She saw the rivers congealed with bodies, and shimmering as grindylow passed beneath. She saw petal-ash spewing from the burnt-out Fuchsia House; shattered rubble in Gargoyle Park; the Glasshouse cracked open like an egg and stacked with cactus corpses. She imagined Perdido Street Station itself in collapse, its train lines twisted and splayed, its façade torn off, forcing its intricate architectural byways into the light.

Bellis imagined the ancient, massive Ribs that arced over the city snapped, their curves interrupted in a cascade of bone-dust.

It chilled her. But there was nothing she could do. No one here, no one in power in this city, could possibly care. She and Silas were alone, and until they understood what was happening in Armada, until they knew where they were going, Bellis could not think of any way she could get away.

Bellis heard the door open and looked up from her piles of books. Shekel stood at the threshold, holding something in his hands. She was about to greet him, but paused at the sight of his face.

He wore an expression of great seriousness and uncertainty, as if not sure whether he had done something wrong.

"I’ve got something to show you," he said slowly. "You know I write down all the words I can’t work out at first. And then when I find them again in other books, I know them. Well…" He looked at the book he was holding. "Well, I found one of them yesterday. And the book’s not in Ragamoll, and the word’s not a… not a verb or a noun or whatever." He stressed the technical words she had taught him: not with pride, but to make a point.

He handed the little book to her. "It’s a name."

Bellis examined it. Sunk into the cover and picked out in stained metal leaf was the author’s name.

Kruach Aum.

The work that Tintinnabulum was looking for, one central to the Lovers’ project. Shekel had found it.

He had picked it off the children’s shelves. As Bellis sat and flicked through its pages, she saw that it was no wonder it had been misshelved. It was full of pictures in a primitive style: executed in thick, simple lines with childish perspective, so that proportions were unclear, and a man might be nearly the size of a tower next to him. Each recto page was text, each verso a picture, so that the whole short book had the feel of an illustrated fable.

Whoever had shelved it had obviously looked at it briefly without understanding it, and put it, without examination, with other picture books-children’s books. It had not been recorded. It had lain undisturbed for years.