Tanner Sack stood and walked soundlessly toward her; she was too engrossed with her indecision to notice him. He stood a few feet behind her, watching her, irritated and amused by her irresolution, until he had had enough and he spoke.

"Got to go again, have you?" he whispered sardonically, and Bellis spun around to face him, and he saw with shock and shame that she was crying.

His mean little smile disappeared instantly.

Tears were pouring from Bellis Coldwine’s eyes, but she did not utter a sob. She was breathing hard, and each deep breath shook and threatened to break, but she was quite silent. Her expression was fierce and controlled, her eyes intense and bloodshot. She looked like something cornered.

Furiously, she wiped her eyes and nose.

Tanner tried to speak, but her glare shook him, and it was only with an effort that he could utter words. "Now, there, now," he whispered. "I didn’t mean anything by that…"

" What… do you want?" she whispered.

Chastened but not cowed, Tanner looked down at the package in her hands.

"What’s the matter with you, then?" he said. "What’s that? Trying to stow away, are you? Hoping the Samheri’ll take you home?" As he spoke he felt his anger growing again, until he had to struggle to control it. "Want to tell Mayor Rudgutter how badly you was treated on the pirate ship, is that it, miss? Let them know about Armada so’s they can try to hunt us down, and gather me and the likes of me and put us back in the fucking shit below the decks? Slaves for the colonies?"

Bellis was staring at him in a dignified, tearful rage. There was a long pause, and below the skin of her still, set face, Tanner saw her make a resolution.

"Read it,"she hissed suddenly. She slapped a long letter into his hands and slumped against the door.

" ‘Status seven’?" he muttered. "What the fuck is a Code Arrowhead?" Bellis said nothing. She had stopped crying. She stared at him, sullen as a child (but now there is something in the back of her eyes, some hope).

Tanner continued, hacking his way through the thickets of code and finding trails of sense, places where meaning became suddenly and shockingly clear.

" ‘Arrival of kissing magi’?" he whispered incredulously. " ‘Canker to be clotted by wormtroopers’? ‘Algae-bombs’? What the fuck is this? This is about some fucking invasion! What the fuck is this?" Bellis watched him.

"This," she echoed him remorselessly, "is about some fucking invasion."

She kept him in a cruel silence for several seconds and then told him.

He leaned back, gripping the paper, staring sightlessly at its seal, running his fingers through the chain on Silas’ tag.