I feel blood trickle out of my ears as I try to reach for the pendant at my chest, but my arms are leaden. I can’t tell if it’s real, or a dream. If it has happened or is yet to happen. I can’t tell if I am watching Sofika die in the underdecks where I left her with only Efrayl to keep her safe.

I never should have left her.

Ahri, she says, again. Please. I’m so afraid.

Shadows begin to flicker around her. Shadows with claws. Sofika’s mountain-sky eyes grow wide with fear. With a roar of effort, I get to my feet. My heart is loud in my ears. Labouring.

Where are you? Sofika asks, over and over again. Where are you, Ahri?

‘I’m here,’ I say, the words a slurring mess. ‘I’m coming.’

But before I can take a step a voice cuts through.

‘You have no power here!’

The voice is melodic and clear. Pure.

It belongs to Sister Evangeline.

Everyone around her is reeling and recovering, but not Sister Evangeline. The Sister Superior is standing and staring up at the mirror-thing, her sword held en garde. Her face is set, those eagle scars stark white against her skin. Patterns play over her armour, picked out by reflected light from the warpfire spiralling up around the mirror-thing as it grows yet larger. The way the patterns move, Sister Evangeline looks as though she is already burning.

No, not burning.

Ablaze.

The mirror-thing lashes out at her with a fractal claw. It has wings, now. Feathers made of shards of glass. Multiple splinter mouths that are all whispering as one.

Deathiscomingdeathiscomingdeathiscoming.

Sister Evangeline catches the claw on her sword blade. The power field flares, and sparks fly. She looks at me. Haloed by all of that witch-fire, it’s like looking at the sun coming over the mountain crowns.

‘The Navigators,’ she shouts. ‘Go!’

I glance briefly towards the graven doors. The way we came in. The way back to Sofika. Her voice echoes in my head.

Where are you, Ahri?

But I can’t go to her. Not this time. I turn away from the graven doors as Sister Evangeline’s squad regain their senses and marshal themselves against the mirror-thing. Zoric and Yumia are both bleeding from their noses. Their eyes. Yumia is shaking and murmuring. Scratching at the brands of exile that loop around and around her muscular arms. When I get close enough to grab hold of her, I realise that she is just muttering one word over and over again in Illithian. The same word that makes up those brands, and her explanation for joining my service in the first place.

Dishonour.