Rance cleared her throat and then spoke. ‘It’s to do with the murders, sir. The investigation in which it seemed you had lost interest. It is why I visited you last night, to give you the chance to act before the captains did.’ She frowned across at him. ‘I was certain that you had found the killer, but for some reason you chose not to end things.’

Wareth studied her. ‘I gave up because it made no sense.’

She glanced away.

Abyss take me, I’ve been a fool. ‘How did you move the bodies, Rance? And what of your fear of the sight of blood?’

‘I can’t tell you, sir, about any of it, because I do not remember the murders. I simply awaken in my tent, with blood on my hands. I find my knife unsheathed, but thoroughly cleansed.’ She hesitated. ‘I scrubbed off what I could. I thought that it was that habit that finally betrayed me.’

But Wareth shook his head. ‘It seems we misread that obsession,’ he said, ‘and set upon it a much earlier crime.’

‘It began there, yes, but even then, sir, there was simple necessity. I don’t like the sight of blood. I hate the feel of it even more.’ Straightening in her seat, she set the tankard down. ‘It would be better, sir, if you were the one to arrest me.’

Wareth sighed. ‘You leave me little choice, but what should also be apparent to the captains here is the extent of my incompetence.’

‘I am not alone,’ Rance said. ‘In this body you see, I am not the sole occupant. There is someone else – we’ve never met. She walks when I sleep, and in her freedom she murders… people. Child of my own womb, men who have killed women – these are only lists. Categories. Satisfied with one, she will move to another. A new list. You need to kill me, sir.’

Sick with dread, heavy with something like disappointment – if such a bland word could be used – Wareth shook his head, as if he could deny this entire morning. He faced Prazek. ‘I understand now, sir, why you stepped around me for this.’

Prazek’s brows lifted. ‘Do you?’

‘I – I like Rance.’

‘The woman you know, you mean,’ corrected Dathenar.

‘Well, yes. Of the other, I know only the corpses she leaves in her wake – and even then, the details do not make sense.’

‘The other,’ said Dathenar, ‘is a mage.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘A wielder of sorcery,’ Prazek said. ‘A natural adept. That said, she is somewhat feral. She uses what she needs to clean up her mess. But the knife work, why, that is most mundane, wouldn’t you say?’

‘She exists,’ said Rance, ‘in a world without remorse. That, sirs, should be reason enough to see her executed. But I fear she will defend herself, and if she is as the captain says – a mage – then you must act now, while she sleeps.’