Gooseflesh no longer anything to do with the cold-that-was-not-cold, Rosa crept down the final flight. She peered outside. Two shapes lay huddled at the foot of the sandstone steps. Glass from the shattered lantern lay scattered about them. The hearthguards’ throats were open to the sky, torn in the bloody fashion that Rosa remembered so well. The talons of the kernclaw.

She crouched beside the nearest, careless of the blood soiling her gown. Had the kernclaw come to finish what he’d started that night on the Tevar Flood? No. He couldn’t have come for her, or she’d be dead already, throat slit while in the grip of the first true sleep she’d had since that awful night.

And if he wasn’t there for her . . . ?

Rosa slid the hearthguard’s sword free of its sheath – that it needed to be drawn at all spoke to the suddenness of his death – and turned back towards the door.

. . . and found herself staring into a young, worried face and golden tresses lit by a hand-lantern’s light.

“Sidara?” Rosa stepped aside, blocking the girl’s view of the bodies with her own.

“Something woke me.” Sidara tilted her head, trying to see out onto the steps. She too was barefoot, and wore a nightgown a good three sizes too large. “Are they dead?”

Rosa pursed her lips. “Yes. Someone’s in the house. Someone who shouldn’t be. I need you to go back to your room and hide.”

Sidara took the news with remarkable aplomb. Though a furrowed brow betrayed her worry, it fell some way short of fear. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“I’m a Knight of Essamere. I’m going to find him and stop him.”

If I can. She recalled the kernclaw’s speed. The agony of his claws. And Kas’ scream ripping through her own red haze of agony. She gripped the sword tight.

“I’m going to stop him,” she said, firmer this time.

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Sidara’s face rippled with competing emotions. “I’d rather stay with you.”

Rosa decided she’d be happier if the girl was with her, rather than wandering alone with a murderer loose in the house. “All right. But stay behind me, and put that lantern out.”

Sidara nodded mutely and set the lantern down. Its white light flickered to nothing. Rosa pinched her eyes shut and willed her night vision to return.

“Which way to your parents’ room?” she breathed.

Already moving, Sidara pointed towards the west wing. “This way.”

She jerked to a halt as Rosa seized her wrist.

“Me first, remember?”

The girl nodded and slunk back. Her fingers found Rosa’s free hand and squeezed it tight.

The jarring crash of furniture and a woman’s scream sounded only a heartbeat apart.

“Mother!”