She glanced around. How long had she stood entranced? Broken clouds rolled overhead and patches of rain swept down, fiercely cold. Every now and again the stars shone through, but faintly, as if cowed by the fat silver moon that squatted just above the horizon. She turned away from it, shaken by the old man’s words.

Should she wait out the rest of the night in the brush next to the estate wall, or run to tell someone what she’d heard? But who? Mock’s Hold and the Claws? Hardly. According to Oleg they were one of the powers contending this night. One group among many in a field far more crowded than even they knew. And right now she wasn’t sure she wanted to just blindly approach them. Where then? Sub-Fist Pell? He’d handed over all authority to the Claws without even lifting his fat ass from his chair! No, there was only one person on the island who could possibly make any sense out of all this: her aunt Agayla. She’d know what to do. But still . . .

She studied the body. It looked obscenely flat, as if deflated by the loss of blood and secrets. Maybe all that talk was just the last reflexive outpouring of a madman. A lunatic schemer to the end. Comforting, that thought. Yes, that was it, most likely. Anything else . . . well, it was all too outrageous.

She turned her sight towards the inland hills. Low patches of cloud hugged them. The storm appeared to promise nothing more than a series of flitting shadows and numbing rain. Shivering and worn out, Kiska pulled at her wet clothes and pushed her flattened hair back behind her ears. It was just the sort of dreary night that always depressed her. She wondered how much time had passed and whether she might catch a glimpse of her quarry – the man Oleg had demanded she approach – between here and Agayla’s. It might yet be possible. And what if she did manage to find him again? What should she do? Walk up to him and tell him she had a message from a ghost?

She turned away and grunted at what she saw behind her. There stood the fellow in the dull grey cloak, his head cocked, studying her. He stepped forward. Up close he was rather shorter than she’d thought. She slipped her right hand into her cloak, onto the crossbow’s grip. He raised his closed hands before him, a shoulder’s width apart. She saw nothing between them, but recognized a garrotist’s stance.

‘Who are you?’ she called softly. She resisted the urge to raise a hand to her throat. He advanced, silent. She stepped backwards, considered her options: how far to the wall? What cover was there? Just how fast could this fellow be?

The marble bench and Oleg’s corpse passed on her left as she retreated. ‘Who are you!’ she shouted, damning any pretence to secrecy now. He smiled a tight predatory grin and kept advancing. What made the assassin so cocky?