There were too many things to ask. What has it been? Where have you been? How do you live? Do you miss us? These questions and others filled the room in ghost unspoken form. When at last someone spoke, it was to say, “Why have you come back?”

Cutter knew some of the delegates. An old cactus-woman called Swelled Eyelid, a Proscribed, he remembered; a man Terrimer, whose affiliation he did not know; and Curdin.

Curdin, a leader of the Runagates Rampant, had been Remade.

There were fashions in Remaking. Cutter had seen this shape before. Pantomime horses, people called them. Curdin had been made quadruped. Behind his own, another pair of legs shuffled uncertainly, bent at their waist, their human torso horizontal and submerging into the flesh above Curdin’s arse as if he were opaque water. Another man had been embedded in him.

“They broke me out,” he said to Cutter quietly. “When it started. When the Collective took over. They emptied the punishment factories. Too late for me.”

“Curdin,” Judah said. “Curdin, what is this? What’s happening? Is this the Collective?”

“It was,” Curdin said. “It was. ”

“Why’s the Council coming back?”

“We’re being targeted,” Judah said. “New Crobuzon fought its way through the Firewater Straits for us. They found out where we are. They’ve wanted us for years. Curdin, they’re chasing us through the cacotopic stain. The Council’s a way off yet, but it’s coming. We came to tell you, and to see-”

“You sure you’re still being followed? Through the stain? How did you come through the damn stain?”

“We’ve not shaken them off. They may be depleted, but they’re still coming. Even if Parliament doesn’t believe that the Council’s returning, their assassins are after us.”

“But why are you here?”

“Because of you, of course. Gods damn, Curdin. I knew something was happening when I left. I knew, and when the Council heard about it, they knew it was time to come home. To be part of this.”

But you wanted to stay away, Judah. Cutter looked at him, with a strange sense.

“We’re coming back. We’re going to join the Collective.”

Though there was joy in the faces of the Caucusers, Cutter swore he saw something ambivalent in all of them.

“There ain’t a Collective.”

“You shut your damn mouth, ” said others instantly, rounding on Curdin, and, “The fuck you say.” Even the other Runagaters looked shocked, but Curdin raised himself up on four tiptoes and shouted.

“We know it. We’ve weeks, at the most. We’ve nothing left. They’ve cut us off, they’re killing Smog Bend, Howl Barrow’s probably gone. We’re less than a fifth of the committee-half the others don’t know what they want, or want to make peace, for gods’ sake, with the Mayor, as if Parliament wants that now. We’re over. We’re just living out days. And now you want to drag the godsdamned Iron Council into this? You want to bring it down?”

“Chaver.” It was a young woman who spoke, a Runagater. Her voice shook. “You won’t like what I’m going to say.”

“No this ain’t because of what’s done to me…”

“Yes, it is. You been Remade, chaver, and it’s a sick thing, and it’s made you despair, and I ain’t saying I’d do it any differently, and I ain’t saying we’ll win for sure, but I am damn well saying that you don’t decide now that we’re done. You better godsdamned fight with us, Curdin.”

“Wait.” Judah’s mouth moved with a panic of collapsing plans. “Listen listen. Whatever the, whatever it is, whatever’s happening, you have to know that ain’t the reason we’re here. We have a job to do. Listen.

“Listen.

“New Crobuzon will fall.

“We heard-listen, please-we heard about the manifestations, your haints. They haven’t stopped, have they?”

“No but they grow smaller…”

“Yeah. For the same reason there aren’t droplets just around a splash. Because something’s getting close. Tesh ain’t suing for peace. Whether they’re talking to you, or Parliament, or both or whatever… they ain’t making peace, they’re preparing for the end. The haints ain’t the weapon. Something else is. It’s in the spirals.”

When at last they understood, they thought him mad. But not in fact for long.

“You think this is a whim?” Cutter raged at them. “You got any idea what we went through to get here? Any idea at all? What we’re trying to do here? The spirals are calling down fucking fire on you. On Parliament, Collective, all.”

They believed him, but Curdin laughed when Judah asked for help.

“What do you want from us, Judah? We ain’t got troops. I mean we do, but who’s ‘we’? I can’t control the Collective’s fighters. If I try to tell them what we need, they’ll think-even godsdamned now-that it’s a sodding ploy from a Runagater, trying to take over the Collective. I ain’t a military commander; I couldn’t control them. Or do you want Runagaters? Specifically?” He looked at his factionists.

“There’s a few left. Kirriko Street Irregulars is ours, but who the fuck knows how to contact them? The others are at the front. They’re on the barricades, Judah. What would you have me do? You think we can call a godsdamned meeting of the delegates, explain the situation? We’re breaking down, Judah-it’s each district for itself. We have to hold off the militia.”

“Curdin, if we don’t stop this there won’t be a damn city, let alone the Collective.”

“I understand.” The Remade man’s eyes looked rubbed with sand. He was scabbed from fighting. He swayed. “What would you have me do?”

A standoff, as if they are enemies. A silence.

“The city needs this.”

“I understand, Judah. What would you have us do?”

“There must be someone, some thaumaturge, some of the kithless…”

“I know who makes the spirals,” someone said.

“Maybe there is, but you’ll have to find them, and don’t look at me like that Judah of course I’ll do what I can, but I don’t know where to go. It’s the end now: there ain’t no one giving orders.”

“I know who makes the spirals. I know who makes the spirals.”

Quiet, finally. It was the young woman Runagater who spoke.

“Who makes the spirals. Who’s calling something. The Tesh agent.”

“How?” Judah said. “Who?”

“I don’t know him, not really… but I know someone who does. He used to be a Runagater, or nearly. I know him from meetings, Curdin. You do too. Ori.”

“ Ori? Who went to Toro?”

“Ori. He’s still with Toro, I think. It was Toro killed Stem-Fulcher, they reckon, for whatever bloody good it did. Toro disappeared after, but he’s been seen again. Maybe Ori’s with him. Maybe Ori can bring Toro to help.

“Ori knows who does the spirals. He told me.”