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quickly, and Rachel can help you. I want you to find Carnival before next Scar Night and deliver an offer to parley. Tell no one about this, do you understand? No one.” He paused. “Dill, it has to be you. She’d kill anyone else I sent after her. Commoners are her prey. Spine forever hunt her. Priests send the Spine after her. She loathes the aeronauts. Only recently she brought down a warship for no apparent reason. Most of its crew lost their lives.”

Dill could scarcely breathe. Battle-archons had faced Carnival before. He’d read about them in his books: archons who had already fathered many sons. The Church would never have risked their deaths otherwise. Few survived, and none had escaped uninjured.

“She’ll kill me,” he said.

“No,” Adjunct Crumb said. “I think she’ll listen to you.”

“Why?”

“You’ll be unarmed.”

20

Changes of Heart

A heavy headwind buffeted the Birkita as she rumbled on through the night, whistling through her air ducts and strumming support cables. The warship was an orchestra of eerie midnight sounds. Stars crowded the darkness beyond the bridge windows. The Deadsands were blowing below in a shapeless silver gauze.

“It would be faster to walk,” Devon grumbled as he raked through his bag of poisons. But he didn’t trust Angus enough with the engines or himself with the controls to set their speed at more than two-thirds full power. Which meant his pursuers must be gaining.

“I am in no hurry to reach Blackthrone,” Sypes said. The old priest had not risen from his chair since he’d settled there, and Devon was beginning to wonder if they’d have to carry him out of the airship seated on it after they landed.

“You wouldn’t be,” he sneered.

“Nor am I in a hurry for you to find a suitable poison.”

The Poisoner grunted. With the warship’s creeping progress against the wind, he’d lost patience with Sypes’s reluctance to talk. The thump of blood in his own heart had grown stronger. His skin had tightened around his muscles. His teeth felt scoured clean, hard; eyes quick and restless. The angelwine was still transforming him, driving him. Why shouldn’t he torture the priest? He had to do something positive before this damn wind blew them back to Deepgate. “Not this one,” he muttered, placing one bottle on the control deck. “Nor this.” He set another bottle aside.

He pulled out a small green phial, read its label, and shook his head.

Was there nothing in the bag he could use? Nothing here that wouldn’t kill the old man outright? He needed something that would cause pain but not push the Presbyter into shock, coma, or worse. Snake venoms, fungal spores, extract of dog-weed and blushlily, widow eel pigment; he set them all aside.

“Damn your heart,” he said.

Sypes stirred in his chair behind him. “Found anything yet?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Any more wine? Or perhaps something to eat? I’m famished.”

“Give me a minute.”

The Poisoner lifted out the last bottle and frowned, then tipped the lot back into the bag and let out a long sigh. “What would you like to eat?”

“Whatever is easy. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“There are some pickled clams in the galley, a yard of salted pigskin. Or cuttlefish—dry, I’m afraid.”

“The clams would be fine.”

Propellers thrummed loudly as Devon pushed open the bridge door. Wind tore at the portholes. He locked the door behind him and then strode along the starboard companionway, sliding his hand along the smooth brass guide-rail.

Pots and pans swung from hooks in the dark galley. Barrels had been stacked against the far wall, most of them empty now or with a few salted scraps at the bottom. The shelves were mostly empty too. All of the fresh fruit and meat had been eaten and theBirkita had not been restocked after her last tour. Devon found the pot of clams he sought in the larder and stuffed it under his arm.

Perhaps he ought to torture Sypes the old-fashioned way? He could tie the old man down and find a knife. A lit taper might also be effective. The loss of a few fingers or an eye under anaesthetic would be no great risk to the Presbyter’s health so long as he staunched the bleeding and kept the wounds clean. There would be bandages and lint somewhere aboard. He could even cut the priest’s balls off. Devon winced at the thought. Some things he would rather not see. Conventional torture was unsophisticated, unpalatable, he decided. It lacked finesse.

But was he prepared to wait while Deepgate’s armada pursued