“I went up there to put the fire out, and to try to make him stop it, to make him be patient. I told him no one was really going to hurt him! And then I heard sounds from the cellar. She was coming. I knew it. She was coming after me. I was talking to Viktor and she was there, Rhosh, in the door. I was terrified, Rhosh. Terrified and I couldn’t get that image out of my head of bringing that blade down to kill Maharet. She knew. She saw it. She knew. And I thought, She’s going to destroy me now, crush me with those white hands. But she just moved right past me and she went up to Viktor. She went to Viktor and, Rhosh, she started stroking his face and kissing him. And I ran.”

He broke down in sobs.

Rhosh raised his eyebrows in the most bitter ironical expression, and perhaps this was far more indicative of his true heart than that cavalier dismissive expression that kept competing with it as he continued to look at his severed parts.

“I have to go now,” said Benedict miserably. “They’re down there on the beach with her. They have Viktor. But where should I go?”

“Come here,” I said, “and collect your maker because as soon as my son is safe in my arms, I’ll give him back what I’ve taken from him.” I promised nothing else.

I stood up and turned and faced the others. I wondered how many of them wanted me to be their leader now. Well, I had given them a gruesome taste of what I was capable of, acts that were far more difficult to perform for anyone with a drop of humanity in him than simply blasting others away with invisible force or exterminating heat. I’d given them a really good taste of what sort of ruler I might be.

I expected a certain amount of contempt with an equal measure, I hoped, of grudging sympathy, but I saw nothing but simple expressions, eyes fixed on me as agreeably and even generously as ever. True, Sybelle was crying and Bianca was trying to comfort her, but I sensed no hostility from any of them.

Flavius was actually smiling at me. And Zenobia and Avicus were entirely calm. Pandora seemed lost in her own thoughts, and Arjun merely gazed at me with obvious admiration.

Gregory had a subtle smile on his face. And Armand’s expression was very nearly the same. There was even the faintest smile on Louis’s face, and that amazed me, though there was some other element in it, which I couldn’t define. Notker was gazing at me with an open, affable expression, and Sevraine was looking coldly at Rhoshamandes without the slightest apparent emotion, while Eleni was looking up with frank admiration and Eugénie merely watched without obvious concern.