"If we can work out what they’ve planned," she said, "we might still be able to… to get out of here."

"Sincerely," he said slowly, "I can’t work out what their plan is. If I find out, I’ll tell you. Of course."

They studied each other.

"I gather Uther Doul’s courting you," he continued. He was not trying to be unpleasant, but his smirk was irritating.

"I don’t know what he’s doing," Bellis said curtly. "Sometimes I think that’s exactly it-he’s courting me-but if so, by gods he’s out of practice. Sometimes I think he has other motives, but I can’t make sense of them."

Again silence. Outside, a cat began to wail.

"Tell me, Silas," Bellis said. "This is your world. Is there any kind of serious opposition to their project? Serious, I mean? And if there is, could we use it to get out of here? Can it help us?"

What exactly might I have in mind?she wondered. We’ve sent a message to our home port. We’ve saved it , for Jabber’s sake. There’s nothing else to be done. There are no factions to win over. There’s no one we might persuade to take us home.

Whatever Silas claimed about trying to escape, the way he submerged into Armada’s hinterland, ducked out of sight, became Simon Fench, suspended himself in a web of deals and rumors and favors and threats-these were survival tactics. Silas was adjusting.

There was nothing for Bellis to do. No schemes she could engage in, no secret plans.

She still dreamed of that river between New Crobuzon and Iron Bay.

No,she thought fiercely, uncompromisingly. Whatever the truth, whatever the case, however hopeless the cause-I do not give up on escape.

It had taken her quite some effort to reach this coldly burning pitch of anger, of desire for escape, and to relinquish it now would be unbearable.

And so she kept that No loud in the back of her head, undiluted by doubt.

She woke the next day and leaned from her window into the warm wind, watching the exhausted, hungover crews clear the detritus of last night’s party from the streets and decks. They swept up huge piles of dust and colored paper, costumes and disguises from the masque parties, the debris of drug-taking.

The bilious flames had stopped rolling from the top of the Sorghum ’s derrick. The rig had gone cold, its harvest of oil and rockmilk siphoned up and stored. Over the ships’ roofscape, the steamers, the tugs, the squat industrial vessels were moving back toward the city, like iron filings toward a magnet. Bellis watched their crews attach them again to the edge of Armada.