They breached fleetingly. What in Jabber’s name are they? thought Bellis, dizzily. How can the Brucolac control those? What’s he done? The men who approached them fired volleys of missiles at them, and the things disappeared again.

But when the little boats came close and the men within leaned out to take aim again, there was a quick organic twitching and they were in the sea, in stunned shock, and with an inrush of water and a quick glare of teeth, they were taken down.

Armada was tearing itself apart. Bellis heard gunshots and saw a flickering of flames where Dry Fall met Garwater. A human mob was approaching, and there were running fights between them and the Garwater sailors. It was not now the city against the vampir alone-as news of the rebellion spread, those who opposed the Lovers’ plans had come out to fight. Hotchi slammed their spines against men; cactacae hurled their great bulks against each other in ugly combat.

There was no structure to the fighting. The city was burning. Dirigibles moved overhead in ungainly panic. Above it all towered the Grand Easterly. Its dark iron was still silent and empty, still deserted.

Bellis became sluggishly aware that this was bizarre. She stared at the trireme below her. The rope bridge that had linked it to the Grand Easterly had been severed, and so, she realized, had the one beyond it.

Bellis flattened herself carefully against the wall, inched forward, and peered out of the darkest shadows onto the main deck. She saw three dim figures moving with vampir speed, hacking at the chains and knots that attached the bridges to the ship. They split one and sent it swinging into the sea, its far end slapping the flank of the vessel to which it was attached, and then they flitted to the next and began again.

Bellis’s stomach lurched. The vampir were cutting her off, confining her on the ship with them. She pressed against the wall and could not move, as if a film of ice held her.

On an old trawler, below mildewing eaves, Uther Doul put his blade through a man’s face. He turned away from the split, screaming thing he had made and raised his voice over the sounds of violence.

"Where,"he bellowed, "is the fucking Brucolac?"

And as he spoke, he was facing the Grand Easterly. He paused for a second at his own words and looked up at the steamer’s rail, toward its invisible deck and its miles of corridors, where he had left the Lovers in emergency session with their scientific advisors, and his eyes widened.

"Gods dammit!" he shouted, and began to run.

Bellis could hear a voice.

It came from very close to her, just around the corner from where she stood frozen, by the doors to the raised section. She held her breath, her heart quite cold with fear.