He said: "Enough is enough. We will take you back."

Back again.

I was stunned. I bowed my head, nodded, and thanked him.

He gave me that. And not for any residue of what he once pretended was between us.

He is rewarding me. He is paying me.

For the jobs I have done. Since he has used me.

Doul passed messages to Fennec through me, for Fennec to give the city. But Fennec did the wrong thing, and the Lovers outmaneuvered us all by telling the truth. So Doul found other uses for me.

And now he will take me home. Not for warmth or out of justice. He is offering me a wage.

I will accept.

He is not stupid. He knows that nothing I could do in New Crobuzon could undermine or threaten Armada in any way. I would not be listened to if I tried to tell Parliament, and why would I do that, renegade that I am?

Eventually there will be a ship charged to rob the Basilisk Channel. And I will be on it. I will be taken on some tiny boat, perhaps, dropped in that ugly port Qé Banssa that I saw from the Terpsichoria’s deck. And I will wait there until a New Crobuzon ship appears, heading home for Iron Bay and the Gross Tar, and the city.

Uther Doul will not deny me that. It costs him nothing.

It is many months since we left Iron Bay. By the time we are dragged back again, it will be much more than a year. I will take another name.

The Terpsichoria is lost. There is no reason for the city to chase Bellis Coldwine anymore. And even if some interfering swine back in New Crobuzon were to remember, were to recognize me and pass information on to some uniformed bastard, I have had enough of running. And I cannot find it in me to believe they will. That part of my life is over. This is a new time.

After all that has happened-after all my frantic, fruitless efforts to escape-I find that quite unwittingly I have done what was necessary for me to go home, carrying the memories of Armada stitched to my flesh.

I am surprised to find myself writing this letter to you again. Once I told Uther Doul the truth about it, I felt that it was closed to me.

Hearing myself admit it, I felt like a lonely child. Was there anything more pathetic than these scraps of paper that I was so eager to post, not even having decided yet to whom they would go?

I put them away, then.

But this is a new chapter. The city is going back in time, readying itself to start again with its simple piracy in the rich shores near my home. Everything has changed, and I find myself trembling, excited, biding my time, eager to finish this letter.