Demi-regiment Ivory Magi/Groac’h to advance south along Canker equipped with E.Y.D. and P-T capacity, Third Moon Quarter,I read, and the scale of what faces us terrifies me. Our previous eagerness to escape, the effort we poured into focusing on that, appalls me now, it is so petty and so small.

There is enough information here to defend the city. Silas has discharged his duty.

Again, at the bottom of that letter is the city’s seal, vindicating it, making it, for all its soulless, banal language, horribly real.

With the letters is a box.

It is a jewelry box; simple, solid, and very heavy darkwood. And within, nestling on its plumply cushioned lining, is a necklace and a ring.

The ring is for me. Its large silver-and-jade face is carved with an inverted imprint-it is the seal. It is crafted with breathtaking artistry. Within its circuit Silas has placed a nugget of red sealing wax.

This is mine. When I have shown our captain the letters and the necklace, I will close them within the cushioned box and lock it, seal it within the leather pouch, and touch the hot wax with this ring, which I will keep. That way the captain will know what is inside, that we are not betraying him, but that he cannot tamper with the contents if the recipients are to believe and reward him.

(As I think through this chain of events I could become dispirited, I must confess. It seems so tenuous. I am sighing as I write this. I will think on this no longer.)

The necklace is to cross the sea. In distinction to the ring, it is a crude, simple piece, designed without any esthetics at all. A thin, plain iron chain. At its end, an ugly little flap of metal that is adorned only with a serial number, a stamped symbol (two owls under a crescent moon), and three words: Silas Fennec Procurator.

It is my identification,Silas tells me in his letter. It is the ultimate proof that the letters are genuine. That I am lost to New Crobuzon, and that this is my valedictory.

Later still. The sky is darkening.

I am disturbed.

Uther Doul has spoken to me.

I was on the deck of berths above the gondola, coming out of the heads. I was vaguely amused by the thought of all our amassed stools and piss cascading from the sky.

A little way down the corridor I heard a shuffling sound and saw light from a doorway. I peered in.

The Lover was changing. I caught my breath.

Her back was as crosshatched with scars as her face. Most looked old, the scored skin greying and pale. One or two, though, were livid. The marks spread down her back and over her buttocks. She was like a marked animal.

I could not but gasp.