“Oh,” she said. “No, I don’t wear a watch. I don’t believe in them. Time’s never done me any favours, and that’s fair dinkum.”

“I see. Smoke?”

“It’s twelve oh four,” Smoke said. “Twenty seconds to go.”

Lethe rolled his shoulders. “Nero, Cadaverous, prepare yourselves. The rest of us will stand ready.”

Cadaverous took hold of Nero’s wrist.

“We don’t need to be touching,” Nero complained.

Cadaverous gave him a smile. “I’m just making sure you don’t forget about me in all the excitement.”

Nero took a moment to roll his eyes before looking straight ahead, at the patch of thin air he was aiming to arrive at. As the seconds ticked away, Cadaverous used his tongue to pick a piece of meat from between his teeth. He spat it out.

“Go,” said Smoke.

Suddenly they were 1,100 metres off the coast and falling towards the churning, freezing sea. Cadaverous’s body released a bolt of adrenaline. Nero tried to snatch back his arm. He was about to panic, about to teleport away. Cadaverous tightened his grip.

And then his feet vanished.

The rest of him followed, almost too quick to register – his knees, thighs, hips, chest – and then they had dropped through the cloaking shield and Coldheart Prison burst into existence beneath them, a floating island of rock on which sat the walls, the fences, the watchtowers and the prison buildings themselves.

They teleported lower and flipped, so that their momentum took them upwards and then cancelled out. When they stopped rising, Nero teleported them once more, straight down to solid ground. They landed gently and crouched, waiting for the alerts to be called. When they heard no shouts, heard no alarms, they dared to raise their heads.

They were on the very edge of the island, perched on the slippery rocks. Before them was a fence. Beyond that, another fence. Towers, manned by Cleavers, stood at regular intervals – eight towers to a side. Walls and more fences separated the yard into sections for prisoner recreation and sections for staff. The buildings were big and blocky and imposing. Small windows and few of them. Solid doors.

The main prison building was a massive tower with broad shoulders. Slanted windows at the very top gave it its scowl. The inmates called this building the Brute.

“Fetch the others,” Cadaverous said, the wind whipping away his words. Nero vanished.

As irritating as Nero could be, he was also the key to taking this prison. So long as his enemies were within a certain range, he could teleport them away without having to lay a finger on them. The sigils and safeguards that kept out others of his ilk had no effect on him. He was, to all intents and purposes, virtually unstoppable. That reason, and that reason alone, was enough to keep him alive.

He arrived back with Lethe and the others.