For every man, woman, and child of this world it was our blessing, and our curse.

I woke with a headache and moonlight on my face. For a dizzying, terrible moment I pictured teeth crowning behind my eyes, becoming fangs that pierced my skull. I blinked furiously to rid myself of the image and the dry feeling it conjured.

Having said no to the warden of St Leonars the previous night, I had no pressing official duties. I had refused the warden’s case for this very reason – my career was well into the final, darkest hours of its night. For years my role as Special Inspector had me travelling the length and breadth of the kingdom, ever since I joined as a young man. I came to the force with no predisposition for seeking out the darker arts, just simply an open mind and a readiness to pursue leads wherever they took me. The visions came later. In truth, I joined because I felt – and still feel – that between my day-brother and I, one of us should have a respectable profession.

At this point in my career my duties were few, but there was some pride in knowing I spent my considerable years ensuring the safety of the citizens of Reikova. I was content to keep doing so for those living in Esteberg, but far off southern villages could tend to themselves. The King and his advisors would find someone else. Someone younger, hungrier, with more to offer the world beyond their own doorstep.

What happened to the boy in the prison cell was not the beginning of a quick, simple investigation. I was not too proud to admit such a case may have been within my abilities, but was not within my means.

Telling myself this again and again, I tried to find distractions. I took little joy in slowly drinking my coffee, though it did clear the distant drums of my headache. With no sunset to watch, I turned instead to the alley beneath my window, which was the rear of Felden Street. Rarely did I find more than tomcats disputing territory, but tonight a baker’s assistant – I knew him to be so from his apron and ghostly covering of flour – was being reprimanded by the baker. She was also the boy’s mother, I hoped, given the personal nature of her insults. I closed my window on the slurs against the boy’s father, who had evidently run away to the army. It seemed likely the boy would soon follow.

I allowed myself a thin spread of jam on my bread, hoping to dislodge some of the bitter taste too much sleep had left me. It was, of course, Alexsander’s fault: he took so little care with his chewing of the ettiene leaves. There were some days he forgot to chew them altogether, and I woke from the transition with much worse than a headache. He could also have been drinking – I couldn’t remember one way or the other. The blood from the ale house brawl loomed large, but I pushed this and other similar thoughts away. I managed not to look at yesterday’s summons for the entire morning as I fussed with this and that. When a cloud obscured the almost full moon, I took the seal to be throbbing with some kind of frustrated royal light, forgetting I had lit a new candle only moments before. It crackled and sputtered and I cursed myself for a fool. I had to get out of the house.