As she spoke, Roban was already turning towards the sound of running booted footsteps, his sword raised. Clariel followed suit. But Roban lowered the weapon as he recognised who it was, and a moment later Clariel did so as well. It was Belatiel, who slowed down and walked the last few paces to join them under the sign, puffing out something that was obviously meant to be an apology for being late but was basically incomprehensible due to him being so out of breath.

‘Ran all the way from the Palace,’ he managed to get out eventually. ‘Hello, Clariel.’

Bel was also wearing a hauberk of gethre plates, though it was somewhat too big, as was the surcoat of faded blue with silver keys that went over it. He had a sword at his side, but in his right hand he held something Clariel didn’t recognise at first, till he turned his hand and she saw it was a musical instrument: a set of reed pipes, seven tubes of different lengths joined together. Except these pipes were not reeds, but silver, or silver-plated bronze. Clariel had seen foresters play reed pipes, often bringing them out at the campfire after a day’s work.

‘Why the pipes?’

‘I don’t have a set of bells,’ said Belatiel, as if that explained everything. After a second or two, Clariel realised that it did. The Abhorsens used seven named bells to command and control the Dead, as did Free Magic necromancers, though the Abhorsens’ ones were different, imbued with the Charter. She peered closer at the pipes in Belatiel’s hand and saw the faint sheen of Charter marks moving in the silver. So this seven-voiced instrument must be a similar magical tool to the bells.

Something about Clariel’s expression made Belatiel go on to answer the question she hadn’t actually voiced.

‘This is Abhorsen business, you know. Dealing with Free Magic creatures. There might be Dead things too. And I am in training to be a proper Abhorsen, even if I do only have the pipes.’

‘Training? Attempting to learn by yourself is not training,’ said Kargrin, but his words had no sting in them. ‘I would have preferred your great-uncle or cousin, but it seems the Abhorsen and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting are too busy, or at least too busy to answer my entreaties. I suppose in the circumstances we should be glad to have any assistance. Even that of a self-taught, self-proclaimed Abhorsen-in-Waiting-Waiting, if I may call you that. Gather close now. I wish to set a spell of unseeing upon us all.’