The ‘next one’ was a woman as young as or younger than Clariel, wearing the badge of the Fishmongers. She came up the stairs calling out to someone, her sword still sheathed. She saw Clariel first and stared, agape, before fumbling at the weapon on her side. When the two Free Magic creatures loomed up as well, she stopped and raised her shaking hands.

Clariel lowered her own sword. It was shifting in her hand, trying to move of its own accord, wanting to taste blood.

‘What is happening?’ she rasped. ‘Does Kilp control the Palace?’

‘Almost, yes, I think so,’ blurted out the young woman. ‘There is still fighting in the Great Hall, and the … the leopard-creatures … but this side is taken –’

‘Does the King live?’

The woman looked confused.

‘The King was killed by the rebels, a week since or more,’ she said. ‘Least, that’s what we were told …’

‘Where is Kilp? And his son Aronzo?’

‘I don’t know,’ sniffled the woman.

‘Where?’ snapped Clariel. She unconsciously drew on Aziminil’s power, her voice compelling an answer. White smoke billowed out of the mouth-hole of her mask as she spoke, though she did not notice it.

‘Probably the Great Hall,’ sobbed the woman. She sank to her knees on the steps, tears gushing down her stricken face. ‘The Goldsmiths’ Company, they were the only ones allowed to go there. The Great Hall!’

‘Where is that?’ asked Clariel, but the woman could only sob and shudder, her voice taken away by terror.

‘I know,’ said Mogget, causing another shriek. He jumped past the woman. After a moment, Clariel followed. She didn’t look back, and so did not see Baazalanan effortlessly twist the guard’s head off her shoulders as the creature passed by.

‘Through here,’ said Mogget, indicating a door on the next landing down. ‘Along the corridor beyond, that will come out in the musician’s gallery of the Great Hall.’

Clariel almost opened the door herself, then thought again, and gestured to Aziminil.

‘Open it,’ she said.

Aziminil didn’t bother to turn the ring. She raised one spiked foot, leaned back and smashed it through the centre of the iron-studded, Charter-Magic-reinforced door. Oak, iron and magic shattered under the blow. The creature laughed, an eerie, high-pitched chuckle, then reached in to pull entire planks out, the wood screeching as it bent. Clariel caught a glimpse of several Guild guards hastily retreating down the corridor beyond, and heard their shouts of alarm.

‘Go ahead,’ she instructed Aziminil. ‘Do not kill them.’

Aziminil bent down and rushed through the broken door, spiked feet clattering on the floor, a terrifying sound as she charged after the fleeing guards. Baazalanan followed swiftly on her heels, bent almost double, using its hands like forefeet as it ran. Clariel and Mogget came more slowly behind, Mogget pausing often to look over his shoulder.