up the notebook and buffed the leather face as if it had acquired a smudge. “This is Prince Lael’s notebook. After Burning Night, while the rest of the city recovered from its convulsions, I did what I could to preserve the usurper’s philosophical works from destruction.”

“In other words, you pillaged his library,” Jean-Claude said.

“‘Looted,’ I believe, is the correct term,” Quill said. “There was no force involved on my part.” He opened the book and started leafing through it. “Prince Lael was a traitor and a usurper, but before either of those things he was a scholar and a natural philosopher. Never in his quest for the power that was denied him did he fail to take notes of what he saw. His journals are quite extensive and his eye for detail quite good. His worst habit, from a scholarly point of view, was drawing conclusions from insufficient evidence and making invalid comparisons based on superficial data.”

“So what did he discover that you think is so important?” Jean-Claude asked.

Quill made a sour face. “If you will let me finish.”

Isabelle shook her head at Jean-Claude and he subsided.