But the volcano’s erupted gore splashed into the sea and made the kypra, a maze of atolls, reefs, and islands. In time life returned. The Jellyfish Eaters had passed into history, and the kypra became Kyprananoke.

“Too bad about the school,” Baru said, with true regret. “If we had their library, we could know some of how the world lived before Incrasticism.” She could test the truth of claims about the Jellyfish Eaters’s downfall: could it be blamed on their way of life, their unsanitary practices?

“Oh, the library survived,” Apparitor said, looking at her with that cunning baited smile. “Four of the Liturges fled before the eruption, warned by the jellyfish. They stole as much of the library as they could. Afterwards they made a deal with the gray-haired Scyphu families to reestablish Tiatro Tsun. Kyprananoke kept its archives and great school until not sixty years ago.”

“What then?”

“Incrasticism came upon them, of course,” Apparitor said, “and the scholars and archives were taken to Falcrest to be joined with our Faculties. Far too precious to be left out here on the little islands, we judged. In exchange we destroyed the compost pits they used to grow their traditional and rather toxic roots, consolidated their freshwater aquifers under government control instead of family rule, and moved them all over to coconut and arrowroot and imported foods. These islands are too young for much good soil, so Falcrest says agriculture must be rationalized. Gave them all horrible tooth problems, the sugar did. Lucky we had dentists, hm?”

“Bastards,” Baru muttered, recklessly.

“As ever,” Apparitor agreed. “But we were discussing your brain.”

Baru had never been anywhere so astonishingly low. Even on the plains of Aurdwynn you could always look north and see the high Wintercrests ramping up toward the sky. Here on the kypra there was nothing taller than a tree, except for el-Tsunuqba like a dead hand in the southwest. And if the sea ever rose … Baru imagined herself alone on the last spit of rock, with the tide coming in from both sides. The world’s margins closing in on her. She shivered, and the shiver brought her back to the memory of seizure, and to Apparitor’s poison.

“I don’t need my mental resistance broken down,” she said.

“But you are the victim of a lifelong program of brainwashing.”

“The fuck I am—”

“Be rational!” Apparitor put his fist between them. “Let’s count your life. Count the good and bad things that have happened to you. Come on! Make an account! One. Farrier spots you in a marketplace and gets you into the Iriad school, that’s good.” He put up a finger, to keep a running tally. “Two. Soldiers kidnap your father and destroy your family, that’s bad. Did Farrier have anything to do with it? No. Did you ever wonder if he did? I doubt it very much. Three. You make a friend in the school, that’s good, but who warns you against her? Farrier. Four. Your friend turns on you, she beats and threatens you for your tribadism, that’s bad, Farrier turned out to be right. Do you see his method? Do you see?”