Around me are the others, Mollificatt and Cardomiums one and two. Murrigan and Ettenry and Cohl Gimgewry Yoreling Tearfly my Johannes glimpsing at me swiftly and with a sudden smile before swept away in a crowd, and Fennec somewhere his head down still, and all of us look made of roughcut paper in this light. We are made of baser stuff than the rest of the day. It ignores us with the arrogance of a fucking child.

I want to shout to Johannes but he’s been taken away by the current of us and with my newly clear eyes I look and look.

I struggle with my sea chest, stumbling, hobbling the deck’s length. I feel battered by the light and air and I look up again and see birds arcing. I struggle forward and keep them in my sights and they wheel over us, passing to starboard, and they head erratically for the horizon and I see masts in their flight path. I have been avoiding this. I have not yet looked to the side of the ship, I have not seen where we are. My destination has been skulking beyond the corner of my eye but now as I watch the gulls it leaps into view.

It is everywhere. How could I not see?

Someone is shouting names as we shuffle past, splitting us into groups and handing out instructions, complex orders but I am not listening because I am looking out over

Dear Jabber

My name is called and I am here next to Johannes again but I am not looking at him because

I am watching

mast upon mast and sail and tower and

on and more

We are here

beside this forest

Godspit Jabber and fuck

a trick a trick of perspective

a city that moves and ripples and slops endlessly side to side

-Miss Coldwine someone says coldly but I cannot, not now I amlooking , and I have put down my chest and I amlooking

and someone is shaking Johannes’ hand and he stares at them bemused as they speak to him.-Dr. Tearfly, you are most welcome this is indeed an honor, but I am not listening because we arehere we havearrived andlook at it all look at it

Oh I’ll I’ll I could laugh or spew as my stomach yaws look we are here we are here

We are here.

Part Two: Salt

-------------------------------------

Chapter Six

There were lamps under the water. Green, grey, cold white, and amber globes of cray design, tracing the undersides of the city.

Light prickled on suspended particles. It came not only from the thousand knots of illumination but from corridors of early sunlight that angled down, picking out passages from the waves to the deep water. Fish and kree circled them and passed through them dumbly.

From below, the city was an archipelago of shadows.

It was irregular and sprawling and hugely complex. It displaced currents. Jags of keel contradicted each other in all directions. Anchor chains trailed like hair, snapped and forgotten. From its orifices billowed refuse; fecal matter and particulate, and oil eddying uneasily and rising in small slicks. A constant drool of trash fouled the water and was swallowed by it.