Which means we’re on our own. Marcus still didn’t know if Giforte had escaped and reestablished the flik-flik station, but it didn’t matter now. We’re out of time. Which was why he was out here on the river with the Queen of Vordan, getting ready to board an enemy vessel with a cutlass in his teeth like a pirate in a bad play.

Why carry it in your teeth? he wondered, idly, as Walnut and George the Gut strained to keep the boat steady in the current. What’s wrong with a sheath?

“There.” Raesinia pointed. “That’s got to be it.”

Directly ahead of them were the ominous fortifications of the water batteries, vast brick enclosures whose blank, gaping portals suggested the mouths of the cannon lurking within. A few lights were visible there, clustered along the small piers that jutted into the river directly under the guns. In front of them, with only a pair of lanterns burning, was a tall, dark shape. Marcus could just make out two tall, skeletal masts against the deeper black of the hillside beyond.

“And we’re sure they’ve loaded the Names?”

“Sothe is sure,” Raesinia said, which as far as she was concerned meant it was the next thing down from the word of God. Raesinia obviously placed a great deal of trust in the taciturn ex-Concordat agent, and Marcus had to admit he had no reason to doubt her. But he couldn’t help feeling a little strange around Sothe. The woman was reluctant to look him in the eye, and found excuses not to speak to him if she could help it. Maybe she just doesn’t like me. Or she doesn’t like my getting so close to Raesinia. The latter, he suspected, was more likely. Sothe was nothing if not fiercely protective of her charge.

Convincing Sothe that her talents would be more valuable elsewhere this evening had been the work of a night’s furious argument. In the end, though, she had to concede that if they were going to both keep the Names out of Elysium’s grasp and prevent the Penitent Damned from reducing the Docks to ashes, someone needed to locate the fire woman and keep track of her, and that nobody but Sothe was likely to succeed in that task. Sothe had then argued that Raesinia should stay behind, but with a fatalistic tone in her voice that made Marcus suspect she expected the queen to overrule her. As expected, Raesinia had insisted on accompanying him to the Rosnik.

Marcus tapped Walnut on the shoulder when they were a hundred yards from the boat. He and George stopped rowing, except for small strokes to keep them in place against the gentle current of the Vor. Marcus took a bull’s-eye lantern from its peg, checked the shutter, then opened it briefly to send a single flash upstream.