He looked sad and shook his head. ‘I know. I know what you are, I know what you are becoming. I have done what I can to help you, but this has come upon you too soon, Mary. Far too soon. It will master you and leave you nothing but a beast, with a beast’s mind, and no memory of what you were. Even now you are struggling to remember.’

He kept on walking, down the rocky shore and into the sea. She wondered what he was doing, what he thought he was doing. The waves lashed him, breaking over his head, and still he kept on.

When he was past his waist, he turned, opened his arms wide and fell backwards into the foam-flecked water. The sea took him.

‘You’re wrong! I do remember,’ she shouted after his wake. ‘I remember everything.’

The sea boiled and seethed, and a sinuous coil of scales burst out and up. It roiled and rolled, then submerged with a smack and a clap. A head, serpentine, sleek and glistening, emerged in its place, blinking a pale membrane across its dark eyes. It kept on rising until it towered over Mary, then it looked down at her, indifferent to her fate, peering at her as if she was nothing more than a rock or a flower: a specimen, interesting for a moment, but ultimately forgettable.

The head turned, plunged down into the deep, the body following in an arc of writhing water. The tail, fringed with spiny fins, flicked up for a moment – and then it was gone, and she was left freezing to death on an island in an unknown sea, the wind and the waves tearing at her.

She knew there was only one way off, the way she’d arrived. She’d never swim to shore, and if she tried, the wolfman would only find her drowned, limp body washed up on the strand line.

By the time she reached the edge of the cliff overlooking the headland, she could barely feel her skin. She was disembodied. And as if in a dream, a dream in which she could fly, she staggered – just like Crows had walked into the water – stiff-legged to the precipice and tumbled over the edge.

24

24

‘I can get through the window, if I can get up there.’

Stanislav thought hard, chin on chest. Then he raised his head. ‘If you fall, you will alert the guards. But it is our best option. Otherwise, we will have to face them anyway, and the geomancer will know we are coming.’

Dalip had never climbed anything more complicated than gym equipment. There was a parapet he could stand on, and then a rough stone wall to ascend. He’d have to traverse to the window. He had no idea if he could actually accomplish what he’d just said he’d do.