«Why not?» November answered, folding her wings back flat across her shoulders. «I've never been fond of barrow wights.»

I buried my face in my hands and groaned.

«More company,» Yasmin called, as a dozen new wights clattered up a spiral staircase from the next floor down.

«Pike this nonsense,» Miriam growled.

She bent and picked up Chi's firewand, something I'd dropped in the course of my gymnastics on the wheelbarrow. Before I could guess what she was up to, she shouted «In nomine Vulpes!»

The wand loosed a crackling fireball straight into the wight's faces.

«What the sod are you doing?» I cried. To be sure, the wights had abruptly ceased to be a threat – in fact, with all the chemicals used to resurrect them, their bodies burned as if they had been doused with Phlegistol. One fell off the ramp and into a fish-tank two storeys below, releasing a gush of steam as thick as a pea-soup fog. The rest simply blazed down to ash in seconds, oil-soaked torches burning in the night… and all around them, the Vertical Sea burned too, a framework of age-old wood.

«Honored Miriam,» Wheezle said, «while you should be congratulated for guessing the firewand's invocation —»

«No trick there,» Miriam interrupted. «The Fox used the same phrase for every wand he made – the old sod had a real bee for mass production.»

«Still,» Wheezle continued, «one cannot help noticing that your fire has cut off our route to the ground.»

«It's cut off the wights too,» Miriam answered. «We won't have to worry about those berks anymore. If you're worried about getting away, November can fly some of us out, and the Kid can teleport the rest to safety. What's the problem?»

«In polite company,» I told her, «we don't use city monuments for kindling. On the other hand, we can discuss that after Hezekiah… Hezekiah?»

The boy had slumped to his knees and was pressing his hands against his head. «Rivi's trying to blank me again,» he wailed.

«I'll kill that slag!» Miriam roared, flourishing the firewand with homicidal intent. But the nasty wee albino was nowhere in sight… not that we had much of a view of our surroundings. With so many ramps, tanks, and support beams in the way, we had no clear line of sight to any of the other levels in the tower; and to make matters worse, smoke from the burning stairway had drifted in around us, stinging our eyes and reducing visibility to only a few paces.

«November!» I shouted, «start flying people out of here. Take Irene first…»

«Who's Irene?» the alu asked.

«I am Irene,» the old orc answered serenely, «betrothed bride to these three noble princes.»

«Do tell,» Yasmin said. «You've been a busy boy, Britlin.»

«Can we start the evacuation?» I snapped. «The Sea's on fire, Hezekiah's in trouble, and…»

The boy howled with fury and pounded his hands against his temples. «I am not… in… trouble!»

He threw his head back and screamed, the kind of scream used by martial artists the instant they drive their fist through a brick wall. A moment later, the cry was echoed from somewhere overhead: a woman's shriek, poisoned with outrage.

«I beat her!» Hezekiah crowed. He threw his head back to stick out his tongue in the direction of the woman's cry. «Three's the charm, Rivi!» he called. «You may think you're tough, but I've been incinerated by a goddess. You'd better not mess with Hezekiah Virtue or I'll… uh-oh.»

Hurtling down through the smoke came Kiripao, brandishing Unveiler and coated from head to toe in brown dust. «Peel it!» he screamed. «Peel away the shell!»

The elf monk struck Hezekiah feet first in the chest. It was a glancing blow, but still enough to knock the boy backward. Hezekiah wheezed, trying to force his lungs to draw breath, then toppled off the ramp into the tank.

Miriam shouted a curse and raised the firewand toward Kiripao. She might have blasted him then and there, catching all of us in the radius of the fireball; but the monk sprang forward the moment he struck the ramp, and bolted straight at Miriam before she could speak the invocation. He swung Unveiler at Miriam's head, a whipcrack strike that would have crushed her skull if she hadn't thrown up her arm to block. Bones cracked as the scepter smashed her forearm; and she shied back a step, trying to bring the firewand to bear on her screaming opponent.

Kiripao didn't give her time – he had been fast before, but the umbral insanity had keyed him to a fever pitch, removing every inhibition and giving him a lust to inflict pain. He followed up the scepter smash with a snap kick that caught Miriam flush on the floating ribs. Breath whoofed out of her and she flew backward off the ramp, moving so fast I feared she might be knocked clear of the squid-tank and fall nine storeys to the ground; but Miriam was a tough old basher, one who could take a few hits without letting it rattle her. Somehow she managed to snag her foot on the rim of the tank as she hurtled by, then gave herself a backward thrust. Instead of going over the side, she splashed into the water, sending dozens of squid into panic. The tank began to fill with their ink, an opaque blackness that hid both Miriam and Hezekiah sinking beneath the waves.

«Kiripao, you fool!» Rivi shouted from the level above us. I could see her garishly painted face peering over a catwalk – the catwalk leading to the Plane of Dust portal. She and Kiripao must have come from the Glass Spider, possibly to meet with Chi; and when the fighting started, the ever-impulsive elf had decided to break a few heads himself. «Kiripao!» Rivi continued, «I command you to get back up here.»

Easy for her to say… but our side had recovered from the confusion of Kiripao's sneak attack. Now Yasmin and I stood shoulder to shoulder, our swords ready for blood. Smoke roiled around us. In the tank below, water thrashed and churned, a sound I hoped meant Miriam was swimming to help Hezekiah. Even if the noise was actually my friends being dragged under by squid, I knew what my first duty was. This fiasco had to end now.

«Kiripao,» Yasmin said in a cold voice, «you have one chance: put down Unveiler and surrender. I consider you diseased, not evil… but I would not hesitate to kill a rabid dog. The choice is yours.»

The monk's eyes glittered, reflecting the fire that crackled behind our backs. I could not read the expression on his face – did he even understand what Yasmin had said?

«Get up here!» Rivi snarled.

«You saw what she did to Petrov,» Yasmin told the elf. «You know she'd do the same to you, just for amusement. Put down the scepter.»

Kiripao's gaze dropped and he looked at Unveiler with surprise… as if he hadn't realized he was carrying anything more than a convenient weapon for clubbing people. He held it up, like a curious object he'd just found lying at his feet; firelight glinted off its surface, throwing beads of ruby illumination across his face.

«Peel,» he whispered. «Peel it! PEEL IT ALL AWAY!»

I tensed, waiting for him to charge… but Kiripao's brain brimmed with the pus of umbral thoughts, and forthright attack was not the umbral way. He feinted toward us, then spun off in the opposite direction, up the ramp. Perhaps he was responding to Rivi's summons after all; perhaps he was simply looking for a shadowy spot to lie in ambush. Either way, he never made it – two steps before he reached the stairs to the next level, he ran smack into something invisible.

Yasmin and I had raced after our quarry as soon as he ran. We had no hope of catching him – the monk moved as fast as a ferret – but we were close enough to see what happened next. Kiripao swung Unveiler at whatever he had bumped into; and two gnarled little hands flickered into visibility as they deflected the strike.