«Honored Madman,» said the owner of those hands, «this scepter is an abomination. It must return to the keeping of my faction.»

With a strength I had never suspected, Wheezle yanked down Unveiler, pulling Kiripao's whole upper body with it. The monk's mouth flopped open in surprise; and while Kiripao was gaping, Wheezle jerked the scepter up again, driving it into the underside of Kiripao's jaw. Teeth clacked together hard, and Kiripao's tongue must have got in the way – the monk spat blood, splattering Wheezle's face and dribbling more down his own chin.

«Peel it,» he gurgled, the pronunciation fuzzed by his wounded tongue. «Peel it hard!»

Wheezle struggled to twist Unveiler out of Kiripao's hands, but the monk simply smiled – a smile with blood-smeared teeth. He lifted the scepter, with Wheezle clinging fiercely to it, and swung it at high speed over the edge of the ramp. His intention was obviously to play crack-the-whip: spin Wheezle out, then give Unveiler a vicious snap that would send the gnome flying free. Wheezle would fly a long way; they had moved far enough up the ramp that the squid tank was no longer beneath them.

The drop was now a full nine storeys down to the cobblestone street.

Wheezle's feet lifted off the ramp as Kiripao swung the scepter. His body swept out to the horizontal, but he maintained his grip, hands clenched on the artifact he called an abomination – to a Dustman, death was far less terrible than what Unveiler could do to an undead soul. Kiripao gave the scepter a snapping jerk to throw Wheezle free… but the little Dustman found some well of strength as deep as death itself and clung on despite the jolt to his wrists.

Kiripao had never imagined the gnome would keep hold. Brother Monk had thrown everything he had into the snap; now he was off-balance, Wheezle's weight dragging him forward to the edge of the ramp. For a split-second, Kiripao fought to keep his feet… then both he and Wheezle were plunging away from the tower, hurtling toward the ground.

«November!» I shouted. But the alu had already taken to her wings, swooping after the two with every scrap of speed she possessed. Time blossomed the way it sometimes does when you can only watch the inevitable. November sped like a sling bullet through the smoke, through the darkness; and I could see she would make it, she was right on target. Her arms reached forward, one aiming for Wheezle, one for Kiripao…

…and Kiripao lashed out a fist as hard as iron, hooking around November's head and smashing into her closest wing.

The wing bones didn't just break, they shattered… as if they had always been as flimsy as twigs and someone had finally called their bluff. The other wing, still intact, spread wide as November reflexively tried to use it as a brake; but its effect was minimal, providing no more than a meagre ability to steer. All three, gnome, elf, and alu plummeted downward.

Just before impact, Kiripao threw out his arms and gave a single flap, as if he had an umbral's wings to pull out of the dive. He didn't; and with a last sweep of her good wing, November twisted the falling group so that Kiripao took the brunt of the crash.

The crunch was loud enough to hear nine storeys above.

Thanks to her last second maneuver, November came out on top of the heap. After a few moments, she rolled off the other two and onto the cobblestones, clutching her belly as if she'd ruptured something. Her good wing jerked back into place across her shoulders; her bad wing trailed out across the pavement like some limp cloth streamer barely attached to her body. She made a weak gesture in our direction, but at that distance, I couldn't understand what she meant.

Wheezle stirred. His fall had been broken by Kiripao beneath him, but he'd still had November squash down on his body from above. As the gnome pulled himself off the motionless monk, I saw that his legs were dragging uselessly behind.

«Oh Wheezle,» Yasmin whispered. «Your spine again?»

There was no way to tell how badly he was injured. But the little gnome still held Unveiler, even as he crawled to the street curb and propped himself up so he could face the Vertical Sea.

I looked down at the lower levels of the tower. Every wight had stopped in its tracks… waiting, watching Wheezle.

The gnome raised the scepter. «Hoksha ptock!» he shrieked, his voice so piercing it echoed over and over again from the surrounding tenements.

Unveiler erupted with sickly green radiance, blindingly bright against the darkness of the street. The faces nearby were lit as clearly as day, November grimacing, Wheezle stone-faced with determination… and Kiripao, blood trickling darkly from his nose. The extra illumination made it easy to see the unnatural angle between Kiripao's head and body. I had seen such an angle once before: at a public hanging.

«Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle shrieked again.

From every level of the Vertical Sea came the sound of wights hissing. «Sssss… sssss.» They had started rocking, wavering in unison as the glow of Unveiler intensified. «Sssss… sssss.» A hundred wights swayed together on the burning tower; I could feel shivers through my feet as the tower itself vibrated in synchrony. Wights above, wights below. «Sssss… sssss.»

The living thugs, down on the lowest levels, had begun to flee for the street. Given the fire and the behavior of the wights, they must have decided their jobs with Rivi were terminated. Those who reached the pavement first didn't spare a second glance at Wheezle or the others; they simply ran, disappearing into the impenetrable warrens of the Hive.

"Sssss… sssss.

Sssss… sssss."

Wheezle held Unveiler over his head, the scepter's metal blazing like a small green sun. My mind went back to Petrov, holding the same scepter and consumed with anti-magic fire; for the first time, I wondered if Unveiler might be burning hot in the little gnome's hands. He showed no sign of pain – nothing but an iron-clad resolve to finish what he had started.

«Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle said. This time he didn't shout; but his words carried just the same, resounding the full twenty storeys of the tower.

Every wight turned to ectoplasm in the blink of an eye.

Floods of ectoplasm spilled down the ramps, down the stairs, splashing into the fish-tanks to form gooey slicks on the water, slopping in cascades down to the pavement, plopping in huge drops on our heads, our shoulders. Runnels of it poured into the fire; and like fuel oil, the fluid ignited into a blue-hot blaze, the flames racing up the ectoplasmic streams faster than the liquid could fall. In seconds, the fire had spread to a dozen other levels of the tower, spewing greasy smoke as it fed on the wights' last remains.

Wheezle slumped back limply against the curb. Unveiler slid from his strengthless hand.

«Wheezle!» Yasmin cried.

Her voice choked off as a sudden gust of smoke billowed up from the floor beneath us. Not only did the smoke make it impossible to see the ground, it brought home the precariousness of our own situation.

«We have to get out of here!» I shouted, as flames roared from below.

«Say, there's an idea!» Yasmin replied. «Why didn't I think of it?»

We turned back to our companions. Only Irene was still standing on the ramp, and she had calmly lowered the train of her bridal gown into the tank to let Miriam climb out. Miriam fought to extricate herself and Hezekiah from a weight of squid now attached to both their bodies; but Yasmin and I rushed forward to help, jabbing our swords carefully to persuade tentacles to let go. In seconds, Miriam had wrenched herself all the way out, and together we hauled Hezekiah onto the ramp with us.

«He's out cold,» Miriam muttered, giving the boy a few sharp whaps on the face. «Still breathing though.»