‘What is that monster, anyway? We’ve shared some grotesque mounts in our time, but that thing deserves some sort of award.’ Tisamon was never exactly merry, but there was a lightness to his tone that cut Stenwold to the bone.

‘Tisamon. I have to… I have to…’ How long had he been given to prepare the words, and now they were nowhere to be found. ‘I have to tell you something.’

They were fast approaching the automotive and its three silent passengers. Tisamon’s pace did not slacken, but something changed in his posture, his breathing, as Stenwold’s anxiety jumped across to him.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. They were now so close. The setting sun was behind the machine so that they were standing in its long shadow.

‘I…’ But like a well in the desert, the words had dried up since he last visited them. ‘I have to… show you something.’

Tisamon stopped at last. His face was blank.

‘Time to make camp,’ Stenwold called out to the automotive’s passengers. ‘Achaeos, can you make a fire?’

‘Are you suggesting that I might need Beetle ingenuity for that?’ said the Moth acidly, flitting down from the machine with obvious relish.

‘Tisamon, this is Totho,’ Stenwold said as the artificer climbed down. Tisamon barely spared him a nod. ‘Totho,’ Stenwold added, ‘would you take a look at the machine, make sure everything’s still in place.’

‘Good idea,’ agreed Totho, and he unslung his tools and crouched down between the automotive’s legs, but not without a backward glance at his mentor.

‘And…’ Here we are. ‘This is Tynisa.’

‘Tynisa?’ Tisamon said, but it was the name alone, the Spider-kinden name, that had caught his ear. He was staring at her as she let herself down the ungainly machine’s side, and his eyes were fixed on her face when she turned to him.

Tisamon made a wordless sound, deep in his throat, like an animal at bay. In a moment he had dropped into his fighting stance, and his claw was raised and drawn back. Stenwold had not even noticed it on his hand a moment before. What surprised Stenwold was that Tynisa was already out with her rapier, and clearly every bit as ready to fight.

‘Tisamon,’ he shouted, ‘listen to me!’

‘What is this?’ the Mantis cried in a tone of pure horror. ‘What have you done?’

‘Tisamon,’ Stenwold began again. ‘I can explain.’

‘Explain?’ Tisamon’s eyes were like a strangled man’s. His teeth were bared, every muscle in his body bowstringtaut. The last rays of the sun touched the blade of his claw, caught the long line of Tynisa’s rapier. Achaeos and Totho remained utterly motionless, utterly at a loss.

‘Stenwold, what’s going on?’ Tynisa said tightly.

There was a moment in the very near future, seconds away only, when Tisamon would snap, and then blood would be shed. Stenwold could foresee it with complete clarity. In a normal fight this man was ice, but his own emotions were fiercer enemies than he could ever face down. He heard a hiss escape through the enraged man’s clenched teeth, and knew that the clock’s hands were down, the strike was here. He lunged forward between them, almost onto the point of Tynisa’s sword, seeing Tisamon dodge behind him and the claw sweeping down. He closed his eyes.

He heard Tynisa scream and felt a stabbing pain in his shoulder, and something very cold, the thinnest of thin lines, against his throat. Everything seemed to have stopped.

He opened his eyes very slowly. The first thing he saw was Tynisa before him, her face stricken, and for a moment he thought she must have stabbed him. Her arm was extended, and he followed its line as best as his current situation would allow. There was the hilt of her sword and the narrow blade… and Tisamon’s hand was flat against it, and the rapier’s length caught between his palm and the spines of his forearm. Its point was frozen over Stenwold’s shoulder, trapped on its way directly towards Tisamon’s face.

Tisamon’s other arm, his right, was across Stenwold’s shoulders, the spines digging straight through the hardened leather and into his flesh. The folding blade of the Mantis’s claw was closed about Stenwold’s throat like a clasp-knife, and it was impossible for him to tell whether it had drawn blood or not. Beyond Tynisa he glimpsed Totho with a spanner in his hand, mouth hanging open; and there was Achaeos, somewhere further off, his dagger clear of its scabbard but pointedly not part of the conflict.

Stenwold heard his own ragged breath mixed up with that of the two duellists.

‘Let him go,’ said Tynisa, and Stenwold reckoned that making demands just then was not for the best.

‘You’re going to fight me?’ Tisamon asked her, and his tone, that clipped precision of speech Stenwold knew of old, indicated a man whose blood was up.

‘I’ve seen you fight and I know what this is about,’ she declared. ‘So I worked for the Halfway House. So what?’

‘For the Halfway…?’ A frown passed over Tisamon’s face. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The fiefs, in Helleron…’ Now Tynisa was looking uncertain. ‘You were fighting for the Gladhanders. We destroyed them after… Isn’t that…’ His baffled stare was getting to her. ‘What is this about?’

‘Yes, Stenwold, what is this about?’ asked Tisamon, and that dreadful coldness of diction was still there.

‘I will tell you everything, but only you,’ Stenwold finally got out. ‘Let’s go up the hill and I will spare nothing of the truth. You have my word.’

‘That would have been a golden thing, only a moment ago,’ said Tisamon sadly, but his arm uncoiled by degrees. Stenwold winced as the spines withdrew from his back.

‘Someone had better tell me what’s going on,’ Tynisa suggested.

Stenwold nodded. ‘Let me talk to Tisamon first. This is going to be difficult.’

He began to trudge back the way he had come, though this time Tisamon did not walk beside him as a comrade, but with the wary distance of an antagonist.

Tynisa watched them go. ‘What?’ she said, to the night air as much as to anyone. ‘What is it?’ Tisamon had looked at her as though she had killed his own brother and danced on his grave. She turned round for some kind of support, but Totho was edging himself underneath the automotive, and there was precious little warmth to be gained from the Moth’s slyly superior facade.

To the pits with the pair of them, she decided. In fact, to the pits with all of them. There was something going on, and it had led to a notable duellist drawing on her, and that meant she had a right to know what was going on.

As softly as she could, she began to follow in Stenwold’s path, letting darkness be her cloak.

On the other side of the hill, out of sight of the automotive, Stenwold suddenly stopped. It was a calculated risk, for if Tisamon’s temper broke again, he would be dead without the others even knowing. It showed a trust, though, and he so desperately needed to regain this man’s confidence. It also put them far enough from the camp that quiet voices would not carry, and harsh words might sound jumbled enough not to be understood.

Tisamon was watching him, blade still by his side, tucked back up the length of his arm.

‘Speak,’ he hissed.

‘I…’ Stenwold grimaced. ‘It’s difficult for me. It really is. Give me a moment to put my words in order.’

Tisamon bared his teeth. ‘Let me help you. Let me prompt you. She’s her very image. Souls alive! She’s her very image!’ Again it was not anger but a ragged horror that twisted him. ‘How… How…’ His stark frame was shaking, and Stenwold wondered if there was even a name for the emotion that had taken hold of him. ‘She’s her daughter. She must be.’

‘Yes, Tisamon. Tynisa is Atryssa’s daughter,’ Stenwold admitted wearily. Now the moment was upon him, he wondered if he had the strength for it.

‘How did you come to… No!’ Tisamon’s eyes narrowed. The blade of his claw flexed, hinging out and back in. ‘She betrayed us, Stenwold – at Myna. You know this. They knew your plans. They sabotaged your devices. She told them.’