"Please... please," he interrupts with a wave of his hand. "Gentler with the trim."

It emerges that even a half-blind ghostly apparition can prove particular with artisanal work.

"There was ever talk of the dead rising. Stories. Men who woke because the moon was full, or a lover betrayed them, or the spirit of a crow possessed them. But always isolated exceptions. Nothing of... of this intensity." No dreams of such a coordinated, careful movement. "They say it took them a handful of days to seize and ruin Ellethia. And that, a city whole."