‘Inspector?’ Mrs Lehner said, emerging from the doorway of her inn. Her patrons watched from the windows. She held a hatchet, offering it to him. Her hands were cracked and red-raw.

‘You deserve better from your day-sister,’ he said. ‘Make the best of what you share.’

She nodded, and he took the hatchet. He set to on another bench, hacking at the joins until he had a good number of planks. She dragged over some old crates from an alley, and watched as he split these into kindling. Mrs Lehner looked tired, and far from the same worrying gossip he had first met. I suspected that was largely a façade, and so did he, now. But he was all too willing to believe it at first.

‘I s’pose we should have known,’ she said, nodding to the boy.

‘Not all southerners are demons, Mrs Lehner.’

‘And not all northerners are saints.’

‘No,’ Christophor said. He cut some rope from a house’s festive decoration. More people watched now from their windows, drawn by the noise, or perhaps the sense that something of significance was happening in their town. He lifted the limp Olesca against the upturned bench and tied him there, looping the rope under his arms, over his shoulders, and back around at his waist. Despite all this he still sagged under his own weight, and Christophor had to look away, recalling other bodies that did just that.

‘Do we have to… Isn’t the business finished?’ Mrs Lehner asked.

‘For what he has done.’ He began hauling the kindling and larger pieces of wood to the boy’s feet. He set the tinder. ‘For what he would do again.’

When Christophor struck the flint and steel, he and Mrs Lehner were alone in the square. But there were the onlookers, and their number only grew. He felt the heat growing, felt it pressing at him, but he didn’t move. The skin on his face and hands tightened. Beside him, Mrs Lehner shrank away. His mouth was dry and his eyes were beginning to feel like poorly sanded wood. Still he wouldn’t move. This, and so much more, was his doing.

Olesca didn’t wake. Perhaps he had already followed the beast to his depths, back in the Eder house. The people of Drekenford were spared his screams.

I wondered if they were grateful.

1st November 1721

When I woke, her cell door was open. Rebecca was still asleep, and for one painful moment I watched her. She was just as Christophor had seen her, in that house-turned-jungle: peaceful. Then I could take no more and put a hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and smiled, and I sank to my knees.

‘Alexsander, what’s—’ She lifted my face so I could not hide the tears. They streamed silently down my cheeks, like rivers of…

I choked back a sob.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, embracing me. ‘Olesca is gone.’

I looked at her, and managed to say, ‘Gone?’