He thrusts out his free hand, then, and beside me Sofika’s machine disassembles itself in an instant, separating into its component parts. My dream-taker hangs in the air, her pale hair floating around her head like a halo, her robes rippling like lakewater. I try to move. To stop him. But I can’t. My limbs are locked, just like everyone else’s, so that all I can do is watch as he draws Sofika towards him through the air. All I can do is listen to her cry out for me with her voice and her mind.

‘Ahri!’

Ahri!

‘Ahri!’

Ahri!

I strain, trying so hard to move that it feels like my muscles might tear. I scream at him, in a way that’s more raw and painful than I ever have.

‘No! Not her! Not her!’

My voice fails me on the last word, turning hoarse.

‘Father,’ I say. ‘Please.’

He looks away from Sofika, floating in the air before him.

‘It is time to stop deceiving yourself, inquisitor,’ he says.

I look around again at everyone else in the chamber, and this time I truly see them. They are frozen, but they are all on their feet. All caught in the middle of a moment. Zoric is mid-shout, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. Yumia has already unslung her blades. The Sisters have all raised their bolters, their faces locked in rictus snarls. Only Castanne and Silvera remain on their knees. The cardinal-principal and the Master of Trails are both in tears, staring up at the dais.

I look back at him and a tear escapes my eye, too. Not from sadness, but from shame.

‘You are not my father,’ I say. ‘You’re a lie.’

At my words, my father’s image sheds away to reveal the truth. The cobalt blue of his uniform becomes armour of plate and metal, his jewellery of office the golden trim. My father’s cane becomes a coiled staff, topped with a violet crystal. He grows and swells, becoming vast and terrible and ancient.

Becoming a heretic monster, wearing a serpent’s mask.

Evangeline

EVANGELINE

Everything hurts.

I lie on my back, staring up at the arch-roofed ceiling of the Convent Sanctorum far above me. The cross beams, and the buttresses. A cold wind blows across my skin, stirring my roughweave clothes and chilling my bare feet. It brings with it the sound of hymnals, and of boots on stone. The ringing of bells. I let my head fall to the side, so that I can look across the floor. I see a training sword, out of reach on the stone floor. It is short, and wooden. Broken in two. My limbs are heavy and aching. My heart even more so.

All I want to do is cry.

‘Evangeline.’