‘Drop coals on it when she’s sleeping,’ Spite said.

‘Make her ugly,’ Malice added, enjoying the game even though they played it all the time, hiding in the secret rooms of the house, drawing close together like witches, or crows, while people walked above them all unknowing and stupid besides.

‘Poison would be perfect,’ Spite began but Envy shook her head and said, ‘Not poison. Malice is right. Make her ugly. Make her have to live with it for the rest of her life.’

Weeks past, they had hidden in the corner tower opposite the one Arathan used to hide in, and had watched the arrival of the new hostage. Envy had been furious when Malice had commented on how pretty the woman was, and this had begun things: the plans to ruin that beauty. So far, of course, nothing had been done – just words – since it was as Envy had said. Sandalath Drukorlat was a hostage and that meant she couldn’t be touched.

But it was still fun planning, and if accidents happened, well, they just happened, didn’t they?

‘She’s too old to be a hostage,’ Spite said. ‘She’s ancient. We were supposed to get a proper hostage, not her.’

‘A boy would have been best,’ said Envy. ‘Like Arathan, only younger. Someone we could hunt down and corner. Someone too weak to stop us doing anything we wanted to him.’

‘What would we do?’ Malice asked. She was the youngest and so she could ask the stupid questions without her sisters beating her up too badly, and sometimes they didn’t beat her up at all, or put things in her that hurt, and that was when she knew that her question had been a good one.

Spite snorted. ‘What do we do to you?’ she asked, and Malice could see the gleam of her smile and it was never good when Spite smiled. ‘We’d fill him up, that’s what, and keep doing it until he begged us.’

‘Begging never works,’ Malice said.

Envy laughed. ‘You idiot. Beg us for more. We could make him our slave. I want slaves.’

‘Slaves were done away with,’ Spite pointed out.

‘I’ll bring them back, when I grow up. I’ll make slaves of everyone and they’ll all have to serve me. I’ll rule an empire. I’d kill every pretty woman in it, or maybe just scar them for ever.’

‘It feels like we’ll never get older,’ Malice said, sighing.

She caught a silent look between her sisters, and then Envy shrugged and said, ‘Scrabal birds. Malice, you ever heard of scrabal birds?’

Malice shook her head.

‘They make small nests, but lay too many eggs,’ Envy explained. ‘All the chicks then hatch and at first it’s all right, but then they start growing.’

‘And the nest gets even smaller,’ said Spite, reaching out and walking her fingertips down Malice’s arm.

Envy was watching, her eyes bright. ‘So the biggest ones gang up on the little ones. They kill them and eat them, until the nest isn’t crowded any more.’