“The Cancrioth,” he said. “That’s what you’ve been sent to find, right? Yeah, I’ve got bad news. I think the Cancrioth is one of our deception missions. Useful bogeymen. That’s all.”

Baru’s mind was so awhirl and her right arm so shot through with cold sick threads of pain which seemed to wrap up around her throat and jaw and down her tongue that she could barely even muster a lie. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said weakly.

“Of course you don’t.” He sighed and took someone’s proferred wineglass. “The three of you, Durance and Apparitor and yourself, aren’t meant to find the Cancrioth. You’re just supposed to rampage around causing diplomatic incidents.”

“But the ship—the Prince implied—”

“The Prince, virtue bless them, is eager to blame every possible cause for war on ancient cancer cults. A convenient lie for them, that’s all.”

But that can’t be, Baru thought. Hesychast believes in them, Farrier believes in them, and I have gambled everything on their power …

A shout from the deck stopped Baru from any further confusion, panic, or bodily agony: a shout picked up and repeated all across the ship.

“SAILS ON THE PROW! SAILS HO!”

Baru bolted up onto the maindeck. Apparitor was already there. “It’s Sulane,” he said, grimly. “She’s circled ahead of us. It’s time.”

*   *   *

HELBRIDE’S crew ran up Cheetah’s diplomatic flags.

Sulane came at them from the bow, running perpendicular to the wind, tossing slightly in rough surf. She looked very small in the sea, small and outrageously red, like a bloody splinter in the snow: but she grew so quickly as she came. Baru imagined the stabilizers of her hwachas and rocket batteries flexing on their springs, steadying the gunnery crews, keeping their instruments trained on Helbride, so rich with paper and canvas and things that burnt.

Apparitor chewed his lower lip into blisters with worry. “We’ll be fine,” Baru assured him. “It’ll work.”

“I’m not afraid of Sulane,” he muttered. “She’ll kill us or she won’t. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“Then what?”

“Iraji hasn’t passed out this often since the last time we did work in the south.”

“Is it stress?”

“No,” Apparitor said, but he was interrupted by Tau-indi’s arrival.

“Your Federal Highness.” Apparitor bowed and kissed Tau-indi’s hand. “Thank you for coming aboard.”

“Your Excellence, I could not be more charmed. How is Lindon?”

“Very well,” Apparitor said, though he clearly worried otherwise. “Will Xate Yawa be joining us?”

“I’m here,” Yawa said, appearing from below in a simple peasant’s dress. She looked down at the laman with deep unease. Baru wasn’t sure if she disliked lamen, or Oriati, or Princes. Probably, she thought, it was Princes.