Malden hurried down the long corridor at the back of the villa that opened on the dining room and its preparatory. The door there would provide another chance to escape into the night—but he wasn’t done yet.

Behind him the prematurely born demon howled and raged and clawed at the walls. An ornamental table stood in the hallway, a delicate piece of turned rosewood. The nine of bells lay on its surface like a calling card.

With a cry of rage the demon smashed the table to flinders, then beat at the wall and floor where the table had been with an unquenchable will and a strength a hundred times greater than a man’s. The card was obliterated, but still the demon smashed and clawed until the plaster wall exploded in a cloud of white dust and the wattles behind it burst like matchwood. Malden hurried down the hall, breathing heavily now. Surely it wouldn’t take much longer.

Behind him he could hear the demon clawing at the walls, pulling down timbers from the ceiling. The house shook and danced, and he was nearly thrown from his feet with every step. The demon was taking the place to pieces in its search for him.

Half the house was in ruins now, torn apart by the beast as it sought out his scent. It must be horribly confused, he thought, because it smelled him everywhere—everywhere Kemper had left one of his cards.

Cythera had told him that the demon hunted by smell alone, and that it could follow its prey’s scent through any obstacle or diversion. It made him think of someone else who worked miracles with his nose—Kemper, the card sharp, whose cards were not visibly marked but who knew the stink of every one of them so well that when he dealt them, they might as well have been faceup.

With all that in mind, for the past three days Malden had carried those cards inside his tunic, through all manner of exertions. He had rubbed them on his armpits and his groin, on the sweaty back of his neck, on any part of his body that might imbue them with his smell. He had not lacked for exudation—fear made him sweat copiously.

When he gave them back to Kemper, the card sharp was most displeased. Malden had ruined them for gaming by changing the invisible markings Kemper knew so well. But for the purposes of this scheme, the card sharp had been willing to make the sacrifice. While Malden worked his way into the sanctum, Kemper had moved around the house as only an intangible man could, walking through walls and locked doors, keeping out of sight, and placing his cards here and there, one under a fine mahogany dressing table, one in a closet full of crockery and plates.