She stared at him, white-hot with rage and self-disgust at being gulled by Silas like some stupid naÏve, like his puppets, like everyone else. Me more than all the poor fools reading Simon Fench’s pamphlets; me more than every poor stupid fuck acting as his contact. She was sick at the contempt, the ease, with which he had lied to her.

"You piece of shit," she muttered. "I’ll fucking destroy you."

Tanner sneered at her again, and she knew how pathetic she sounded.

"Do you think any of what he said was true?" Tanner Sack asked her.

They sat together, stiff and uncertain. Tanner still held the gun, but loosely. They had not become coconspirators. He looked at her with dislike and anger. Even if he believed that she had not set out to harm Armada, she was not his comrade. She was still the one who had persuaded him to be message-boy. It was she who had implicated him in the butchery.

Bellis shook her head in slow dudgeon.

"Do I think New Crobuzon is under attack?" she said disgustedly. "Do I think the most powerful city-state in the world is being threatened by malevolent fish? That two thousand years of history is about to end, and that only I can save my home? No, Tanner Sack, I don’t. I think he wanted to get a message home, and that was all. I think that manipulative fuck played me like a fiddle. Like he plays everyone." He’s an assassin, a spy; he’s an agent, she thought. He’s exactly what I was running from. And still, lonely and credulous like some fucking lost fool, I believed him.

Why would they come for him?she thought suddenly. Why would they cross four thousand miles just to rescue one man? It wasn’t for him, and I don’t think it was for the Sorghum .

"There’s more to this…" she said slowly, and tried to form thoughts. "There’s more to this than we can see."

They wouldn’t come this far, risk this much, just for him, no matter how good an agent he is. Hehas something,she realized. He has something they want.

"So what are we going to do?"

It was growing light. The city’s birds were sounding. Bellis’ head ached; she was terribly tired.

She ignored Tanner’s question for a moment. As she looked out of the window, she could see the sky paling and the silhouettes of rigging and architecture etched in black. It was very still. She could see the waves against the city’s sides, could make out Armada’s faint northern passage. The air was cool.

Bellis wanted one more moment in this time, one more suspended second, when she could breathe, before she spoke, and answered Tanner, and set in motion a clumsy, claustrophobic endgame.