"It cried out again as the whole of its fucking bulk emerged, and its thrust shoved it down faster than gravity would have taken it. The avanc lurched; its chains went suddenly taut and tugged the rest of the city over the edge. The aft of the Grand Easterly was wrenched down, too, and the Arrogance was snatched so suddenly that the tattering rope that held it snapped.

"It snapped.

"My eyes flew open as the aerostat hurtled skyward, up past the falling city, up and out of the shadow of that wall of ocean, pelted by metal and sharp-split wood, out of the Scar, into the sky.

"I roared out of that crevice and careered into the sky. My arms were locked tight, holding me into place. I was going to live.

"Below me, the last of Armada slipped into the Scar. Winterstraw Market in a rain of little vessels. The Uroc, the Therianthropus, the asylum, the old sawdust boats of the haunted quarter-all become nothing. Tipping up, in sheets of spray, and going over, till the surface of the Hidden Ocean was left undisturbed.

"As I rose, I looked down directly into the Scar and saw an interference, a haze like dust, as Armada fell, and far below that the avanc, spinning as it went, wrapping itself in twenty miles of chain, moving pathetically, trying to swim out of that endless fall. Even it looked small and dwindling.

"Eventually I fell back, exhausted and stunned to be alive, and when I looked down again I could see nothing at all."

Hedrigall’s voice ebbed away. He spoke again after several seconds of quiet.

"I went higher than I’ve ever been before. High enough to look down and see the Scar as it really is. A crack, that’s all. A crack in the world.

"I don’t know if any other aeronauts got free. But I was more than a mile up, and I saw nothing.

"The wind that high was strong, gusted me south for hours. It took me away from there. Out of that murderous place in the water, where all the currents lead to the Scar. The Arrogance was leaking. Split and burnt by debris. I was coming down.

"I sawed myself some hide from the dirigible, lashed it to wood from the cabin. Made myself a raft, knowing what was coming. I waited by the bay doors till we were scudding low and fast, and I threw out the raft and leapt after it.

"And then finally, only then, curled in my little raft, I let myself remember what I’d seen.

"I was all alone with those memories for two days. I thought I’d die.