The scarred face twisted into a mockery of a smile. One even more hideous than my own, if that's possible. 'Not surprising, that you shouldn't recognise me. My first week, there was an accident in a forge. Accidents often happen, in Angland.' Angland? That voice… something about that voice… 'Still nothing? Perhaps if I come closer?'

He sprang across the room without warning. Glokta was still struggling up from his seat as the man dived across the desk. They tumbled to the floor together in a cloud of flying paper, Glokta underneath, the back of his skull cracking against the stone, his breath all driven out in a long, agonised wheeze.

He felt the brush of steel against his neck. Pike's face was no more than a few inches from his, the mottled mass of burns picked out in particularly revolting detail.

'How about now?' he hissed. 'Anything seem familiar?'

Glokta felt his left eye flickering as recognition washed over him like a wave of freezing water. Changed, of course. Changed utterly and completely. And yet I know him.

'Rews,' he breathed.

'None other.' Rews bit off the words with grim satisfaction.

'You survived.' Glokta whispered it, first with amazement, then with mounting amusement. 'You survived! You're a far harder man than I gave you credit for! Far, far harder.' He started to chuckle, tears running down the side of his cheek again.

'Something funny?'

'Everything! You have to appreciate the irony. I have overcome so many powerful enemies, and it's Salem Rews with the knife at my neck! It's always the blade you don't see coming that cuts you deepest, eh?'

'You'll get no deeper cuts than this one.'

'Then cut away, my man, I am ready.' Glokta tipped his head back, stretched his neck out, pressing it up against the cold metal. 'I've been ready for a long time.'

Rews' fist worked around the grip of his knife. His burned face trembled, eyes narrowing to bright slits in their pink sockets. Now.

His mottled lips slid back from his teeth. The sinews in his neck stood out as he made ready to wield the blade. Do it.

Glokta's breath hissed quickly in and out, his throat tingling with anticipation. Now, at last. . . now…

But Rews' arm did not move.

'And yet you hesitate,' whispered Glokta through his empty gums. 'Not out of mercy, of course, not out of weakness. They froze all that out of you, eh? In Angland? You pause because you realise, in all that time dreaming of killing me, you never thought of what would be next. What will you truly have gained, with all your endurance? With all your cunning and your effort? Will you be hunted? Will you be sent back? I can offer you so much more.'

Rews' melted frown grew even harder. 'What could you give me? After this?'