Now, here she was, once more in Agayla’s chambers, on another similar night. Yet again she had delivered herself into the protection – and judgement – of this woman.

Kiska cleared her throat. ‘This is what I’ve been wishing for all my life. Please. Let me do something.’ She stared to one side, not daring to catch Agayla’s eye, afraid she sounded like a spoiled child. In the air above the basin of water she saw vapour curling. Vapour?

Agayla remained silent.

‘Auntie… what is that?’

Agayla peered down. She went still, then whispered, ‘Dear Gods.’

What moments before had been a basin of hot water was now a frozen hemisphere of ice steaming next to the fire. Kiska said softly, ‘What’s going on?’

Her face rigid, Agayla rose. The fabric of her skirts whispered as she crossed to an old desk piled with scrolled correspondence. ‘Very well,’ she said brusquely. ‘I have to admit that I would prefer to keep you here against your will.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘But then you would never forgive me, would you?’

Kiska merely nodded, fighting a smile and the urge to throw herself at the woman’s feet.

Agayla sniffed, plucked a scroll from a cubby-hole. ‘Yes. All these years wishing for action, marooned in this forgotten corner of the Empire, and now you have it, and more than you or I expected, I should think.’ She scratched a message on a yellow sheet. ‘If you must do something or never forgive yourself – or me – then I will give you something to do.’ She rolled the parchment, sealed it with a drop from a candle, and pressed a ring into the wax.

‘Well?’ She waved Kiska over. ‘Come here. Now, take this to the man you call your target. Do what he says after he’s read it. Hmmm?’

Kiska tucked the scroll inside her shirts. ‘Yes, Auntie. Thank you so much. But who is he? Where will he be?’

Agayla waved the questions aside. ‘He wouldn’t appreciate me telling you. But if anyone can take care of you this night, he can. You’ll find him somewhere between here and Mock’s Hold. And girl, if he gets to the Hold before you reach him, don’t go in there. Promise!’

‘Yes, Auntie. I promise.’ She hugged Agayla round the neck, inhaled her scent of spices.

‘Now, child,’ she warned, pulling away, ‘you might not thank me later. I’d rather you stayed. But somehow you’ve become entangled in all this, so I must not interfere.’

Kiska nodded, adjusted her shirt, pocketed vest and cloak. She touched gingerly at the dressing over her neck and found that the pain had gone.

Agayla took one of her hands. Kiska glanced up and was surprised by how the woman studied her, her eyes warm, but with a touch of hardness. ‘There are things out there that would crush you without a thought. If you should meet one of those beasts, just stand still as if it were any normal wild animal.’ Agayla took a slow breath. ‘It should ignore you.’

Now that she was free to head out under that moon, Kiska paused. That bellowing. The scouring of those claws on cobblestones. Fear crept back. She ventured, her voice faint, ‘Yes, Auntie.’

‘Good. Now, before you go, I’ll prepare some things for you to take,’ and she led the way to the front.

Temper shouldered Coop on his back while Coop’s boots dragged behind, scoring twin trails through the mud. One of the brewer’s beefy arms was slung stiffly across one side of Temper’s neck. The other Temper trapped in his left hand, one of Salli’s largest cooking knives gripped in his right. Coop was a heavy man but Temper ignored the weight, concentrating instead on watching Back Street, and stepping carefully through the trash-littered alley. Moonlight shone down, rippling and shifting as the clouds roiled above. The way ahead appeared empty.

Knees bent, he shuffled farther down the alley. Coop’s wide body brushed against the walls to either side until he stepped into the street. He stopped at the first door on his right: Seal’s residence.

‘Seal,’ he called, trying to sound hushed. ‘Seal. Open-’

A howl thundered through the town, seeming to erupt from every alley mouth and street. Temper lost his footing and nearly dropped Coop.

‘To Hood with this.’

Grunting with effort, Temper cocked one foot and kicked. The door crashed open, the jamb splintering. He threw himself in, dropped Coop, then stood the door back up against the frame. Embers glowed in a stone hearth along one wall, but other than this the only source of illumination was moonlight streaming in through the broken doorway. He saw a chair and kicked it over to wedge against the door.

‘Don’t move!’ a voice ordered from behind and above.

Facing the door he froze, raised his arms to either side. ‘It’s me, Seal, Temper.’

‘Turn around!’

Temper turned, squinting. In the dark, he could just make out Seal standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a nightshirt. He was holding something – a huge arbalest that was balanced on the second-storey railing.

‘It’s me, dammit!’ Temper growled.

Seal didn’t move. ‘Yes, I can see that. You’ve got a knife. Cut yourself.’

‘What?’

‘Cut yourself. On your hand where I can see it.’

‘I don’t have time-’

Seal levelled the crossbow. ‘Do it.’

Coop groaned from where lay, stirred sluggishly.

Temper clenched his teeth then pressed the kitchen knife’s keen edge into the flesh at the base of his thumb. Blood welled, running down his hand and forearm. He held up his lacerated thumb. ‘See?’

Seal grunted, took a few steps down the stairs, the crossbow still aimed. Closer, Temper saw that the weapon was an ancient cranequin-loading siege arbalest. One of the Empire’s heaviest, ugliest, one-man missile weapons. Seal could barely hold it upright and steadied himself against the banister. Temper fought an urge to jump aside in case it triggered accidentally. If it did, he and the door would have damned big holes in them.

‘Careful…’ he breathed, his stomach clenched.

Seal appeared surprised, then glanced down at the weapon and lowered it. ‘Sorry.’

It wasn’t even loaded. Temper let out a breath, shook his head. He should’ve noticed that.

Seal dropped the arbalest on a table and knelt beside Coop. ‘Hurt?’

‘No,’ Temper laughed. ‘Just scared into a dead faint.’

Crossing to the hearth, Seal touched a sliver of wood to the embers and lit a lamp. ‘What happened?’

Temper surveyed the street through the propped door. ‘Let him tell you when he comes around; I don’t have the time.’ He turned. ‘You still have my gear?’

Seal nodded. The long and loose kinked curls of his black hair spilled forward over his face. He motioned to the rear. ‘In the storeroom.’

‘Right.’ Temper stepped over Coop.

‘Wait, dammit.’ Seal waved helplessly to Coop. ‘Help me get him onto a bench.’ With a sigh, Temper pulled aside a table. He grabbed the unconscious man under the shoulders while Seal took his feet. Together they swung him up onto one of several benches that lined the walls of the room. Waving Temper aside, Seal began unknotting Coop’s apron.

Temper lit another oil lamp. ‘Why the cut?’

Seal was bent over Coop’s head, examining his eyes. ‘What?’

Temper held up his blood-smeared thumb. ‘My hand. Why’d you make me cut my hand?’

Seal raised his head, smiled. ‘Ghosts don’t bleed, Temper.’

‘That damned arbalest wouldn’t be much use against a shade.’

Seal shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘Well, I couldn’t load it anyway.’

‘Fener’s tusks, Seal. You’ve got to get yourself squared away.’ As he reached the storeroom door Temper thought he heard a woman’s voice call down to Seal, and the medicer’s soothing reply.

In the storeroom, behind a travel-chest, he found the bundle of possessions he dared not keep in his room. It was wrapped in canvas, as long as his length of reach. He set it onto a chest and began unbuckling the two leather belts holding it together. Tossing back the oiled hide, he pulled out two belted and sheathed swords. These went over each shoulder, the blades hanging at his back. Short, blunt fighting daggers went beside each hip.