Eyes closed, Seal shrugged. ‘I guess it’ll be open from now on. Come around and show me what’s left of you.’

Temper hefted the door to one side. ‘Will do.’ He gave a salute – the old Imperial fist to chest. ‘Thanks for the armour, and stay off that damned smoke.’

Sighing his distaste, Seal answered the salute.

Temper jogged up Back Street, heading for the Old Stone Bridge close to the swampy mouth of the Malaz River. Three blocks from the Hanged Man he came to a darker pool of wet on the cobbles around a pile of viscera. He stopped, listening. The night was still. The surf moaned, strangely muted, while the wind whispered and gusted. The surrounding streets showed no other sign of violence. Crouched on his haunches, he looked more closely. Human innards, steam rising in the damp air. Was this all that remained of Bell, late guard at the Hanged Man? Was it a hound’s work? It looked more like the attack of a predatory cat such as the catamounts of the Seti Plains, or the snow leopard of the Fenn Ranges of northern Quon Tali. Still, that damned baying sounded as if it reverberated from a beast the size of a bhederin.

He stood, eyed the frowning cliff face and Mock Hold, perched above like a dark thunderhead. No lights shone, no fires burned along its walls. It was as if the fortress was as lifeless as a crypt. Yet Temper felt certain he’d find the answers to tonight’s mysteries concealed within its halls. At least he hoped to; he had no idea where else to look. He jogged on, heading across the centre of town.

On Agayla’s doorstep, Kiska had waited, enclosed in a hug that seemed to go on forever. Letting go, Agayla had eventually stood back, hands still tight on Kiska’s while she stared out into the darkness. For one terrified moment Kiska had thought she would forbid her to leave. She revisited her haunted vision of wasting away on the tiny island, walking in circles round and round its narrow shores. But the instant ‘Burn watch over you’ had passed the old woman’s lips, Kiska’s thoughts were free to fly ahead into the night. She waved goodbye, but her mind already was on Cutter’s Strait – the main north-south concourse dividing the old town from the new.

Now, crouched deep in the shadow of a chimney, her toes curled around the edges of wet roof tiles and her back to the warm brick, she looked out over the deserted streets. From here the town seemed dead – every window shuttered, cloth hung to disguise any sign of life. The moon leered down like a mocking eye.

She gripped the crossbow across her knees, trying to squeeze reassurance from its weight and resilience. Tonight, just a mere few turnings into the streets, and she no longer knew where she was. The experience had shaken her to her very core. It was as if she had suddenly found herself in another town. She had no idea which direction to take or how to get back. Yet the streets possessed an eerie familiarity. This looked to be near where she’d run during the riots that erupted in response to the Regent’s ban against sorcery.