“Maybe there’s lost context,” Redana says, because she’s surely expected to say something. A princess does not sit like a lump and refuse to engage with her lessons! “The archivists are always complaining about [i]that.[/i] That in previous ages, there are things that don’t get recorded because they’re [i]obvious,[/i] or were, back then. Like where Xiban was! We have records of trading fleets and descriptions of their royal court, but nobody wrote down where it was because that was obvious, everyone knew Xiban, until we didn’t. So maybe everybody used to know what made engines ignite, until they didn’t, because there was disruption and tumult and cultural collapse. Or, or maybe that part was an oral tradition, because those are very prone to disruption, if everyone that knows what’s supposed to be passed on dies.”

That’s not a cheerful thought. Lots of serious, devoted technomancers, passing on the great big secret, from the old to the new, and then something happens all at once: Poseidon drowns them all, or the Drive Yards burn with fire and light, or a mad king orders the dissolution of the turbulent priests that ail him...

“It’s okay that you don’t know,” she adds. “I’m not mad. Thank you for telling me what you do know. I really appreciate it. Can I keep asking questions? Or is there a limit? Oh no, have I run out already? Why do I keep asking? I’m sorry!”