‘And can you read a bone or two, Adrana Ness? Oh, don’t look so timid. You’re frightened of me, frightened of what will become of you – and who’d blame you? You’re being addressed by Bosa Sennen, after all, and that’s enough to put a twist in anyone’s guts. But don’t believe all you hear. I’ll ask you again. Are you a Bone Reader? No? But you seem the sort. Doesn’t she, Pol?’

Rackamore didn’t give her the answer she wanted. She made him scream again.

‘You,’ she said, her focus shifting. ‘Sad-faced little man. What do you have to say about the girl? Is she the one?’

I heard Triglav answer this time.

‘No? What would she be then? Master of sail? Those hands of hers haven’t done an honest day’s work in their lives. Squint your lamps at them!’

I remembered Adrana’s hand in mine, and the imprint she’d left on the glass.

‘Admit it, sad-faced man.’

Triglav said something.

I heard a sound like a whipcrack, then a man’s scream. But the scream didn’t last long. It guttered out, became a kind of gurgling, and then the gurgling turned to silence.

I knew she’d killed Triglav.

‘Now that was rude of him, wasn’t it, Pol? Bosa asked a fair question and Bosa expected a fair answer. What about you, sharp-faced lady? Are you going to be so reticent?’

I heard a shriek, a woman’s shriek, and of those who remained I knew it belonged to Prozor rather than Jusquerel. Then Prozor let out a curse. There was no whipcrack this time, but a thud and a groan and then another thud, and then a kind of wet crunching sound, as if a skull had just been smashed in.

Then a terrible silence.

‘Stop,’ Adrana said, her voice breaking as she spoke up. ‘Stop. It’s me. I’m the one you’re after. I’m the Bone Reader.’

Again I got that shiver of admiration and terror, all mixed together. The fact that she didn’t sound brave and sure of herself only made me think more of her. She was scared and still she’d spoken.

‘Good,’ Bosa Sennen said. ‘But think of the trouble you’d have saved, if we’d got here sooner. Come here, girl. I was right, wasn’t I? You have the look for it. Can’t mistake a Sympathetic, and the more time you spend with the bones, the more it shows. Now – who’s the other one?’

‘There isn’t anyone else,’ Adrana said.

‘But Bosa had it on good authority that there were two minds sending through the Monetta’s bones.’

‘It was him . . . Cazaray. Plugging in at the same time, teaching me how it works.’