The second was for older children. It was a history of New Crobuzon. Bellis stopped short, seeing the etched pictures of the Ribs and the Spike and Perdido Street Station. She skim-read quickly, curling her face in amused contempt at the grotesquely misleading history. The accounts of the Money Circle and the Week of Dust and, most shamefully, the Pirate Wars all suggested, in childish and disingenuous language, that New Crobuzon was a stronghold of liberty that thrived despite almost insuperable and unfair odds.

Shekel was watching her, fascinated.

"Try this one," she said, and held out to him The Courageous Egg. He took it reverentially. "It’s for young children," she said. "Don’t get worried about the story; it’s much too silly for you. It means nothing. But I want to know if you can work out what’s happening, if you can understand what goes on, by working through the words like I showed you. Follow the letters’ orders, say the words. There are bound to be some in there that you can’t understand. When you come to them, write them down, and bring the list to me."

Shekel looked up at her sharply. "Write them down?" he said.

She saw inside him. He still related to the words as if they were outside entities: subtle teases that he was finally beginning to understand, just a little. But he had not yet conceived of being able to encode them into his own secrets. He had not realized that by learning to read he had learned to write.

Bellis found a pencil and a half-used piece of paper in her pocket and handed them to him.

"Just copy the words that you don’t understand, the letters in order exactly like they are in the book. Bring them to me," she said.

He eyed her, and another of those beatific smiles shot across him.

"Tomorrow," she went on, "I want you to come to me at five o’clock, and I’m going to ask you questions about the story in the book. I’m going to have you read pieces to me." Shekel stared at her as he took the book, nodded briskly, as if they’d reached some business arrangement in Dog Fenn.

Shekel’s demeanor changed when they left the galleon. He held himself cocky again, and swaggered a little as he walked, and even began to talk to Bellis about his dockside gang. But he gripped The Courageous Egg tight. Bellis checked it out on her own ticket, an act of trust that she performed without thinking and that touched him deeply.

It was cold again that night, and Bellis sat close to her stove.

Cooking and eating were growing to irritate her with their relentless necessity. She performed them joylessly and as quickly as possible, then sat with Tearfly’s books and continued to work through them, making notes. At nine she stopped and brought out her letter.

She wrote.