I make it ten steps before the corridor tilts again. More than tilts. It runs like wet paint. I hear my sabre hit the deck, and I end up on my hands and knees amongst the blood and bullet casings. Amongst the silent, still dead. I can’t fight Zoric and Yumia off this time when they move me so that I am sitting up against the corridor wall, nor can I stop Yumia from pushing aside the makeshift bandage at my waist to get a better look at the wound the daemon left me with. She hisses through her teeth.

‘She is bleeding badly,’ she says to Zoric, as if I am not here.

‘So seal it,’ I say.

Yumia shakes her head. ‘I have nothing to seal it with, and even if I did, it would not matter. Something inside is split or severed. This is a killcut.’

I shake my head, the action printing Yumia’s image across my vision over and over.

‘It’s not a killcut,’ I tell her. ‘I’m fine.’

I push her away and get to my feet by leaning on the wall, then I pull the binding around my waist tighter, spattering blood onto the deck. I push myself away from the wall and set to moving again, but this time I only make it two paces before Zoric has to catch me to keep me from falling. It looks as though it hurts him to do it.

‘Efrayl could be anywhere. You’ll bleed out before you find him,’ he says.

I shake my head again, though a part of me knows that there’s a good chance Zoric is right. Yumia, too. My fingers have gone completely numb, and my whole body is trembling, not just my hands. Clouds are stealing in at the edges of my sight, but I can’t stop. Not even the thunder-loudness of my own heart can drown out those whispered words.

Where are you, Ahri?

I need to go to Sofika, but I won’t get there. Not on my own.

‘I don’t need to find Efrayl,’ I tell Zoric. ‘I know exactly where he is, because I told him to stay with her. To keep her safe.’

Zoric frowns at me. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asks. ‘Keep who safe?’

I blink. Take a ragged breath. And then I open my mouth and speak.

‘Sofika,’ I say.

‘Throne,’ Yumia says, to Zoric. ‘I told you, it is a killcut. The blood loss is speaking for her.’

‘It’s not the blood loss,’ I snarl. ‘For Throne’s sake, let me go. I have to get to her.’

Zoric sighs. ‘Sofika isn’t here, lord,’ he says. ‘She died months ago, on Hellebore. You know that.’