‘True enough.’ Stenwold sighed. ‘You know your route? You’re sure enough of it?’

Nero nodded. ‘Ship to Seldis, overland south on the trade route to Siennis, Mavralis, and then by ship across the Sea of Exiles apparently, to Solarno. Fires your blood, doesn’t it, hearing all those names?’

‘Travel in the Spiderlands…’

‘Isn’t new to me, remember? And we’ll have letters of introduction from your man the Lord-Martial there.’

‘Nero, he’s not my man,’ Stenwold corrected. ‘He’s nobody’s but his family’s and his own. Don’t relax, and don’t rely on him either. Cut loose from him as soon as possible and make your own decisions.’

‘Right,’ Nero confirmed, and grinned again. ‘I love the Spider-kinden. Never a dull moment.’

One of the sailors called them, just then. They were ready to cast off, and the wind and tide were with them.

‘Che,’ Stenwold called out.

‘I know. Be careful. Look after Nero.’

‘That isn’t quite -’

She came over and hugged him briefly. ‘We’ll be all right, Uncle Sten.’

‘Just do whatever you can,’ he said, ‘but don’t take risks.’

His wings a blur, Nero was already touching down on deck. Che reached out to Achaeos, brushing fingers, and then she dashed after the Fly, thumping up the gangplank to turn briefly at the rail and wave down at them.

For Achaeos the route was harder still: across the whole of the Lowlands, all the way to the borders of the Empire, and then further still. No ship, no rail could take him there, nor even a road untramped by imperial boots. This was where Jons Allanbridge entered the story.

Jons Allanbridge was an adventurer, a fortune-hunter but, despite this, a good son of Collegium. He had fought in the air when the Vekken attacked, piloting his airship over their fleet to drop boxfuls of grenades – until the wind swept him too low and a catapult put a man’s weight of metal scrap through the balloon.