She had passed along the streets of the Sudden Understanding, the many-masted clipper that formed part of the edge of Urchinspine Docks and that linked Dry Fall and Thee-And-Thine ridings. The enormous vessel was one of the few in Armada that did not rest clearly in the control of one or the other ruler. The main bulk of its body was Dry Fall, but toward its forecastle, responsibility and control blurred with Thee-And-Thine. The streets became more boisterous and untidy.

Bellis had picked her way through rubbish where the feral monkeys bickered with cats and dogs, through the tumbling streets, and into what was indisputably Thee-And-Thine.

This was the most ill-kempt of Armada’s ridings. Its buildings were mostly wood, and many were moldering or salt- and water-stained. It was not that the area was poor-there were plenty of riches, in the gold and silver and jet visible through the windows of some houses, in the vivid silks and satins that were worn by some of its inhabitants, in the quality of goods available. But in a place where everything was for sale, certain goods-such as the right to maintain the architecture and the streets-were not attractive buys.

Slums and factories and shabby opulence bobbed sedately side by side. Finally, Bellis had passed the Salt Godling, Friedrich’s flagship, and had walked into the Yevgeny ’s creaking, smelly innards, unclearly torchlit, to The Pashakan.

On her third visit, Silas was there. Bellis was angry at his surly surprise to see her.

"Will you listen to me?" she hissed at him. " I know where we’re going."

He looked up, sharply, and caught her eye.

She laughed suddenly and unpleasantly. "Do you have déjà vu, Silas?" she said. "Jabber knows I do. Understand that I do not relish this relationship. I seem to find myself doing this with disturbing regularity: telling you that I know a secret, giving it to you to pass on, to make plans with, to do something with. I do not enjoy that. This is the last fucking time, you understand me?" She meant it, absolutely. No matter what might happen, she would not deal with Silas Fennec like this again. There was nothing, less than nothing, between them anymore.

"But whether I like it or not," she went on, "I have little choice here. I need your help. The only way anything can be done about this is if… the word is spread, if more people know. And though no one listens to Bellis Coldwine, it seems that a growing minority are prepared to listen to the troublemaker Simon Fench."

"Where are we going, Bellis?" Fennec asked.

She told him.

"I wondered why you were fraternizing with that fucking lunatic Doul. Does he know you know?" Fennec seemed stunned.