He can work out the tactics: You put Circles on water, under earth. Even Cumberland's heavy curtains and marble halls are good in a fire. Slow to burn. So, a lake. Smart. Limits the approaches, limits the exits, and that's smart too – keeps something like Uldred from spilling over –

But that's different from shut letters. From shut cities, hell; from no runs around the yard. There'd been gardens, in the Capital. Trees. A sky.

"If you're offering," Julius' guess. "Reckon y'know if it worked."