She always kept it on her, its many thick pages growing heavier. It had not been taken away from her. It could not possibly help her escape.

It had been a while since she had added to it. There were times when she wrote it as regularly as a diary, and weeks when she did nothing. In that small, featureless prison room, with her window facing out into nothing but watery dark, she had turned to it again, as if it could settle her head. But she had found it almost impossible to write.

"Ever since I first saw you," said Doul. "You’ve always kept it. Even on the dirigible." Bellis’ eyes widened. "What is it? What are you writing?"

What she said or did here, now, Bellis realized with a kind of cool panic, would reverberate for a long time. Things waited to fall into place. She felt as if she were holding her breath.

Bellis drew the paper from her pocket and read what she had written.

Dustday 9th Chet, 1780. Sixth Playdi of Flesh.

Hello again.

"It’s a letter," she said.

"To whom?" said Doul. He did not lean over and peer at the paper. Instead he caught her eyes.

She sighed and leafed through the many pages of the letter, finding its beginning and holding it up to him so that he could read the first word.

Dear, the letter said, and then there was a blank. A word-hole.

"I don’t know," she said.

"It’s not to no one," she said. "That would be sad, pathetic, to write a letter to no one. And it’s not a letter to someone dead, or anything so… sad. It’s the opposite of all that, the opposite. It’s not closed down like that: it opens up; it’s a door; it could be to anyone."

She heard herself, became aware of how she must sound, and was horrified.

"When I left," she said, more quietly, "I’d spent many weeks, many months, in fear. People I knew were disappearing. I knew that I was being hunted. You’ve never been in New Crobuzon, have you, Uther?" She looked at him. "For all your explorations and your skills, you’ve never been there. You’ve no idea-do you have any idea? There’s a special kind of fear, a unique fear, when the militia are closing in on you.

"Who’ve they got to? Who’ve they taken, tortured, corrupted, frightened, threatened, bought? Who can you trust?

"It’s damn hard to be on your own. When I started," she said hesitantly, "I thought I was probably writing to my sister. We’re not close, but there are times when I crave talking to her. Still, there are things I’d never say to her. And I needed to tell them, so I thought that perhaps this letter was to one of my friends."