He clicked his fingers. The wall collapsed in a shower of dust, torn apart by the implacable strength of the kraikon hunched in the corridor beyond. Golden light crackling beneath its misshapen helm, reaching towards Viktor.

“No!” One hand locked about his control amulet, Hargo lurched into a sitting position. The kraikon ignored him. “Why won’t it stop?”

Elzar’s lip twitched. Fingertips brushed his own amulet. “I’d be a dull fellow without a surprise or two. Edvard operates under a different enchantment to his brothers. Mine is the only will he obeys.”

With surprising gentleness, Edvard unhooked Viktor’s shackles from the ceiling and lowered him to the floor. Viktor clung to the construct as the world steadied.

“He’s corrupted you!” Hargo spat. “You’re as damned as he!”

“Perhaps,” murmured Elzar. “Can you walk, Viktor?”

“Yes.” The word crackled across dry lips. “You shouldn’t have come.”

He snorted. “Ingratitude.”

Hargo’s cheeks bloomed almost to the colour of his gushing head wound. “You will burn together!”

Viktor’s shadow howled. Every moment, every harm, every slice of flesh echoed back. He bore down on Hargo.

“Viktor!” Elzar glanced at the remains of the door. “We have to go!”

“This won’t take long.” Viktor knelt beside Hargo. Even now, the man showed no fear, only righteous indignation. A fanatic. How much blood had he spilled? “I warned you what would happen once I was free, did I not?”

“Do as you will, witch! It changes nothing!”

“On this, at least, we agree.”

Wrists still shackled, Viktor grasped the provost by his jaw and by the base of his skull. The muffled scream matched the widening of his eyes. A sharp wrench. A greasy crack of shifting bone.

Viktor rose on aching legs. “Now we can go.”

They left the house before the sun was fully in the sky: four hearthguards and two weary councilmen hastening through crowded morning streets. Malachi’s eyes itched with lack of sleep. He’d tried to rest, but worries had crowded out the darkness.

Sevaka. Sidara. Rosa. Rosa most of all. At least Sidara seemed unharmed, and Sevaka Kiradin now had a chance, if a slender one. Both were in bed, the one watched over by an anxious mother, and the other by a maid. But Rosa? It was too easy to fear the worst.

He stifled a yawn and tripped on the cobbles.

Josiri grabbed him by the shoulder. “Easy there.”

Malachi shook his head. Josiri had slept no longer than him. “I still don’t know how you’re functioning better than me.”

“Years of a double life. You learn to take sleep when you can, and cope when you can’t. I still say you should have sent a herald.”

Malachi bristled. “Ebigail will want details. Better she has them from us.”

Josiri’s eyes narrowed. “And that’s your only reason?”