Contents
Chapter 9
Overview
Sancia and Gregor infiltrate the seemingly deserted galleon, weaponize its shriekers, and discover Dandolo scrivers and hundreds of slaves dead—evidence of a ritual that scrived time to resurrect Crasedes Magnus early. Sancia confronts a veiled Crasedes, who manipulates gravity and nearly extracts Clef’s location.
Using the imperiat, Sancia stuns Crasedes and crashes the ship, fleeing as it begins to sink. Orso and Berenice rescue them, but Crasedes rights the galleon, proving his return. They head to warn Valeria.
Summary
Sancia and Gregor board the unlit, eerily empty Dandolo galleon. Sancia rigs thirty-five shriekers to reverse-fire inward via anchoring slugs tied to their imprinters. Drawn by screams, they descend toward the cargo holds and find a Dandolo scriver dead by suicide, his eyes cut out, then a room of mutilated scrivers—everyone having blinded themselves before dying.
Amid sigil charts and maps of the Mountain of the Candianos, Sancia pockets parchments describing unfamiliar hierophantic strings. A surviving scriver babbles about a hidden bone from Crasedes used to argue he never died and that none were allowed to see his true form. In an adjacent chamber, they find nearly a hundred slaves dead in concentric rings, each with a small metal marker, white moths strewn across the floor, and a sigiled circle marred by blood. Sancia deduces the Dandolos scrived time so the circle was perpetually at midnight, enabling the resurrection ahead of schedule at horrific cost.
They locate Ofelia Dandolo, who admits ordering lights extinguished and the crew sent abovedecks while Crasedes “calibrated” and sought a veil; she believes he will “fix” Gregor and the world. Sancia hunts onward and discovers a vast cavity torn from the ship. Nausea heralds Crasedes, who greets Sancia from behind; veiled as a carnival Papa Monsoon mask, he speaks with overwhelming charm, claiming Valeria lies and pressing for Valeria’s location and Clef’s return. Sancia, seeing the bone embedded in his right hand with her scrived sight, resists revealing Clef.
Gregor ambushes with the anchored shriekers; Crasedes plucks slugs from the air and halts the shriekers mid-flight, then freezes Gregor and crushes him by manipulating gravity. To stop him, Sancia slams the imperiat’s range lever to maximum, killing the ship’s scrivings and stunning Crasedes. The galleon begins to capsize; Sancia drags Gregor away in the dark, then briefly restores scrivings to find an exit as water floods in.
They escape onto the upturned hull, deploy air-sailing rigs, and are flung toward their fishing boat—but the rigs fail as the lexicon floods, dropping them into the sea. Orso and Berenice haul them aboard. Sancia’s salvaged parchments dissolve to pulp. As they watch, Crasedes hovers and physically rights the sinking galleon. Accepting they failed to prevent his return, they set sail to warn Valeria.
Who Appears
- Sancia GradoInfiltrates the galleon, weaponizes shriekers, deduces time-scriving ritual, confronts Crasedes, uses the imperiat to stun him, and escapes.
- Gregor DandoloGuides ship tactics, discovers corpses, confronts his mother, attacks Crasedes, is frozen and crushed by altered gravity, then flees with Sancia.
- Crasedes MagnusResurrected hierophant, veiled in a Papa Monsoon mask; manipulates gravity, resists shriekers, seeks Clef and Valeria, and rights the galleon.
- Ofelia DandoloGregory’s mother; orders lights off and crew moved; enables the ritual; shocked but convinced Crasedes will fix Gregor and the world.
- Orso IgnacioWaits aboard the fishing boat; rescues Sancia and Gregor from the sea; hears of Crasedes’s return.
- Berenice GrimaldiAids rescue on the fishing boat; witnesses Crasedes righting the galleon; prepares to warn Valeria.
- Unnamed Dandolo scriverBlinded and dying survivor who reveals the hidden bone and that no one may see Crasedes’s true form.