‘Can’t nobody help,’ said Posver, shrugging off her hand. ‘That’s why I’m having my drink. Know it’s early, but it’s late too, captain. Terribly late. The Bad Moon’s going to rise.’

‘Bad Moon?’ asked Helena, feeling an inexplicable chill run down her spine. Posver just stared at her, blinking his tired eyes, then sat back down without another word and raised his bottle to his lips.

Half an hour later, Helena, Grange and their escorts had joined a gaggle of watchmen, scribes and apothecaries stood in an alleyway in Forges. They were gathered in the shadows of a hunched factory on one side, its stacks belching black smoke into the lightning-hazed sky, and a row of communal houses on the other. A light drizzle had begun, and a couple of the watchmen fourth class held up a scaldshade, a heavy leather parasol, to shield everyone from the acidic precipitation.

They stood over the remains of Watchman Second Class Ulswell. Scraps of Watch uniform still clung to her ravaged form. White bone showed through a red and grey pulp of flesh and muscle. Half the watchman’s face was still recognisable, one eye staring up in glassy horror.

‘And she was found like this in the early hours, yes?’ asked Helena. Watchman Third Class Ilvik, the first watchman on the scene, nodded and looked nauseated.

‘A gang of urchins found her, captain. Came running straight to find a watchman. Eyes wide as saucers and half of ’em crying just with the sheer shock of it.’

‘And you say that when you got here there were insects on the body?’

Ilvik shuddered and shook his head in horror at the recollection.

‘Beg your pardon, captain, but that’s like saying there’s the odd skirmish on the Flamescar Peninsula. I get here and all I see is this sort of… squirming… in the dark, and I think well maybe she’s not dead, can’t be if she’s still moving can she? But the urchins won’t come any closer so I raise my lantern and take a proper look and I realise it’s not her that’s moving, its…’ Ilvik raised a clenched fist to his mouth for a moment, coughed, took a breath and continued. ‘It’s insects, captain. Hundreds of insects, some black and shiny as onyx, some all pale and see-through, and all of ’em just a tangle o’ too many legs and wavy…’ he mimed antennae with his fingers and looked at her helplessly.

‘And you believe that these insects, what, ate Watchman Second Class Ulswell?’ asked Helena, fighting to keep the note of incredulity from her voice. ‘I assume you mean that they were drawn to the body after it was dumped here, yes?’

Ilvik looked at her with frank dismay.