Snorri led the way inside. He closed the door, locked it, unhooded his lantern. We stood for a moment, the three of us, looking at each other’s pale, blood-spattered faces, our breath pluming before us. “Come.” Snorri pressed on, threading through various empty chambers, more doors, more stairs—less icy here deep within the building. We hurried through deserted halls, shadows swinging all around us with the sway of our two lanterns. Our bubble of tentative illumination sailed through a consuming darkness. Our footsteps echoed in those cold and empty places and it seemed we made an awful clatter. I pushed the phrase loud enough to wake the dead to the back of my mind. Side passages yawned at us as we passed, dark with threat. Onward, through a tall archway into a long hall, an iron door standing ajar at the end of it.

“There.” Snorri gestured with his axe. “That’s our stronghold.”

Salvation! In the worst of times even temporary salvation feels like a blessing. I glanced back at the archway, convinced some grave horror would step from the shadows at any moment and tear after us. “Hurry!”

Snorri jogged across and, with a squeal of hinges, pulled the door wide for us to pass through. Beyond it lay a narrow corridor set with a series of thick iron doors. It was as well that Snorri had unlocked them on his previous visit or we’d be fumbling with keys while the shadows reached for our backs. When he pulled the first one closed behind us, the sound of him locking it was a special kind of music to my ears. My whole body slumped as that awful tension eased.

I wondered where Freja and Egil might be and hoped it was somewhere secure. I didn’t mention it, though, in case Snorri decided to go out searching for them again. If they’d lasted this long they’d last a little longer, I told myself. In my mind’s eye I pictured them, clothing their names in Snorri’s descriptions, Freja capable, determined . . . She wouldn’t give up hope, not in him, not while her son lived. I saw the boy too, scrawny, freckled, inquisitive. I saw him smile—the easy grin his father had—and scamper off about some mischief amongst the huts of Eight Quays. I couldn’t picture them here, couldn’t imagine what this place might have made of them.

I leaned back against the wall for a moment, closing my eyes and trying to convince myself that the grave-scent hanging in the air was imagination. Perhaps it was, or perhaps the pursuit had been as close as I feared, but either way the locking of that door was a good thing. A very good thing indeed. Snorri shot home heavy bolts, top and bottom. Better still.

“Keep moving.” He waved me on, careful not to touch me; the air crackled and spat if we got too close and my skin glowed so bright I could almost light the way. Four doors stood between the hall and the strong-room. Snorri locked all four behind us, bolting them too in case the enemy held additional copies of the keys.