“Did it help?” the boy asked.

“Not even a little, no.”

Papio were everywhere else in the ship. They had come through the bridge’s hatch, and now they were filling the hallway, walking upright with guns cradled in their big arms, each one shouting orders. Diamond had never seen papio soldiers. As promised, they were huge men and women, each trained until the muscles bulged, but what Diamond didn’t expect were voices even bigger than those magnificent bodies.

“We are great,” they roared. “And you must be good.”

Father stood and offered Diamond his hand.

The boy took hold.

And then Father confessed something else.

“We were greedy with your blood,” he said, smiling shyly as his voice broke. “We wanted more, as if one marvel wasn’t enough.”

Every day began with rain and misty brilliance, and every day faded at its own pace, approaching that moment when the sun had to be strangled.

Watching the night build was a trustworthy pleasure.

Standing at the front of the Ruler’s bridge, King stared out through the pilot’s window. Lights came alive in the surrounding trees. Several quick vessels were passing under the fleet—fletches scouting the territory past the Hole, probably. Father was talking to his new generals. Those men were still wary of Father. But they were soldiers and natural fighters, and they didn’t let themselves stay quiet when they didn’t agree. They warned the civilian that merging their giant fleet with the Corona’s forces was a huge undertaking, cumbersome yet essential. And Father told them that he didn’t want any part of the military work, but since they were new to their posts, they had to appreciate the goals and what missteps were completely unacceptable.

King could twist his head farther than any human could. He could watch the world outside and enjoy whatever was happening behind him.

“We’re going to win tomorrow,” said Father.

Faces nodded out of reflex.

“And we are going to lose,” he said.

Nobody else understood. Chests came forward, and someone said, “We never lose our wars.”

“ ‘Our wars,’ ” Father repeated. “Is this ‘our war’?”

They sensed a trap, and the generals assumed it was the only trap. One of them took it upon himself to say, “Humans have been slaughtered. Even if the papio had no role in the first crime, they came out of their sanctuary to kill hundreds more of our brothers. We must, must push ahead in force, with full resolve. We have no choice but make them bleed, or more trees will die.”

Standing in one neat line, the military men were nodding in unison.

“I agree,” said Father.

His audience expected to hear as much.

“But what happens if we’re too successful?”

They didn’t understand.

“Vengeance is always sloppy,” Father said. “Our enemies won’t just stand on their hands, counting their dead until the tallies are just about even. They’ll claim their turn, counterattacking us, and we will lose expensive ships and soldiers who were your friends, and then it isn’t tomorrow. It’s the day after, war is declared. Then it’s twenty days later, and you’re standing on this bridge, trying to win a struggle with half your fleet and no ammunition, and I’m a political beast working out of sight, desperately trying to bring us back to a place where some ugly peace holds.”

The generals looked sour, ill-at-ease.

King glanced into the gloom outside. The scout fletches had vanished, but now the little local fleet was arriving, armed airships and commercial vehicles and several corona-hunters converging beneath the Hole. They were following a timetable agreed on a hundred recitations ago. The woman Archon remained stubbornly out of reach, but Father and his generals had come to this decision: they would marshal here for the night, and in the morning, after the rain, the combined fleet would fly en masse to the nearest portion of the reef.

“I am a politician,” Father continued. “I’ll never be a soldier, and don’t let me pretend to be. But this situation is political and it is very complex. You have no choice but believe me. Winning tomorrow is not a matter of bombs and death. Losing might be, but not winning.”

“What are you talking about?” one officer asked.

“I know something,” said Father. “Small events and patience have given me insights, and I won’t explain myself. Don’t ask. But we have a rare opportunity here. We can come home richer than when we left, and at least in their public eye, the papio will think that they have won a good small war of their own.”

“Which war is that?” another asked.

“Our fleet will provide cover for the righteous people,” said Father. “The Corona forces are free to blow up all of the bunkers and hangers they can find, and they can even land troops and try a running war on the sharp coral.”

“They’ll get chopped down,” the ranking general warned.

Father said nothing, and he said it in a certain way.

Finally, the soldiers understood some part of this plan. They found themselves agreeing with the little man, at least enough that they could narrow their eyes, peering into the future with cold smirks and knowing clicks of the tongues.

The meeting ended when a military session began in a distant room.

Father joined King at the window.

His son was counting the little ships, and then another one of the endless aides announced, “Sir, you have a visitor.”

Father turned away, immediately saying an unfamiliar name.

King found an old man standing on weak legs.

“I’m very busy,” Father said.

“So I see,” the old man replied with a sharp tone.

“Where’s your daughter?” Father asked.

King saw a familiar face inside the new face. This was Prima’s father—a retired trader in corona guts and skins.

“She’s directly below you,” the man answered.

“And the boy, our friend Diamond . . . where is he?”

That amused the trader. “I haven’t been told. Which makes me think, sir, that you probably know more than I do.”

The Archon of Archons nodded thoughtfully, and he looked down from the bridge. Then with a tight slow voice, he said, “We have berths here for every ship. Tell your daughter to dock beside me, and we can meet.”

“No, sir.”

“What’s that?”

“There are no call-lines in mid-air. That’s why she asked me to come and deliver this message to you personally. She wants you to know her intentions.”

“Her intentions,” Father said.

The plates on King’s body lifted.

“My daughter and her armada are ready, and they intend to embark now, without delay. This is a night journey. Speed matters. But she wants me to tell you that you are welcome to push free of your hiding places and follow at your convenience.”

“My convenience?”

“Or stay where you are. She would never presume to feed orders to any Archon.”

Father’s eyes grew big. “And where is she going?”

The old man laughed quietly.

“Really, List,” he said. “Are you begging me to paint you a map?”

NINE

She was a burr-tree branch and then a ghost, and then she returned again as a leatherwing watching Bountiful with four superior eyes. She kept tabs on the Diamond boy and the humans, learning that the airship was about to slip away to a fresh hiding place. A sleek leatherwing could match the ship’s pace, but someone would notice her. Quest didn’t want anyone noticing her. She wanted to run the branches, biding her time. But then she heard papio wings on patrol and the whiffbirds rising, and that was why she turned into a ghost again, sloughing off her clumsiest pieces and everything that was remotely visible.

She hadn’t been so tiny in a very long while.

Bountiful passed near the ghost’s hiding place, but she couldn’t see Diamond. She wanted to see him again but she was above the airship and the shop was in its belly, and the whiffbirds were coming fast, and she was so tiny and so invisible that it didn’t feel like bravery when she fell like a leaf.