It was not hard to find a way through empty hallways in the Grand Easterly. The loyal guards were stationed at points by which someone might make their way to the Lovers’ quarters, down in the boat’s low reaches. But only those corridors, and that was not where Bellis and Tanner were heading.

She took him down other passageways she had learned very well over the weeks of indulging what she could only think of as her perversion.

They passed storerooms and engines and armories. Walking quickly but openly, not like trespassers, Bellis led Tanner lower and lower, into a dimly lit zone.

She did not know it, but Bellis took Tanner close by the way to the rockmilk engines that were churning and whirring and sparking, driving the avanc on.

And eventually, in a dark and narrow passage where the walls were free of aging wallpaper and heliotypes and etchings, were lined instead with knotted pipework as intricate as veins, Bellis turned to Tanner Sack and gestured him to enter. She stood in the cramped and cosseted environs, turned her head to him, and kept him silent with a raised finger.

They stood without movement for some time, Tanner looking around him, at the ceiling at which Bellis stared, at Bellis herself.

When finally they heard the sound of a door opening and closing, it was so loud and flawless to the ear that Tanner stiffened violently. Bellis had never seen the room above, but she knew its echoes well. She knew where above her were chairs, and tables, and a bed. She followed the four sets of footsteps above with her stare-light, heavier, heavier, and massive and slow-as if she could see through the ceiling-floor the Lover, the Lover, Doul, and Hedrigall.

Tanner followed her example, his eyes widening. He and Bellis could trace the bodies above them. One was by the door; two ranged near the bed, sinking now into chairs; and the fourth, the big one, shuffled back and forth toward the far wall, locking his legs as the cactacae did in sleep or exhaustion, his weight driving down through the wood.

"So," said Uther Doul, his voice astonishingly clear. "Tell us, Hedrigall." He was hard. "Tell us why you ran. And how you ended back here again."

"Oh, gods." Hedrigall sounded drained and shattered. It was just barely his voice. Tanner shook his head in amazement.

"Gods, dear gods please don’t start that again." Hedrigall sounded as if he would cry. "I don’t understand you. I’ve never run from Armada in my life. I never would. Who are you?" he screamed suddenly. " Whatare you? Am I in hell? I saw you die…"

"What’s happened to him?" whispered Tanner, appalled.