But thieves cloaked in shadow? Who walked the mist-wreathed paths of Otherworld, and offered tribute to the Raven, the God of the Dead? His mother had shielded him from these things. Perhaps too well. Or perhaps Alika Akadra had never known herself, or not believed. Otherwise, she’d never have strayed so close to where Dregmeet’s sunken streets bordered the western docks – let alone do so merely to avoid returning home after the hour appointed by an impatient husband.

When tears at last ebbed, Elzar had carried Viktor home to a house ever after emptied of his mother’s smile and ready laughter. There was only the memory of how she’d fought to save him from the vranakin’s clutches, and the ripper’s grin as the knife had opened her throat. Her body was never recovered, but such events were wholly unremarkable. Hunger was rife in Dregmeet, and not all cravings belonged to men.

The elder Akadra, too lost in the tragedy of his wife’s death – a tragedy he had contributed to, in small part – had taken little interest in his son’s grief, and filled his days with tutors. But at night, Viktor had slipped away to the foundry, where Elzar taught him secrets of fire and forge. Of the light that was life, and the discipline by which the proctors sought to wield it. And he spoke of other things besides . . .

Thirty years had slid by since. Long enough for Elzar Ilnarov to earn the robes of high proctor – which he never wore – and be granted comfortable chambers in the guild house on the other side of the docks – which he seldom visited. He’d changed little with advancing years. A little wirier, perhaps, but the salt-and-pepper stubble and wrinkled face still matched Viktor’s earliest memory.

“I lost control today, in the Council chamber.”

“Magic wants to be used,” said Elzar. “Always has, always will.”

“I don’t want to use it.”

And he hadn’t. Not since that squalid duel with Katya Trelan. And never with the wild abandon of its first manifestation. Then, it had torn two of the crow-brethren’s footpads apart. A third had clawed out his own eyes in terror. At the time, Viktor hadn’t realised the billowing shadow was his own doing. He’d believed it yet another horror come to claim him. And so he’d run.

“You don’t get a choice. It chose you.”

“Then I wish it had chosen someone else.”

“And if it had? You’d have died alongside your mother.” Elzar chuckled under his breath. “Who’d play hands of jando with this lonely old man? Who’d heed his complaints about callow youngsters sent to do skilled work?”

“It’s that bad?” asked Viktor.