“I mean they would have taken a cut—” He faltered, sank a little below the water, tried again. “A cut from my mother’s immortata, and they would have implanted that cut in me. And it would grow in me. Ayamma. I was consecrated for that purpose. A ut li-en.”

“Her immortata?”

“Her tumor.”

Gods of stone and fire. The “immortata” must indeed be a transmissible cancer, passed from person to person, just like dogface, the cancer which dogs gave each other by biting. This was the inoculation Hesychast sought, the means of splicing behavior from body to body.

But the name, immortata—

Baru fell forward on one hand, thunderstruck. Could it truly grant immortality, as she had imagined? Could you put not just disciplines and behaviors but yourself, your mind and memory, into a tumor grown of brain-flesh? Could you then cut a piece of that tumor free and regrow yourself in another body? Was that how it was done?

Could you actually live forever?

“Will it help Svir if I be your bait?” Iraji whispered.

Baru howled against the armor of her heart. Would it help Svir? Would it? Not if she told Yawa, this man would be the perfect dowry for his brother, send him in my place. Not if she wanted to unite the Stakhieczi and the secret power of the Cancrioth against Falcrest. Svir would be beyond all help then.

Iraji didn’t believe Baru was only a callous calculating husk of a woman with no purpose but her own betterment. Baru just wished he could convince her of it, too.

“I don’t know,” she said, with terribly difficulty. “I—can only promise that it’ll help me.”

“It will help him,” Iraji said. Baru looked up in shock at his tone. He had gathered his knees to his chin: the razor’s wooden handle bobbed in the suds before him, the blade depending downward into the foam. He ought to keep it dry, Baru thought. “It will help Svir survive.”

“What?”

“They know he’s here. And they won’t let him leave unless he has something they cherish.”

The Cancrioth. He meant the Cancrioth. “They’re here? Iraji, you know they’re here?”

“Of course they are,” he said. “Who do you think sank Cheetah?”

“A navy ship. A ship with cannon, for false-flag attacks.…”

“That’s not what the Prince Bosoka thinks.”

“Tau’s superstitious.…”

“The power of my people isn’t superstition. I think they unleashed the Kettling here. I think they need to test how it behaves … and to warn Falcrest they possess it.”

“The Cancrioth released the plague?”

But Iraji had thought of something else. “Baru,” he whispered, “if the Prince Bosoka learns what I am…”

She went to kneel by his tub. “They’ll be kind. They’re generous, they understand. They know, already, that you met the Cancrioth.”