He was lying, or leaving out some important part of the truth. That was trivially obvious, but Bellis did not comment. If he wanted to fill out his story he would do so. She would not pester him.

As she sat back in her chair, her half-drunk tea beside her on the uneven floor, she felt a sudden gush of tiredness, so that all of a sudden she could barely speak. She saw the first sickly light of dawn and knew it was too late to go to bed.

Fennec watched her. He saw her slump with exhaustion. He was more awake than she. He made himself another cup of tea as she let fits of dozing lap at her like little waves. She flirted with dreams.

Fennec began to tell her stories about his time in High Cromlech.

He told her the smells of the city, flint dust and rot and ozone, myrrh and embalming spices. He told her about the pervading quiet, and the duels, and the high-caste men with lips sewn shut. He described the descent of the Bonestrasse, great houses looming to either side on ornate catafalques, the Shatterjacks visible at the thoroughfare’s end, spilling out for miles. He talked on for nearly an hour.

Bellis sat with her eyes open, starting now and then as she remembered that she was awake. And as Fennec’s stories lurched east, across one and a half thousand miles, and he began to tell her about the malachite chapels of The Gengris, she was conscious that there was a growing crop of shouts and clattering from below, that Armada was waking beneath them, and she stood and smoothed her hair and clothes, and told him that he had to leave.

"Bellis," he said from the stairs. Before, when he had used her first name, it had been in the spurious closeness of nighttime. Hearing him call her Bellis like that, with the sun up and people awake around them, was different. But she said nothing, and that gave him permission to continue.

"Bellis, thank you again. For… protecting me. When you said nothing about the letter." She watched him tight-faced, and was silent. "I’ll see you again, soon. I hope that’ll be all right."

And again she said nothing, conscious of the distance daylight had brought between them, and of the many things he was not telling her. But, still, she did not mind if he came again. It had been a long time since she had conversed as she had that night.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

There were very few clouds that morning. The sky was hard and empty.

Tanner Sack was not going to the docks. He walked afore, through the industrial hulks that surrounded his home. He took a route toward the little tangle of dockside vessels punctuated with pubs and scored with alleys. He had his sea legs, his hips shifting unconsciously with each tilt of the pavements.