And then nothing, Silas thought. Nothing, because of course it wouldn’t work. They were all mad, mad with desperate, self-blinding hope in the way only the hopeless could be. Silas remembered that feeling from when he’d helped Euphemia Gordon start a riot. He’d had to believe they could fight and win, refusing to face the obvious truth they couldn’t, because the alternative had been giving in to a despair so all-consuming that it would leave him empty forever. So he’d fought, and been gaoled and flogged for it. The consequences of this would be much, much worse.
