For a moment Glokta hardly knew where he was. He jerked upright, struggling with the sheets, staring about him, hemmed in on every side by threatening shadows, his own whimpering breath hissing in his head. Then everything fell suddenly into place. My new apartments. A pleasant breeze stirred the curtains in the sticky night, washing through the one open window. Glokta saw its shadow shifting on the rendered wall. It swung shut against the frame, open, then shut again.

Tap, tap.

He closed his eyes and breathed a long sigh. Winced as he sagged back in his bed, stretching his legs out, working his toes against the cramps. Those toes the Gurkish left me, at least. Only another dream. Everything is—

Then he remembered, and his eyes snapped wide open. The King is dead. Tomorrow we elect a new one.

The three hundred and twenty papers were hanged, lifeless, from their nails. They had grown more and more creased, battered, greasy and grubby over the past few weeks. As the business itself has slid further into the filth. Many were ink smudged, covered with angrily scrawled notes, with fillings-in and crossings-out. As men were bought and sold, bullied and blackmailed, bribed and beguiled. Many were torn where wax had been removed, added, replaced with other colours. As the allegiances shifted, as the promises were broken, as the balance swung this way and that.

Arch Lector Sult stood glaring at them, like a shepherd at his troublesome flock, his white coat rumpled, his white hair in disarray. Glokta had never before seen him look anything less than perfectly presented. He must, at last, taste blood. His own. I would almost want to laugh, if my own mouth were not so terribly salty.

'Brock has seventy-five,' Sult was hissing to himself, white gloved hands fussing with each other behind his back. 'Brock has seventy-five. Isher has fifty-five. Skald and Barezin, forty a piece. Brock has seventy-five…' He muttered the numbers over and over, as though they were a charm to protect him from evil. Or from good, perhaps. 'Isher has fifty-five…'

Glokta had to suppress a smile. Brock, then Isher, then Skald and Barezin, while the Inquisition and Judiciary struggle over scraps. For all our efforts, the shape of things is much the same as when we began this ugly dance. We might as well have led the country then and saved ourselves the trouble. Perhaps it is still not too late…

Glokta noisily cleared his throat and Sult's head jerked round. 'You have something to contribute?'

'In a manner of speaking, your Eminence.' Glokta kept his tone as servile as he possibly could. 'I received some rather… troubling information recently.'

Sult scowled, and nodded his head at the papers. 'More troubling than this?'