My eyes widened at that. The thought of that icy witch having spawned didn’t fit easily into my imagination. “I—”

“Enough. No more games.” She glanced over her shoulder as if worried about pursuit. “The key, Jalan, or I’ll take it.”

I hit her. I’m not one for hitting women . . . or anyone else for that matter. In fact I’m not one for hitting anything liable to hit back, but given the choice between a hefty man and a slightly built woman I’ll punch out the woman every time. I’m not entirely clear why I hit her. Certainly I wanted to keep the key but I also didn’t want the Dead King dogging my trail all the way home along with half of Umbertide’s troops. So in many ways her offer was entirely reasonable. What was neither reasonable nor expected was the way she rolled with the blow and hit me back hard enough to break my nose and set me on my arse, my head clanging against the gate behind. She didn’t even drop her lantern.

“Last chance to do this nicely, Jalan.” She wiped blood from her split lip across the back of her hand. I wondered if prison time hadn’t addled her mind—there seemed little resemblance to the Kara I knew from the boat . . . except the constant threat of violent retribution if her personal space was invaded of course . . . In any event I couldn’t believe all those months of the old Jalan charm hadn’t lit a spark in her somewhere.

“Come now, Kara dear.” I said it nasally, wincing as I touched my nose.

Somehow that long thin knife of hers appeared in her hand. “It would have been better if you just—” And she slumped to the ground, folding up with a graceful economy and coming to rest in a swirl of skirts, somehow contriving to set the lantern gently beside her, the knife landing with a thump on the dusty road. Hennan stood revealed behind her, his expression hard to read, a sock that looked to be full of sand swinging from his fingers.

“Would you rescue Snorri for twenty double florins?” He glanced down at Kara but she showed no signs of rising.

“You don’t have twenty double florins.” I’d say I would do anything for twenty double florins right now.

“But would you?” he insisted.

“Hell yes.”

Hennan took a step back, knelt down, and turned the neck of the sock my way. A heavy gold coin slid out onto the dirt, another gleaming behind it. The sock looked to be full of them!

“How the hell?” I remembered the coins I’d dropped on the floor when the dead man grabbed my neck in the cell.

“Always take the money,” Hennan offered with a small grin.

THIRTY-ONE

Kara lay senseless in the dark alleyway. Senseless or dead. Snorri told me as often as not the head-struck die, or their wits are scrambled to the end of their days. Worse, like Alain DeVeer on the morning that started this long nightmare so many months ago, they might just turn around and try to kill you.

“She’s not dead,” Hennan said.

“How can you tell?” I stared hard, raising the lantern, looking for some small signs of breath being drawn.

“She hasn’t got up and tried to bite your face off.”

“Ah. True.” I looked left then right down the alley. “Let’s get out of here.”

I led off and Hennan followed. Any small pang of guilt I felt at leaving Kara unconscious in the gutter washed away with the thought that if there were dead things stalking us in the dark then we were leading them away from her. The blood, continuing to run from my nose, dripped from my chin and left a pattering trail behind us. I could taste it running into the back of my throat, hot and coppery. I swallowed without thinking. Blood triggers the spell—the only thought I had time for before I pitched forward into my own darkness.

•   •   •

The night swallows me and I rush through it, blind and reckless, the wind tugging at my clothes. For some endless time there’s nothing, no sound, no light, no ground beneath my feet though I’m running fast as I can, faster than is safe. A pin-prick of brightness pierces me, so thin and sharp I wonder that it doesn’t hurt. I race toward it—there’s no other direction here—and it grows, becoming larger and brighter and brighter and more large until it fills my vision and there’s no rush, no running, no motion, just me at the window, leaning across the sill, looking out, out onto a sunlit city far below.

“Vermillion looks so small from here.”

The voice comes from beside me, a boy’s voice, though cracking with the rumours of the man to come. I turn, and flinch away. The child is deformed. A boy of maybe fourteen, his arms twisted into unnatural positions, straining and tight against his body, wrists bent at painful angles, hands clawed. His skull bulges out above his forehead as if overburdened with brain . . . just like—