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crowd. Tamar had to force her feet to follow him, for they had turned heavy and difficult. She still trailed one hand along the marble wall of the building to aid her balance. She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. She must have lost more blood last night than she had realized; shame on Ezra for not warning her about the aftereffects this morning.
    “That’s odd,” Zeke said, a few paces later, by which time she had more or less recovered.
    “What? That they broadcast the Gloria like that? I didn’t know it was possible.”
    “It’s the first year they’ve tried it. But that’s not what I meant. Your arm. Look at it.”
    “What about my—” she began, and then faltered. The Kiss, which had seemed more alive this morning, now positivelyblazed with an iridescent flame. Colors sparked in its nacreous depths, faded, and grew calm as she watched. “Jovah guard me,” she said faintly.
    “He won’t,” Zeke replied automatically. “What was that all about? It’s almost completely dull again now.”
    “I have no idea,” she said. “Maybe it’s some part of that-bonding process Ezra talked about last night.”
    “It looks like it would be hot. Is it hot?”
    “No,” she said, but she touched it anyway, to find a fugitive warmth just now fading from the glass surface. Perhaps that surge of heat she had felt moments ago was not her imagination after all. “No,” she said again.
    “Strange,” he said. “Maybe you should ask someone what it means.”
    “Certainly. The first angel I come across, perhaps—or, no, a Jansai warrior. There are plenty of them here. ‘Excuse me, kind sir, but I’m a Jacobite in hiding and I’ve just had a Kiss installed in my arm, and I wondered if you could explain to me—’”
    “Well, you could ask somebody less suspicious. Someday.”
    “I’ll do that. Meanwhile, you have a ship to board.”
    By now, they were only a block over from the wharf, and in the spaces between buildings, they could spot the array of ships clustered along the harbor. The smaller vessels—the sailboats, the fishing boats, the shuttles—were crowded up to the wooden dock, masts and sails and banners creating a tangle of shapes and colors against the sky. Farther out, stately and patient, were the big ships too heavy for the shallow waters at the harbor’s edge.
    “What’s this ship’s name? Do you see her?” Zeke asked anxiously. Once clear of the bewildering effect of angel song, he had reverted to his normal fretful personality.
    “
The Wayward.
I think she’s a midsized ship, because the Edori don’t have huge cargo boats, but he said he’d have to send the dinghy in. So she must be out a ways…. Yes, I think that’s her. Straight out through those two buildings, do you see?”
    “No, I—oh, yes. Yes, I do. But there’s no red rug on the railing.”
    “Be patient. I think we have a few more minutes to wait. He didn’t want to come to shore until the last possible moment.”
    The Edori ships were all easy to spot, for they were smaller,sleeker, and in general less showy than the Jansai vessels. Tamar had heard that they were also faster, usually outrunning the Jansai, who practiced piracy on the high seas.
The Wayward
had little decoration to distinguish it, except the name painted in flowing red letters on the bow and the flag of the Edori nation flying from its mast. Like the Jansai, the Edori had made a bird their mascot, but theirs was a white falcon winging its way diagonally across an onyx background.
Freedom.
All the Edori had ever wanted.
    “How many more minutes?” Zeke wanted to know.
    “I don’t know. Ten, maybe. Fifteen. How quickly can you get to the dock from here? He said it would take him ten minutes to reach the dock from the ship.”
    “I could make it in three.”
    “Walking casually, so you would not draw attention?”
    “Well, five, then. It’s only a hundred yards away.”
    “Do you want me to stay here or come with you? Which would be