The Northman stared for a moment. Then he leaned back against a mirror by the door, let his sword drop to the tiles. He slid down, slowly, until he hit the floor, and sat there with his head leaning back against the glass. 'Long story,' he said.

'Listen to us…'

The wind was full of shapes, now. Hundreds of them. They crowded in around the outermost circle, the bright iron turned misty, gleaming with cold wet.

'… we have things to tell you, Ferro…'

'Secrets…'

'What can we give you?'

'We know… everything.'

'You need only let us in…'

So many voices. She heard Aruf among them, her old teacher. She heard Susman the slaver. She heard her mother and her father. She heard Yulwei, and Prince Uthman. A hundred voices. A thousand. Voices she knew and had forgotten. Voices of the dead and of the living. Shouts, mutters, screams. Whispers, in her ear. Closer still. Closer than her own thoughts.

'You want vengeance?'

'We can give you vengeance.'

'Like nothing you have dreamed of.'

'All you want. All you need.'

'Only let us in…'

'That empty space in you?'

'We are what is missing!'

The metal rings had turned white with frost. Ferro kneeled at one end of a dizzying tunnel, its walls made from rushing, roaring, furious matter, full of shadows, its end far beyond the dark sky. The laughter of the First of the Magi echoed faintly in her ears. The air hummed with power, twisted, shimmered, blurred.

'You need do nothing.'

'Bayaz.'

'He will do it.'

'Fool!'

'Liar!'

'Let us in…'

'He cannot understand.'

'He uses you!'

'He laughs.'

'But not for long.'

'The gates strain.'

'Let us in…'

If Bayaz heard the voices he gave no sign. Cracks ran through the quivering paving, branching out from his feet, splinters floating up around him in whirling spirals. The iron rings began to shift, to buckle. With a grinding of tortured metal they twisted out from the crumbling stones, bright edges shining.

'The seals break.'

'Eleven wards.'

'And eleven wards reversed.'

'The doors open.'

'Yes,' came the voices, speaking together.

The shadows crowded in closer. Ferro's breath came short and fast, her teeth rattled, her limbs trembled, the cold was on her very heart. She knelt at a precipice, bottomless, limitless, full of shadows, full of voices.

'Soon we will be with you.'

'Very soon.'

'The time is upon us.'

'Both sides of the divide, joined.'

'As they were meant to be.'

'Before Euz spoke his First Law.'

'Let us in…'