By the mercy of the Lady, that had felt good. To do the thing he was sworn to do, once more. Demons were so rare upon the land these days that he’d had to find other uses for Ghostcutter’s puissance, and not always things he was proud of. He’d nearly forgotten the purity and the clear conscience that came from fighting demons.

Beside him, Bikker looked possessed of the same emotion. He was smiling from ear to ear, all malice gone from his eyes. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was something of the hero in the man yet. Perhaps the man who Croy had once know was not yet dead. He’d thought Bikker lost to the tide of cynicism and shifting morality that sullied this world, but perhaps . . .

The castellan came running from the palace, pulling a dressing robe around his withered frame. “Water!” the old man cried. “The Guardian must be doused in water, or it’ll keep growing until it chokes the world! Fetch water from the well, bring more from the river! Water! Water!”

Eventually the castellan saw the corpse of the demon—his eyes had never been very good, and age had worsened them—and stopped his shouting. “Water,” he said with a dejected air. “Water would have made it shrink.”

“Cold iron and acid seem to work, too,” Bikker said, taunting the old man. He laughed heartily. “Don’t tell me, castellan, that you’ve been harboring a demon inside these walls. Don’t tell me you made a pet of a pit fiend.”

The three of them stared at the body as it began to smoke and dissolve. It was not a creature of this world, and lacking now its vital force, it had nothing to protect it from the abhorrence of nature. In moments its corpse would resolve to nothing but a stink of brimstone and a blackish residue on the stones.

“It’s the Guardian of the—the—” The castellan’s face turned dark with congested blood. It was a high crime for any man to summon a demon or to keep one hidden. For decades Croy and knights like him had been hunting down sorcerers capable of performing the necessary rituals. Now only a handful of them remained, and all of them closely watched. If it could be proved that, say, Hazoth had summoned this demon, he would be burnt at the stake. Even for one as powerful as the Burgrave, harboring a demon could be a hanging offense. Should Bikker or Croy bring news of this to the capital—

But then the castellan’s face creased with shrewdness. He pointed one long and trembling finger at the two swordsmen.

“You are an escaped prisoner. And you have no right to be here,” he said.

Croy looked at Bikker. “I’d hoped when we saved the palace from the demon, all might be forgiven.”