"My usefulness is ending, and I’m delighted, because I’m so godsdamned tired. But Aum’s is only just starting, it appears. And it wasn’t any of the usual group who took him away. It was Uther Doul, and it was men and women I’d never seen. I don’t know what that’s all about. Seems to me that calling the avanc is not the end of it."

Johannes turned away from her and fingered the flowers.

"Only now realizing that, Bellis?" he said quietly. "Of course you’re right. There’s more to come. Given the scale of what we’re attempting with the avanc, it’s difficult to imagine, but it seems that perhaps that’s just a… prelude to whatever’s really going on. And what that is, I don’t know. It’s been decided it should not involve me.

"You know," he said, "it was just luck, really, that I ever got my commission here."

Luck?thought Bellis, incredulous.

"Of those in the know," he continued, "who’d seen the old chains, there’ve been some arguing for decades that Armada should try to call the avanc. But the Lovers ignored them, had no interest in it for years-that’s what I heard.

"It changed when Uther Doul came to the city, came to work for them. I don’t know what he did or said to them, but all of a sudden the avanc project was revived. Something he told them meant those old plans got dusted off, for the first time since those chains were built-and no one knows how long ago that was, or what happened.

"And after all that, it’s just over for me. They’ve moved on to other things."

Jealous, realized Bellis. Spurned, deserted, and pissed off. Johannes’ work-and Johannes himself-was invaluable to conjure up the avanc, but whatever came after that did not require him.

Gently, subtly, Bellis probed his wound. Moment by moment, interspersing her investigation with meaningless minutiae.

In his anger, Johannes was willing to talk seriously about the doubts that had been raised over the Lovers’ plans.

They strolled through the wooded boat, past reclaimed funnels and bulkheads, while Bellis fed Johannes’ resentment in a coy and sly interrogation, learning things piece by piece.

Once she started listening, Bellis heard the same names, the same rumors, everywhere. The veneer of loyalty that had been painted over Armada was thin. Anxieties and controversies were now as clearly traceable through it as woodgrain through varnish.

She was startled to realize that it was not only the worthies of Bask and Curhouse who were linked to such dissident voices. Some of Garwater’s longest-loyal servants were doubters, linked to the renegades.

The Lovers’ consensus, she realized, was not stable. And, as she half expected, the name that recurred most often, that came up again and again as a focus for this discontent, was Simon Fench.

Bellis began to search for him.