Viktor ignored her. “I’m wondering what it was that you did to see yourself confined – and here of all places. And whether it had anything to do with why Karkosa spent his final years as a recluse. Even sealed himself off from his family. I’m told he’d been dead a fortnight before anyone knew. Not that anyone cared by then.” He shrugged. “Too much faith can be embarrassing.”

She spread her hands and dipped a curtsey. “You have me, tied and true. I slipped into his bed one night while his wife was away. No complaints at the time, of course, but he couldn’t leave me alone. Followed me everywhere.” She rolled her eyes. “The promises he made. The entreaties. This was my punishment for refusal.”

Her halo flickered as she spoke, the golden-white tinged with red.

“If you want to shock me, you’ll have to try harder.” Viktor leaned forward. “Or you could accept that I see you as plainly as I know you see me, and you could tell me the truth.”

Anastacia’s eyes hardened. “Why should I?”

“Because Josiri’s not coming back . . .” Viktor didn’t believe that. Though he could not claim to have ever been in love himself, he wasn’t blind to it in others. Josiri would return if only because Anastacia remained. But at that moment, only Anastacia’s beliefs mattered. “. . . and you’ve no one left to tell. Because who would believe me if I told anyone else? And because I won’t help you cast free of these stones if I’m not certain you deserve that favour.”

Her stare melted, allowing a glimpse behind the bitterness. “I told Karkosa his beloved goddess was dead.”

Viktor was surprised how little the declaration stirred him. Was she still trying to shock him? Neither her gaze nor her halo twitched. If it was a lie, it was one carefully told. “And how would you know this?”

“Because there was a war, sister against sister. My angelic siblings quarrelled, with my mother and her legacy as the prize. I alone took no side. For my hesitation, I was hurled from the heavens. I heard my mother’s death-scream as I fell.”

“You’d have me believe you’re a serathi?”

“I don’t care what you believe.” She extended a hand. Her fingertips blurred, drifting away into golden-white vapour. “I’m what’s left of a ser-athi. The part that crawled onto the dockside in Tressia. Karkosa’s proctors found me. At first, they worshipped me. I liked that. Then he begged me to tell him all I knew of his goddess. When I refused, he became more . . . persuasive. He set his provosts loose. They . . . did not worship me.”

Viktor grimaced. The activities of the church’s provosts were mysterious even to him. Those who drew their eye had a tendency to end in flame.