“Blackmail now, is it? That’s just one more reason to kill you!” I snarled, though his words set my mouth watering.

“Come on, Comet. Just because you’re illegitimate doesn’t give you free license to be a bastard. I haven’t told Gio about your love of scolopendium. Why should I? It’d bring me no benefit, and I’m a savvy businessman…Of course I don’t believe that the island is full to bursting with precious metals for the natives to bestow on us. However, I do know that Gio’s As Rich As Rachiswater. He’s paying me five times a merchant captain’s wage. He’s packing coin, plate and banknotes-he has chests full of it! He wants to set himself up on Tris. I’ve just finished conveying it all to Awndyn myself. Look, I still have the letter he gave me. I’ll show you, here.” Cinna fished inside his coat for a crumpled envelope with a broken seal, Ghallain manor’s whale emblem. I took the letter from his gnawed fingertips and raised a wing to shelter it from the rain, while I read:

TO: SITELLA GRACKLE, FIRST BANK OF HACILITH

I hereby instruct you to immediately liquidate all my assets currently in your care and to dispatch the monies to myself at the harbormaster’s office, Awndyn. They are, to whit: i) the proceeds collected to date from the sale of my academies, ii) all ordinary stocks held in the Hacilith bourse, iii) gold and silver plate held in the bank’s safe.

The bearer of this letter, Cinna Bawtere, holds my full confidence in this matter and is to be trusted as the guardian of the money.

GIO AMI

Money, lots of money, I deliberated while I refolded the letter. Cinna was smiling, showing textured teeth. “Comet, are you envious? You know you’ll never be free to escape to Tris yourself. You have to fly around the Fourlands until the inevitable happens-a goddamn Insect eviscerates you-and I don’t mean like at Slake Cross, I mean fatally. You’re cast off the Emperor’s fist like a hawk, to spy, and he lures you back and tethers you with the promise of eternal life.”

I took a squelching step toward him. “But, Bawtere, it’s jail for you! Make haste! We’ll see how far Gio sails without a captain.” I gestured with the sword and Cinna staggered to his feet, protesting and quaking. “Into town, Cariama Eske’s guard will look after you…They’ll throw you in a freezing cell, lock you in fetters and you can fuck your mother for all I care.”

“She’s dead.”

“Should make it easy for you, then. Hurry! I’ve a lot to do tonight. I’m busy because I have to find someone who will keep an eye on Gio and accurately report his plans to me when, for example, I land on the Pavonine’s gallery at dusk.”

Cinna had begun to snivel. “Okay,” he said, miserably; “I’ll do it.”

I said, “Oh, good. Then the noose can wait; tell me a little more about Gio.”

Cinna said: He knows that the Trisians distrust the Castle. He has a silver tongue, that man.

I said: Even if it was gold he couldn’t Challenge me.

Cinna said: Gio’s failed and he knows it. He might have got away with insurrection, but he tried to murder an Eszai. Oh yes, I heard from his own lips how he stabbed Lightning!

Me: He’s running?

Cinna: Yes. He can’t storm the Castle and skewer every Eszai much as he wants to. So he’s making his mark-leaving his name on history is immortality of a sort, seeing as he can’t have The Real Thing. If he holes up at Ghallain or hides out on Addald Isle it’d only be a matter of time before he’s betrayed and captured. But on Tris…

Me: Never!

Cinna: He wants to win over the Trisians. And San would have to leave him there, the King of Tris, because the Castle’s purpose is fighting the Insects. San could never fight people or invade islands.

Me: I’m glad you trust San.

Cinna: Yes, but I’m fed up of being kept in the dark. He keeps everyone hooded like falcons, whether callow Zascai or haggard old Eszai. You don’t know what San’s real quarry is, even though you’re one of his spies, and you will just go back and tell him my every word.

Me: Um…Cinna said that, not me.

San: Yes.

I skipped a few pages in my report, and resumed: “Then I said to Cinna, ‘If I fail to stop Gio setting sail, I will meet you again on the ship.’ I followed him to the tavern, stole-I mean, requisitioned-a fast horse and rode here directly, my lord. I sent a courier to lock every stable at every coaching inn between Eske and Awndyn. That’ll slow the main part of their force down by a couple of hours, and as it takes five days to walk to Awndyn those without horses might miss the Pavonine.”

Drops of rain ran down the shafts of the wet feathers in my hair and dropped off their curled tips behind me onto the carpet. I shook my head, flicking water from the backward-pointing quills. I had ridden out of the storm; my skin was singing. I was covered in the stringy mud thrown from the horse’s hooves. My svelte boots were sheathed in white liquid mud up to the thigh. I smelled of clouds and the thin air. My heart beat hard; cat made me feel too fast and bracing, thermaling on a strange energy burst that I knew I was going to pay for later but really needed now.

San said, “Good. The majority of Gio’s followers deserted him during the battle. The only people prepared to flee with him are those who have no option and no dreams other than those he concocts. So his last act of defiance is to stop Tris joining the Empire…”

I knelt on the damp carpet. “My lord, why should they listen to him?”

San continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Whether Gio means to build his own stronghold or-more likely-take the Senate I cannot tell; but we must not let him impose any rule on Tris. Mist has sold swords to the Trisians, now Gio can train them. He is a teacher, is he not? He can perform several deeds to ingratiate himself with the Senate: he can hunt down the Insect that you so carelessly set free! Assuming a Trisian has not caught it already. And if a man has, he is more worthy of immortality than all of you!”

“My lord.” I closed my hot and bloodshot eyes for a second, ran my hands over the bangles on my left arm-my pointed nails in a variety of chipped colors. I squeezed water out of a handful of hair and managed to ask, “What will you do?”

San began again in a brisk tone of voice: “Before Gio became the Swordsman, that place in the Circle was for broadsword fighting, not fencing. But my current Swordsman has clearly demonstrated what everybody knows. Rapiers are ineffective against Insects, so immortals should not use them. From now on, Challenges for Serein’s position must be with broadswords or Wrought swords or, taking future improvements into consideration, the most effective blade to kill Insects. Tell Serein that.”

“Yes, my lord.” With a single edict, the Emperor had put an end to the Ghallain School and all its flamboyant sparring. Few people would practice rapier combat if it was not a key to enter the Circle and if there were no successful Eszai to inspire mortals to take up the art. The Morenzian and Plainslands fashion for dueling and wearing rapiers would decline.

San stated, “Now to deal with Gio himself. When he leaves harbor, the Sailor must pursue him. But if Gio arrives at Capharnaum, he will wreak havoc as he prepares for her.”

“I’ll go and tell her.” I stood up, tucking strands of wet hair behind my ears. San must want Mist to catch Gio at sea and deal with him out of sight of land, where there would be no witnesses, he would have no reinforcements, and the sea would cover the remains.

“You will travel with her.”

“My lord…” The last thing I wanted was to be involved in a sea battle.

“The Castle protects the Fourlands against aggressors, Comet. Thankfully Tris is free from most of them, but Gio is certainly an aggressor, and one of our own making; our duty is to stop him. If he succeeds in reaching Tris you will deliver Capharnaum from both him and the Insect. I hope that if that eventuality occurs, the Senate will be inclined to communicate with us. You could tell them: ‘Our Emperor has sent us to protect you from Gio Ami and his criminals.’ And, only if the situation is right, tactfully restate my offer to join the Empire.”