‘What … what can the creatures be confined in?’ asked Clariel. Aziminil and Baazalanan were smashing down another door ahead. Aziminil was laughing again, the sound making the bones in Clariel’s face ache under the mask. ‘Without Charter Magic. Or did you lie about that as well?’

‘If you could compel them into a dry well that would hold for a time,’ said Mogget. ‘Capped with a heavy stone. A silver bottle, stoppered with melted silver, might last a day or two. Or they could be chained under a river, or a tidal flow, though again that would not last long without Charter Magic.’

‘We had best hope Kargrin lives,’ said Clariel. ‘Or Mistress Ader.’

If Mogget answered, it was lost in Baazalanan’s howl, a terrible sound of glee and bloodlust. As it howled, the door broke and the creature grabbed a stunned guard on the other side and pulled him through the splintered hole. Still howling, it obeyed Clariel’s instruction not to kill, instead breaking both the man’s arms and legs as if they were kindling for a fire. Tossing him aside, it tore at the timber to make the hole wider still.

‘No!’ shouted Clariel. She ran to the door, stepping over the guard who had fallen unconscious to the floor. ‘No unnecessary harm! Hurt no one unless I tell you!’

Baazalanan and Aziminil turned back towards her. Everything became very still. Clariel could feel her heart pounding, feel the beat of it echoing inside her head, as if it were amplified and reflected by the mask.

‘Harm no one without my permission,’ repeated Clariel.

‘No,’ whispered Baazalanan. Aziminil laughed her horrid laugh. They turned away and went through the door.

‘Obey me!’ rasped Clariel, holding out her hand as if she might physically claw them back. But she could feel them breaking free of her, could feel their minds turning to some other purpose. They had wanted to come here for their own reasons, some great ambition that excited them. They had always intended to rebel.

Clariel turned to Mogget, to ask him a question, to ask what she might do, but he ran past her and through the door. With his departure a sickening feeling came to Clariel, the dreadful realisation that she had brought these terrible creatures to the Palace without knowing what they truly wanted. All along Aziminil had helped Kilp for a reason. Even now she might join forces with the Governor again …

‘No,’ growled Clariel. Holding her sword high she ducked through the smashed open door, out onto the musician’s gallery, a long balcony that occupied one end of the Great Hall. Aziminil and Baazalanan were already at the top of a staircase leading down into the hall, but here they had stopped.