“Am I? Everything my family touches withers. Kasamor’s dead because he was coming for me, and I can’t tell if I pity him more than I hate him for it.” She choked back an angry sob. “And you know the worst? I can’t escape the feeling that if I’d at least tried to love him, he’d not have been taken. That his death is my punishment.”

Anastacia’s eyes widened in mirth. “Now that is deliciously self-absorbed.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you’re upset, feeling guilty and used to neither. You see Branghall as a cage, but it’s also a shield. It protects you from life as much as it denies you a place in it.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it? When was the last time you went hungry? Lacked for shelter or clothing? I know you’ve never known grief, because no one’s ever here long enough for you to grow attached to them.” A sour note crept in. “No wonder you feel as you do. For all the tutors Josiri hired, for all the education you’ve received, you’ve never really learnt that the sun doesn’t rise for you alone.”

“You know nothing of how I’m feeling!”

Calenne hit her. Didn’t even think about it. Simply balled a fist and slammed into the demon’s smug, self-righteous face.

Anastacia staggered. Only hands braced against the remnant of the outer wall saved her from falling into an undignified heap. She spat a mouthful of whitish-golden blood over the wall. It hissed into vapour in the sunlight. Still sprawled, she transfixed Calenne with an icy gaze.

“As a case in point,” she said, her voice as cold as her eyes. “You’ve never learnt not to start fights you can’t win.”

The stone beneath the demon’s left hand split apart into a handful of rubble. Dust trickled down the tower’s outer wall. A halo of golden light blazed into being about her head.

Calenne’s instincts screamed at her to back away, or to fall to her knees and beg forgiveness. But the message got lost somewhere on the way to her limbs – a rabbit freezing too late after rousing a fox. She’d never seen Anastacia use magic for more than parlour tricks. The mantle of demon never suited her better than at that moment.

“I don’t know how you feel?” Anastacia twisted upright and advanced. “I’m bound to this place, body and soul. And the one person who makes that bearable? One day soon, he’ll leave, and I’ll be alone. I know exactly how you feel, child.”

She was close now, close enough that her halo prickled at Calenne’s skin. Warm as sunshine, and inexpressibly cold. And yet somehow, the demon’s words held more power than her magic.

“Josiri’s found a way to escape?” The very idea awoke contradictory emotion.