Glokta felt his left eye twitching, and he pressed the back of his hand against it. A year ago I would have laughed to my boots and nailed him to the ceiling. But things are different, now. We passed inside the House of the Maker. We saw Shickel smile as she burned. If there are Eaters? If there are Magi? Why should there not be demons? How could there not be? 'What enemies?'

'The High Justice! The First of the Magi!' Goyle squeezed his eyes shut again. 'The king,' he whimpered.

Ahhhh. The. King. Those two little words are my kind of magic. Glokta turned to Ardee, and showed her the yawning gap in his front teeth. 'Would you be so kind as to prepare a Paper of Confession?'

'Would I…' She stared at him for a moment, eyes wide in her pale face, then hurried to the Arch Lector's desk, snatched up a sheet of paper and a pen, dipped it rattling in a bottle of ink. She paused, her hand trembling. 'What should I write?'

'Oh, something like, "I, Superior Goyle, confess to being an accomplice in a treasonous plot of his Eminence Arch Lector Sult, to…"' How to phrase it? He raised his brows. How else but call it what it is? '"To use diabolical arts against his Majesty the king and members of his Closed Council."'

The nib scratched clumsily over the paper, scattering specks of ink. Ardee held it crackling out to him. 'Good enough?'

He remembered the beautiful documents that Practical Frost used to prepare. The elegant, flowing script, the immaculate wording. Each Paper of Confession, a work of art. Glokta stared sadly down at the ink-spotted daub in his hand.

'But a brief step from unreadable, but it will serve.' He slid the paper under Goyle's trembling hand, then took the pen from Ardee and wedged it between his fingers. 'Sign.'

Goyle sobbed, sniffed, scrawled his name at the bottom of the page as best he could with his arm nailed down. I win, and for once the taste is almost sweet.

'Excellent,' said Glokta. 'Pull those nails, and find some sort of bandage. It would be a shame if he bled to death before he had the chance to testify. Gag him, though, I've heard enough for now. We'll take him with us to the High Justice.'