‘Tisamon…?’

The Mantis checked him with a look, eyes filled with an emotion outside Stenwold’s experience. ‘I will go and she must stay. Do not ask me to take her – not yet. I will return to her. Remind her… I cannot… She…’ The Mantis’s breath caught. Uncomfortable truths were crawling just beneath the surface of his face.

‘She would lose control, and then start killing Wasps indiscriminately,’ Stenwold finished for him.

‘It seems likely,’ Tisamon agreed, in that instant burying everything that had been about to rise to the surface. ‘So you must find her a home here – and that Spider doctor of hers. He seems… able to help her.’

Stenwold frowned. ‘In turn you must promise to watch Thalric.’

‘I’ll consider it a wasted trip if I haven’t killed him,’ growled the Mantis, on firmer ground here and without a hint of humour.

Tynisa, next, did not embrace Stenwold as Che had done, just clasped his hand in the manner of her father. She has grown up now. She is no longer my ward. The sword-and-circle badge of the Weaponsmasters glinted on her breast, a twin to Tisamon’s own.

‘This is important, Master Maker,’ Achaeos told him as his turn came. ‘I know you cannot see it, but I thank you for your trust.’ Of them all he wore no special cold-weather clothing, born to the mountains as he was.

‘I learned a long time ago that there is more to this world than my eyes can see,’ Stenwold said. ‘Just you get the thing, whatever it is, and bring it back.’ Doctor Nicrephos had died for this box: another Moth who had been frantic about its importance. Stenwold noticed that Gaved had already gone aboard along with Allanbridge, gliding up onto the airship’s deck with a flick of his wings. That left one man only.

Stenwold turned to him, a thousand warnings on his lips, but all withering in the face of that slight, mocking smile.

‘What can you say to me, Master Maker?’ Thalric asked him. ‘Why not stop me now if you are so very concerned?’