"Pyros, he was talking to," Billy said. "And necros. What if Byrne wasn't remote-talking to him at all, when we saw her? Remember how she wrote?" He unfolded the little eyes. "Why are there paper planes here? Remember how he found us in the first place? Why's this ink grey?" grey?"

Grisamentum had burnt alive alive, in that temporally and psychically knacked variant of memory fire, that mongrel of expertise, the pyros' and Byrne's, her deadist insights. But he had not quite died. He had never died. That was the point.

After hours of it, after the mourners had left, he would have been collected. He was ash. But he never quite died. He was safe from his illness-he had no veins for it to poison, no organs for it to ruin. Byrne (her name a sudden joke) must have taken him, charcoal-coloured in his urn, ground any last black bone shards and carbon into powder. Mixed him into the base he had had prepared: gum, spirit, water, and rich knack.

Then she must have dipped her pen into him, closed her eyes, dragged the point across her paper. To see the thin line jag into scrappy calligraphy, a substance learning itself, she gasping in loyalty and delight as the ink self-wrote: hello again hello again.

"WHY'S HE DONE ALL THIS?" DANE SAID. HE STARED AT THE PAPER. It stared inkly back. "Why does he want the world to burn? Because he did? Revenge on it all?" It stared inkly back. "Why does he want the world to burn? Because he did? Revenge on it all?"

"I don't know." Billy was gathering the paper planes. He held one up. The word on it was Poplar Poplar. On another Binding Binding. Another said Telephone Telephone. In super-thin writing. All incorporating two little scribbled eyes. This was the remnant of honour, nostalgic for spurious legendary times.

Was it always a lie, Billy thought? Had this neutrality-breaching killer always been so savage? Had something happened to make him the purveyor of this? The vastness of this murder.

Dane went from room to ruined room and gathered bits of Krakenist culture, accoutrements here and there, weapons. There must have been some of the Krakenist congregation out, on errands, having their lives, who would find out soon what had happened to their religion. Like the last of the Londonmancers they were now an exiled people. Their pope murdered before his altar. But in that burrow at that moment, sifting through the rubbish of the dead, Dane was the last man on earth.

Where was the light coming from? There were some bulbs not smashed, but the grey illumination in the corridors seemed greater than those little sepia efforts. The blood everywhere looked black. Billy had heard moonlight made blood look black. He met the eyes of one of the paper planes. It regarded him. Its paper fluttered again, unblown.

"It's trying to get away," he said. "Why would they ... he ... why would he actually come here, not just issue orders? He's watching. See how thin this pen is? Remember how careful Byrne was with the papers she wrote on? How she swapped pens? So she could scrape the ink off again. There can only be so much of him."

"Why would he do do this?" Dane shouted. Billy still looked at the fallen paper's eyes. this?" Dane shouted. Billy still looked at the fallen paper's eyes.

"I don't know. That's what we have to find out. So my question is, how do we interrogate ink?"

Chapter Sixty-Eight

THEY WORKED IN THE LORRY. SAFER THAN IN WHAT WAS SUDDENLY a sepulchre. Billy had all the planes he could find, all with blood and mud torn off, so it was only ink that stained them. a sepulchre. Billy had all the planes he could find, all with blood and mud torn off, so it was only ink that stained them.

The kraken overlooked them. Dane prayed to it. While the Londonmancers muttered and looked at Dane, suddenly bereft like them, Billy soaked the paper in distilled water, pulped it and squeezed it out. Paul watched him, his back, his tattoo, to the wall. Billy extracted the weak-tea-coloured water and boiled off a little excess. The liquid rilled away from him in a way not right.

"Be careful," said Saira. If the ink was Grisamentum, perhaps each drop of him was him. Perhaps each had all his senses and his thoughts and a little portion of his power.

"She scraped him off each time she got him back and remixed him," Billy said. Each separate pipette full added back to Grisamentum's bottled consciousness. Why else would there be these eyes? The ink must know what all those rejoined drips of him had known. "I guess they've got to husband him." He was finite. Every order he wrote, every spell he became, his communications were were him, and eroded him. If he was all written up, there would be only ten thousand little Grisamenta on scraps, each enough to be perhaps a magic postcard in some pathetic way. him, and eroded him. If he was all written up, there would be only ten thousand little Grisamenta on scraps, each enough to be perhaps a magic postcard in some pathetic way.

When Billy was done there was a thimbleful, more than a drop but not much more. He dipped a needle into it. Dane stood, made a devotional sign, joined them. He glanced up. Wati hibernated through the union's defeat in a doll strapped on the vehicle's roof. Billy rifled through the papers he was using, scraps from his bag, all manner of odds and ends.

"Is this going to work?" Saira said.

"Works for Byrne," Billy said. "Let's see."

"Are we actually finally going to find out what his plans are?"

Billy kept his eyes on Dane's. He put the needle to the paper and dragged his hand, without looking, across the page. He drew a line, only a line.

"Oy," Billy said. "Grisamentum. Pay attention." He drew another line, and a third, and this last time suddenly it spasmed like a cardiogram, and there was writing. UP YOURS UP YOURS, the writing wrote. Tiny scratchy font. Billy redipped the needle.

"Let me," Dane whispered, and Billy waved him back.

"You aren't thinking straight," Billy whispered to the little residue at the bottom of the container. "You're probably a bit foggy. You must be a bit dilute, a bit mucky. Your little brain must be ... little." He held a pipette over the ink.

"We can dilute you a bit more. Does alcohol sting? We've got some lemon juice. We've got some acid." Billy would swear the tiny pool flinched at that. The pigment that was Grisamentum swilled in the cup.

"What are you doing?" Billy said to the ink.

"My people ..." Dane said.

Billy dipped, scratched, wrote. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.

"Right," said Billy. He dipped the needle in bleach, and then into the ink. A tiny amount: this had to be a delicate kind of attack. The colour twitched, left a little fade. Billy mixed it, dragged the needle again.

BASTARDS, Grisamentum wrote in itself.

"What are you doing?" Billy said.

FUCK YOU.

"Where's the rest of you?" Billy said.

FUCK U.

Billy dripped in more bleach and the ink rolled. "We're not going to pour you down the sink. You don't get to dissipate painlessly with rats and turds." He held the pipette over the glass. "I will piss in you and then bleach you so you dissolve. Where Where is the rest of you?" is the rest of you?"

He wrote. The penmanship was ragged. FUCKERS FUCKERS.

"Alright," said Dane. "Bleach that murdering bastard."

WAIT. Billy scratched. Billy scratched. INK FACTRY. CLOSED INK FACTRY. CLOSED.

Billy looked at Saira. Dane whispered to the toy he carried, though Wati was not in it. "Why take all the books?" He dipped more bleach again.

RESERCH.

"How can he read them all?" said Dane. "Research? "Research? Why does he care anyway? What in the name of God has all this been about?" Why does he care anyway? What in the name of God has all this been about?"

It was Grisamentum's plan that started the countdown to the fire to come. Kicked everything into motion. Only by the superstition of Adler, one of the few who knew his boss still lived in that intermediate ashy way, had the Londonmancers found out about the scheme. Grisamentum's intended theft had made them intervene, against their own oaths, because they could not have that burning.

"Why," whispered Billy, "do you want to whispered Billy, "do you want to burn burn it?" it?"

DONT CRAZY WHY?

"So what is it?" Billy said.

"What's he doing?" Fitch said. "Why did he even want the kraken?"

CANT U GUESS?

The ink wrote that, forcing the needle unexpectedly to the paper and scribbling with Billy's hand. Billy redipped.

MAGIC.

ONLY I CAN BE.

"Okay," said Billy after seconds of silence. "Does anyone understand this?"

"Why's he saying this?" Dane said. "You're not even bleaching him."

"He's crowing," said Paul, suddenly. Billy nodded.

"Bleach the motherfucker," said Dane. "Just on principle." principle." Billy dipped the bleach-tipped needle and the ink swilled to get away. Billy dipped the bleach-tipped needle and the ink swilled to get away.

NO NO BE ITS MAGC ONLY I CAN. NO 1 ELS IN LONDONN CN BE.

"He's losing it," Saira said.

"Ink," Billy said.

THEY STARED AT HIM.

"That's what he means," Billy said. "That's what no one else in London can be. The kraken's ink ink. Anyone else might be able to use use it, but Grisamentum can it, but Grisamentum can be be it." it."

Such a magic beast. Alien hunter god in its squiddity. Englassed. Knowing how this stuff worked, Billy thought. It had the biggest eyes-so all-seeing all-seeing. Bastard of myth and science, specimen-magic. And what other entity, possessing those characteristics, being that thing, had the means to write it all down? And what other entity, possessing those characteristics, being that thing, had the means to write it all down?

"Jesus," Billy said. "This has always been about writing writing. What do you mean?" he said to the ink. "How does it work?"

CAN B IT CAN WILL BE INNNK It was too gone, too bleached and limited, that little drip of Grisamentum, to answer. Alright. Analogies, metaphors, persuasion-this, Billy knew, was how London did it. He remembered watching Vardy gnosis up, from will, and Billy decluttered his mind and tried to mimic him.

So.

With script, a new kind of memory, grimoires and accounts. Traditions could be created, lies made more tenacious. History written down sped up, travelled at the speed of ink. And all the tedious antique centuries before we were ready, the pigment was stored for us in the cephalopod containers-motile ink, ink we caught and ate and let run down and stain our chins.

Oh, what, he thought, it was camouflage? camouflage? Please. Please. Architeuthis Architeuthis lives in the aphotic zone: what purpose would the spray of dark sepia serve in a world without light? It was there for other reasons. We just lives in the aphotic zone: what purpose would the spray of dark sepia serve in a world without light? It was there for other reasons. We just would not get the hint would not get the hint, not for millennia. We didn't invent ink: ink was waiting for us, aeons before writing. In the sacs of the deepwater god.

"What could you do with kraken ink?" Dane said. Not scornful-breathless.

"What can you be be with it?" Billy corrected. with it?" Billy corrected.

The very writing on the wall. The logbook, the instructions by which the world worked. Commandments.

"But it's dead," Billy said.

"Come on, look at Byrne, he's worked with thanatechs before," Dane said. "All he needs is to wake its body up, just a little bit. For a little bit of ink. All he has to do is milk it."

It would not take so much to bring that preserved kraken an interzone closer to life. Thanks to Billy and his colleagues there was no corruption, after all, no rot to cajole backward, which was always the hardest battle for necrosmiths. A threshold-life would be enough to stimulate the ink sacs.

"But why would he burn it?" Saira said. "Why the burning?"

"His plan sets it in motion," said Fitch at last. "That's all we know."

"Maybe it's to do with his crew," Billy said. "It must be him has Cole's daughter. Maybe it's out of his control. What are you doing with the girl?" He said the last sentence loudly to the ink spot. "What are you doing with Cole's daughter?" He shook it to wake it.

WAT?? ALK? NO GIRLL INK "Bleach it away," said Saira. Billy wrote an alarming jagged line, and the words IS TATOO IS U? IS TATOO IS U? An arrow. Pointing at Paul. Paul stood. An arrow. Pointing at Paul. Paul stood.

"Hey," said Billy. "Why do you have the girl?" He wrote in tiny print again. TA2 NO CATCH YOU YES. HELO TA2 NO CATCH YOU YES. HELO "That's enough," Billy said. A couple more meaningless scrawls, the words came again, and this time fast.

WHAT WILL THEY DO 2 U?

"What? Do what?" Billy wrote, looking away. "What's he talking about?"

"Wait wait," shouted Fitch, and Billy pulled the nib up and looked at what he had written.

THEY HAVE U & TA2. WONT LET YOU LIV I PRTECT U QIK "What ...?" "Wait ..." "Is that...?" Everyone was sounding it out.

They have you. Paul was standing. And Tattoo. Dane was beside him. They won't let you live.

Billy stared at Saira and Fitch. I protect you, Grisamentum was telling Paul. Quick.

"Hold on, now," Fitch said.

"What?" said Billy.

"Wait," Dane said. "He's messing with you." He looked at Fitch. Paul moved faster than Billy would have thought he could. Paul snatched the container of ink and the papers on which Grisamentum had written from Billy's hand. Grabbed scissors from a table. He backed to the lorry door.

Billy looked at Fitch's face, and did not try hard to stop Paul.

"Look," Fitch said. "See? It's stirring between us all."

"Alright," said Dane. He stood between Paul and the Londonmancers. "Let's calm down ..."

Billy lowered the needle and wrote with the last of what was on the needle. "Don't," said Fitch, but Billy ignored him and read out loud.

"'Why would they let you live?'"

Billy caught Dane's eye. A recognition sparked between them that the tiny fuggy-minded drop of Grisamentum had a point.

BILLY SWUNG HIS PHASER AT THE L LONDONMANCERS. THEY DID NOT know it was empty, or almost. He doubted it would fire. "Look," said Saira. She stood in a pugilist's pose, but glanced at Fitch. "This is bullshit." know it was empty, or almost. He doubted it would fire. "Look," said Saira. She stood in a pugilist's pose, but glanced at Fitch. "This is bullshit."

"Don't be foolish," Fitch said. He stammered, "No one intends any, no one has any ... why would we ...?"

"You ..." whispered Paul. "He's right." He moved back against the door.