'Not now!' stormed Colonel Glokta. 'I have all these to get through!' There must have been ten thousand papers of confession for him to sign. His desk was groaning with great heaps of them, and the nib of his pen was soft as butter. What with the red ink, his marks looked like dark bloodstains sprayed across the pale paper. 'Damn it!' he raged as he knocked over the bottle with his elbow, splashing ink out over the desk, soaking into the piles of papers, dripping to the floor with a steady tap, tap, tap.

'There will be time later for you to confess. Ample time.'

The Colonel frowned. The air had grown decidedly chill. 'You again! Always at the worst times!'

'You remember me, then?'

'I seem to…' In truth, the Colonel was finding it hard to recall from where. It looked like a woman in the corner, but he could not make out her face.

'The Maker fell burning… he broke upon the bridge below…' The words were familiar, but Glokta could not have said why. Old stories and nonsense. He winced. Damn it but his leg hurt.

'I seem to…' His usual confidence was all ebbing away. The room was icy cold now, he could see his breath smoking before his face. He stumbled up from his chair as his unwelcome visitor came closer, his leg aching with a vengeance. 'What do you want?' he managed to croak.

The face came into the light. It was none other than Mauthis, from the banking house of Valint and Balk. 'The Seed, Colonel.' And he smiled his joyless smile. 'I want the Seed.'

'I… I…' Glokta's back found the wall. He could go no further.

'The Seed!' Now it was Goyle's face, now Sult's, now Severard's, but they all made the same demand. 'The Seed! I lose patience!'

'Bayaz,' he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed, tears running out from underneath his lids. 'Bayaz knows—'

'Tap, tap, torturer.' The woman's hissing voice again. A finger-tip jabbed at the side of his head, painfully hard. 'If that old liar knew, it would be mine already. No. You will find it.' He could not speak for fear. 'You will find it, or I will tear the price from your twisted flesh. So tap, tap, time to wake.'

The finger stabbed at his skull again, digging into the side of his head like a dagger blade. 'Tap, tap, cripple!' hissed the hideous voice in his ear, breath so cold it seemed to burn his bare cheek. 'Tap, tap!'

Tap, tap.