‘I never claimed to be,’ I say, and I glance down at the blade in my hand. ‘But I am your Sister Superior.’ I look back to Qi-Oh, making sure to hold her eyes with mine. ‘If you have quarrel with me, I would hear it now. We have enough enemies without finding them in each other.’

A long moment of quiet stretches out between us. Qi-Oh tilts her head again, gauging me, but before she gets the chance to speak, a massive tremor shakes the deck underfoot. Thunder builds around us as the Vow’s warp-drives come to life. The sound rises to a crescendo, and the overhead lumens in the training hall flare and then flicker off momentarily. A sensation comes over me like a thousand hooked blades snagging all across my skin and beneath it, too, as if they are trying to tear at my soul. I mutter a benediction as tectonic shudders run through the Vow’s old bones.

God-Emperor, armour my soul.

Qi-Oh looks up at the training hall’s distant ceiling.

‘Once more, into the domain of devils,’ she says absently.

‘You did not answer me,’ I say. ‘Do you have quarrel with me?’

Qi-Oh looks back at me. Her hazel eye has cooled like an ember left behind in the wake of a fire.

‘There is no quarrel, Sister Superior,’ she says. Her voice is cooler now, too. Less angry. ‘I should like to return to my training, now, as atonement for my failure.’

I cannot tell if she means her failure to defeat me, or her failure to keep her temper, but the way Qi-Oh says my title is careful, and measured. It is a small offering from someone who finds it hard to give in, even just a little, so I swallow my own pride and I nod.

‘That will be all, Sister,’ I say. ‘I will leave you to your swords.’

There is a flicker in her hazel eye and then Qi-Oh nods and goes back to the circle. I take my leave, hearing the fight bell toll again as the door grinds closed behind me.

RAVARA

As an inquisitor, I have few people that I can trust, and even fewer that I can call friend. One thing I do have, though, is contacts. After Sharvak’s death I took on his associates as well as the Fortress Meridia, but I have worked hard to build my own network, too. I have worked with fixers and with assassins, with loremasters and lawmakers. I have curried favour with the powerful and the powerless alike, because in the ordos you never know who you might need next.

After speaking with Sofika I reach out to my whisperers, and my listeners, those that monitor open-channel vox-traffic and wide-beam astrotelepathy, and I arrange the payment of one silver eagle apiece to my ganger contacts in Lamataya’s underhives in exchange for words spoken in the tunnels and the sumps. I tell them all to seek out the particulars of the dream. The eagle, ablaze. Last of all, I call for my transport and my standing retinue, because some contacts require a more direct approach if they are to be of any use.