‘Stanislav. I’m talking to Stanislav. You’re lost, and you need to find yourself again. What you are isn’t what you’re supposed to be. You’re supposed to remember who you are, and keep hold of that when you change, so that you can turn back into a human. Isn’t that right?’

‘I can change too,’ said Mary, ‘into a huge eagle-thing. But I don’t think like a bird, not completely. I know who I am. Whatever it is you are, you don’t have to be it.’

More eyes floated to the surface of Stanislav’s skin, all fixing on Mary. Dalip’s dread deepened.

‘We may have to run,’ he said.

‘Why isn’t he answering?’

‘I don’t think he can. I don’t think he’s got lungs any more, or a voice box, or … anything. It’s just a shape, a bag of stuff that can be anything it wants to be.’ Dalip took a deep breath, feeling his own skin tingle, flexing his muscles, stretching his tendons and his joints, strangely comforted by the way God had knit his bones together and hung flesh from it.

He thought … What had he thought? Running through the tunnels with fire at his back, there hadn’t been time to consider the future, just the present. And then afterwards, struggling through the surging sea to an unexpected shore, the whole proposition of another world just the other side of a door had been so overwhelming, he hadn’t been able to comprehend it. Being captured by the wolfman, becoming a slave who was supposed to fight or die: that was clarity, existence reduced to its barest, meanest form. Everything had been focused on the geomancer – how to frustrate her, how to escape her, and finally how to beat her.

They’d done that. Not easily, but with Mary’s intervention, they’d succeeded.

While all the time, the monster in their midst had gone unnoticed.

How many nights, after being herded back into his cell, had Stanislav felt the raw, untamed power of Down unravel successive parts of his body until he became not a person, but a thing. How desperate had he become in the darkness, only to wake and believe it a terrible dream? Dalip had heard nothing, hadn’t suspected that a few doors down from his, a strange and awful transformation was gradually taking place.

One last go then, before all hell broke loose.

‘Stanislav? Stanislav!’ He spoke clearly and firmly. His family had never owned a dog, but it was how he imagined it felt like to call one to heel. ‘You need to focus. On me. Listen to my voice, Stanislav. Tell me you’re listening.’

There came a sucking sound that sounded less like the intake of breath and more like a moist cavern opening up.

The following exhalation was sigh of regret and loss.