"You know where we are?" she said finally. "You know what waters we’ve entered?"

Carrianne and Johannes looked at each other, then back at her.

"The Hidden Ocean," said Carrianne, her voice guarded. Bellis managed to give a little smile.

"That’s right," she said. Damn you all, she thought. I don’t need that treacherous fucker Fennec. I will make this happen myself. "And do you know where we’re heading?" She paused again, and in the silence, Johannes spoke.

"The Scar," he said, and Bellis’ words withered in her throat. She stared at him, saw him watch her with concern and confusion and look to Carrianne, who nodded.

"The… Scar," Bellis heard herself say, all hesitant and stupid. Not a revelation but an absurd echo.

They had broken her. They had won. There was nothing left in her, nothing at all.

When Johannes left, Bellis and Carrianne sat up late, talking. Carrianne told her everything.

What a week,Bellis kept thinking with absurd understatement. What a week to miss.

The Lovers had announced it.

It could not be kept from the pilots and captains and nauscopists of Armada that the water and the air were changing. There was no disguising the sudden crosscurrents, the hidden streams that ran below the surface, counter to the waves. Compasses had begun to veer maniacally, losing north for minutes at a time. The winds were utterly unpredictable. The horizon’s distance varied. Armada’s fleet had begun to struggle.

The avanc, of course, was quite unconcerned by these forces. It plowed its undeviating course far below, with the city in its wake.

There had been a plethora of rumors, but there were enough experienced, well-read sailors in the city that the truth was impossible to hide. The avanc, directed by the Garwater pilots, was pulling Armada into the Hidden Ocean. About which, it seemed, all the stories were true.

And then, four days previously, on Flesh Quarto’s sixth Khandi, the Lovers had held a series of mass meetings across Garwater and its allied ridings.

"He’s a fucking fine speaker, the Lover," Carrianne said. "I heard him in Booktown. ‘When I came here I was nothing,’ he said, ‘and I began to make me, and that was finished by my Lover, who made me and made herself and made this city,’ his voice all trembling. ‘And haven’t we brought Armada power?’ And people loved it. Because, you know, he has. These have been good years, great harvests and booty. And the Sorghum -you weren’t here for that, were you? You weren’t here when they took that." Carrianne smiled and shook her head appreciatively.

"He’s made us a power, there’s no denying it. And then the fucking avanc…"

"I thought you were loyal to Dry Fall," said Bellis, and Carrianne nodded hard.