I used to be a rememberer. I know I don’t look like it; rememberers are usually cleaner and better-dressed and better-fed. But they kicked me out of the union and I couldn’t get any work and now I’m reduced to living off the land. Which is something made infinitely easier by the ability to read the memories of conies and poachers and various survivalist types who’ve snuck their way into Living Memory.

That’s how they get you, though. First they buy you and convince you you’re selling yourself cheap, then they let you start peeling away the secrets, and by the time you know the truth, you’re complicit. You don’t want the dirty laundry aired any more than any of them want. You’ve become one of them.

Like, for instance. It’s an article of faith that the Celestial Firmament can’t be breached. All-under-heaven is all under heaven is the Mother Countries. There’s nowhere else. Bull. Swim around in Living Memory and find Qu-Rocca’s meeting with the Smelter of Souls. It’s in there, although you have to time it right; Qu-Rocca keeps his memories in a ceramic urn lined against remembering, and only opens them up once a fortnight.

Esther Red-Hands, she embarrassed them. Every year someone makes up a new lie about her, calling her a sociopath or a drug addict or a litorian in a sibeccai suit. Or Borr Mortock. There’s nothing about him in Living Memory, not any more, and they don’t want people asking questions about that. They’re scared of how easily he did what he did, and how any peasant with a grudge against the aristos — which is, like, ninety-nine percent of them — could do it again and do it better. They’re scared of change, which is what Esther represented. They’re a bunch of cowards, and they rewrite history to suit themselves.

SEE ALSO: Borr Mortock’s Day, Esther Red-Hands, Qu-Rocca, the Smelter of Souls.