Kurkas glared at Anastacia. “Did you know about this?”

[[No . . .]] She tailed off. Her chin fell almost to her chest. [[But I think Emil Karkosa did.]]

“Makrov’s predecessor? Heard he went mad, pleading with Lumestra to send him a serathi . . .” Kurkas fell silent. Karkosa had begged for a serathi, and he’d received one, hadn’t he?

[[He bound me here.]] Anastacia’s voice quickened with anger. [[He staked me out as a lure.]]

“Or else he hoped you’d stop her.”

She laughed, the sound bitter as the ocean spray. [[All this time, I believed myself an outcast, hurled from the golden spires. But it wasn’t that way, was it? Mother heard Karkosa’s prayers.]]

Kurkas frowned. “Your mother?”

[[You’d call her Lumestra.]]

He’d nothing left to argue with. Not now. “Sure. Why not?”

[[She saw the Dark taking root beneath the soil. And even though her realm was riven by war, she sent a daughter. But Karkosa was cruel, and I was arrogant. The years slipped away. Now it’s too late.]]

Halvor laughed softly. “You’re talking like a northwealder. It’s never too late.”

Kurkas scratched his eyepatch. “I don’t believe this. Defying the Council? That’s one thing. But this? We’re talking about a deathless witch who’s got her claws into every poor sod for miles around.” He felt himself slipping, panic at last finding purchase in flesh. “What happens when she starts plucking demons from the shadows? Raising the bloody dead? How do we fight that?”

“We find a way,” snapped Halvor, her eyes alive with anger.

She sagged and sought the wall’s support once more.

Kurkas rubbed his jaw. “Who finds a way? That useless lot upstairs? I wouldn’t trust them to fight their way out of an orphanage. That leaves you, me and the walking plant pot over there. Unless we can count on Lumestra herself striding down from the clouds with a flaming sword and a host of serathi at her back . . . Wait. That a possibility?”

Anastacia gazed at him. [[My mother is dead.]]

He threw up his hand in surrender. “Course she is. Anything else you’d like to share?”

[[Only that you’re making a very annoying noise, and that I could snap your neck like a rabbit’s.]]

“Well, don’t do me no favours.” He sat heavily on an upturned wine barrel and almost slipped off the far side. A deep breath helped, so he took another. And another. “Assuming you don’t put me out of my misery, what do we do?”

“We get help,” said Halvor.

“From where? If Makrov’s dead, you can bet Cragwatch is overrun. Your wolf’s-heads are scattered, even if we could trust them.”

“Then someone’ll have to ride to Tressia. There must be horses in the stables.”