"Guide me," he told her, unwilling to take his eyes off the rain for fear his concentration slip and the feit lose its potency.

Jude slipped her arm around his waist and navigated for them both, telling him where to step to find clear ground and warning him when the path was so heavily strewn they were obliged to stumble over stone. It was a tortuous business, and Gentle's upturned hands were steadily beaten down until they were barely above his head, but the feit held to the door, and they slid through it together, with the Pivot and its prison throwing down such a hail of debris that neither was now visible.

Then Jude was off at speed, down the murky stairs. The walls were shaking, and laced with cracks as the demolition above took its toll below, but they negotiated both the trembling passageway and the second flight of stairs down to the lower level unharmed. Gentle was startled at the sight and sound of Concupiscentia, who was screeching in the passageway like a terrified ape, unwilling to go in search of her mistress, Jude had no such qualms. She'd already thrown open the door and was heading down an incline into a lamp-lit chamber beyond, calling Quaisoir's name to stir her from her stupor. Gentle followed, but was slowed by the cacophony that greeted him, a mingling of manic whispers and the din of capitulation from above. By the time he reached the room itself, Jude had bullied her sister to her feet. There were substantial cracks in the ceiling and a constant drizzle of dust, but Quaisoir seemed indifferent to the hazard.

"I said you'd come back," she said. "Didn't I? Didn't I say you'd come back? Do you want to kiss me? Please kiss me, sister."

"What's she talking about?" Gentle asked.

The sound of his voice brought a cry from the woman. She flung herself out of Jude's arms.

"What have you done?" she yelled. "Why did you bring him here?"

"He's come to help us," Jude replied.

Quaisoir spat in Gentle's direction. "Leave me alone!" she screeched. "Haven't you done enough? Now you want to take my sister from me! You bastard! I won't let you! We'll die before you touch her!" She reached for Jude, sobbing in panic. "Sister! Sister.'"

"Don't be frightened," Jude said. "He's a friend." She looked at Gentle. "Reassure her," she begged him. "Tell her who you are, so we can get out of here."

"I'm afraid she already knows," Gentle replied.

Jude was mouthing the word what? when Quaisoir's panic boiled up again.

"Sartori!" she screeched, her denunciation echoing around the room. "He's Sartori, sister! Sartori!"

Gentle raised his hands in mock surrender, backing away from the woman. "I'm not going to touch you," he said. "Tell her, Jude. I don't want to hurt her!"

But Quaisoir was in the throes of another outburst. "Stay with me, sister," she said, grabbing hold of Jude. "He can't kill us both!"

"You can't stay in here," Jude said.

"I'm not going out!" Quaisoir said. "He's got soldiers out there! Rosengarten! That's who he's got! And his torturers!"

"It's safer out there than it is in here," Jude said, casting her eyes up at the roof. Several carbuncles had appeared in it, oozing debris. "We have to be quick!"

Still she refused, putting her hand up to Jude's face and stroking her cheek with her clammy palm: short, nervy strokes.

"We'll stay here together," she said. "Mouth to mouth. Mind to mind."

"We can't," Jude told her, speaking as calmly as circumstance allowed. "I don't want to be buried alive, and neither do you."

"If we die, we die," said Quaisoir. "I don't want him touching me again, do you hear?"

"I know. I understand."

"Not ever! Not ever!"

"He won't," Jude said, laying her own hand over Quaisoir's, which was still stroking her face. She laced her fingers through those of her sister and locked them. "He's gone," she said. "He won't be coming near either of us again."

Gentle had indeed retreated as far as the passageway, but even though Jude waved him away he refused to go any further. He'd had too many reunions cut short to risk letting her out of his sight.

"Are you certain he's gone?"

"I'm certain."

"He could still be waiting outside for us."

"No, sister. He was afraid for his life. He's fled."

Quaisoir grinned at this. "He was afraid?" she said.

"Terrified,"

"Didn't I tell you? They're all the same. They talk like heroes, but there's piss in their veins." She began to laugh out loud, as careless now as she'd been in terror moments before. "We'll go back to my bedroom," she said when the outburst subsided, "and sleep for a while."

"Whatever you want to do," Jude said. "But let's do it soon."

Still chuckling to herself, Quaisoir allowed Jude to lift her up and escort her towards the door. They had covered maybe half that distance, Gentle standing aside to let them pass, when one of the carbuncles in the ceiling burst and threw down a rain of wreckage from the tower above. Gentle saw Jude struck and felled by a chunk of stone; then the chamber filled with an almost viscous dust that blotted out both sisters in an instant. With his only point of reference the lamp, the flame of which was just visible through the dirt, he headed into the fog to fetch her, as a thundering from above announced a further escalation of the tower's collapse. There was no time for protective feits or for keeping his silence. If he failed to find her in the next few seconds, they'd all be buried. He started to yell her name through the rising roar and, hearing her call back to him, followed her voice to where she was lying, half buried beneath a cairn of rubble.

"There's time," he said to her as he began to dig. "There's time. We can make it out."

With her arms unpinned she began to speed her own excavation, hauling herself up out of the debris and locking her arms around Gentle's neck. He started to stand, pulling her free of the remaining rocks, but as he did so another commotion began, louder than anything that had preceded it. This was not the din of destruction but a shriek of white fury. The dust above their heads parted, and Quaisoir appeared, floating inches from the fissured ceiling. Jude had seen this transformation before—ribbons of flesh unfurled from her sister's back and bearing her up—but Gentle had not. He gaped at the apparition, distracted from thoughts of escape.

'She's mine!" Quaisoir yelled, swooping towards them with the same sightless but unerring accuracy she'd possessed in more intimate moments, her arms outstretched, her fingers ready to twist the abductor's head from his neck.

But Jude was quick. She stepped in front of Gentle, calling Quaisoir's name. The woman's swoop faltered, the hungry hands inches from her sister's upturned face.

"I don't belong to you!" she yelled back at Quaisoir. "I don't belong to anybody! Hear me?"

Quaisoir threw back her head and loosed a howl of rage at this. It was her undoing. The ceiling shuddered and abandoned its duty at her din, collapsing beneath the weight of nibble heaped behind it. There was, Jude thought, time for Quaisoir to escape the consequences of her cry. She'd seen the woman move like lightning at Pale Hill, when she had the will to do so. But that will had gone. Face to the killing dirt, she let the debris rain upon her, inviting it with her unbroken cry, which didn't become alarm or plea, but remained a solid howl of fury until the rocks broke and buried her. It wasn't quick. She went on calling down destruction as Gentle took Jude's hand and hauled her away from the spot. He'd lost all sense of direction in the chaos, and had it not been for the screeching of Concupiscentia in the passageway beyond they'd never have made it to the door.

But make it they did, emerging with half their senses deadened by dust. Quaisoir's death cry had ceased by now, but the roar behind them was louder than ever and drove them from the door as the canker spread across the roof of the corridor. They outran it, however, Concupiscentia giving up her keening when she knew her mistress was lost and overtaking them, fleeing to some sanctuary where she could raise a song of lamentation.