Shad proposed food somewhere around 4AM and was outvoted without discussion. The Farantees Hyper-mart on the Great Northern Causeway was the only option at that hour, and while it is technically open, something about the stock between murkneet and murkrise gives even Van Hallam pause — which is, as a rule of thumb, sufficient deterrent.

Crossing The Hinge requires speaking the milting semagrams aloud — a ritual I have performed often enough now that it feels almost like checking one's pockets before leaving the house. Van points out that the portal to the woad kingdom opened for his gruizer without semagrams, which raises the question of whether what I have been doing is strictly necessary or whether I have simply conditioned myself to believe it is — which is, in Hellsborough, arguably worse.

Death in Hellsborough is administered by the Wisewood Reaper, who operates from the forest boundary with a clipboard, a case file, and the professional patience of someone whose queue has not been short in living memory. He does not ask whether you are ready. He asks which column you belong to and whether a sub-form applies — and I have now appeared in his records under 'entity of disputed status,' which I suspect makes me more paperwork than most.

Siltibog, emperor of the Stanningxin, receives the gratitude of Hathersage with the same composed formality that xin apparently bring to everything, including small-arm fire from the decks of commandeered gruizers. They are not a wordy race, Van says, but their ways lend themselves to dignified and courtly manners — a distinction I have come to appreciate, having watched a thousand green warriors accept the thanks of an entire village while the battle was still technically ongoing.