And when revolution passed, and war came, Falcrest’s naval architects needed a way to defeat Oriati Mbo’s fleets of dromon galleys. If a hwacha could carry hundreds of rocket arrows, each fit to kill a man—could you build a rack of larger rockets, each one equipped to kill a ship?

You could.

Sulane’s prow vanished in a cloud of white sparks. Scylpetaire a moment later. Their rockets fanned across the southern sky like a god’s hand opening.

Airbursts cracked over the keep’s bleak battlements and narrow towers. Caltrops like steel urchins riddled battlements and walkways. Smoke rockets plunged into the main courtyard, shattered the hive-glass in Baru’s morning-room, rolled into the gutter. Choking fog spilled down the rooftops to pool between the walls.

The purple-gauzed windows of the evening room broke the rocket-light into crazy wheeling arcs that refracted through empty wine bottles and glinted off the silver dinner service. Down in the mist below files of robed staff moved in silent discipline. They were carrying books and files to destroy.

“Good grief.” Farrier peeked over the top of the overturned table. “So much for the rest of dinner.”

“Farrier!” Hesychast barked. “There’s no time. If you die here I expect no end of trouble from your vendettas. I have a hidden ship across the Prydoc. Will you sail with me?”

“No. I have my own arrangements.” Farrier seized his arm. “Wait! Cosgrad, this may be the last time we can speak as equals. So. Good luck.”

“Good luck to you,” the eugenicist said, but with a respectful and absolute disgust. They shook hands in the narrow space between their bodies, their fingers clawed, working for advantage in the grip. Hate clung on them like butter. Baru could have drawn a streak in it.

Another brace of rockets shrieked down into the keep, and Baru couldn’t help whirling to look. Her blindness swallowed everyone and she turned back only in time to see Hesychast carry Xate Olake through a hidden door and vanish. Xate Yawa watched him go with pitted eyes.

The secret door clicked behind him. A lock turned. He was gone.

“Wait!” Apparitor cried. “Wait, my ship’s the only way out, you can’t just leave—oh, you unbelievable assholes!”

Farrier seized Baru’s hands. “You won’t need luck,” he said, fervently. “You’re the best student I ever had. Find the Cancrioth. Return proof to Falcrest. If you fail, they will strike, and the war will spare nothing. If you succeed … then everything is yours.”

He looked at her with open eyes beneath hard fortress brows, his face provisioned with the weight of his age: ready to go on, to continue and conclude the work, to prepare his design to receive Baru like a flower opened to a mote of pollen. He had selected her. He had picked her up off the black lava stone and machined her into his weapon.