‘What are you doing?’ Fidele screamed. Maquin lunged a hand through the bars, his fingers snaring around Ektor’s wrist, and heaving him into the cell bars. Ektor’s face crunched against iron, blood spurting from his nose, the sword dropping with a clang from his fingers. Maquin slipped his other arm through the gap, trying to get a grip around Ektor’s throat, but Ektor squirmed and lunged, panic fuelling him, and he tugged himself free of Maquin’s grip, staggering back, choking.

Alben reached for the sword but Ektor kicked him and snatched it up again, pointing the tip at Alben’s chest. Alben crawled backwards, away from him. He was bleeding heavily, looked to be on the verge of passing out.

‘Don’t worry, Alben, I’ll not kill you now. Calidus will be very interested in having a conversation with you, I think.’

Ektor looked at them all now, each standing at the bars of their cells, a self-satisfied smile spreading over his face.

‘I knew Meical had got to one of you,’ he breathed, wiping blood from a cut above his eye. ‘It has taken me years of patience to reach this moment. Calidus will reward me well for this.’

He stepped away from Alben and casually thrust his blade down into Peritus’ body.

Krelis screamed, ‘Ektor, you pale-faced little bastard . . .’ and hurled himself at the bars, tears running down his cheeks. ‘When I get out of here.’ He grabbed a bar and heaved, twisted, veins popping in his neck. The bar creaked in its setting, started to bend. Ektor chopped at Krelis’ fingers, the big man throwing himself backwards just in time.

‘Shut up, you oaf,’ Ektor snarled.

‘Ektor, what have you done?’ Fidele said.

‘Chosen wisely,’ Ektor sniffed, curling a lip at her. ‘You could have joined me. You still could.’

She spat at him through the bars.

‘You have sold your soul to the devil,’ Alben said from the floor.

‘Perhaps,’ Ektor shrugged. ‘That I can live with, but I think I have chosen the winning side.’

‘Why?’ Krelis asked, calmer now, anguish leaking from his voice.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Ektor said, ‘you who have everything.’

‘So did you,’ Krelis growled. ‘You want for nothing.’

Ektor shook his head. ‘I. Had. Nothing,’ he hissed bitterly. ‘No respect, no loyalty, no future, outside of my scrolls. I was laughed at, mocked with whispers as I walked by. Father did not respect intellect, only brawn. Well, I showed him.’

‘What?’

‘How did you think he ended up on Veradis’ sword, you idiot. Someone pushed him.’ He smiled. ‘It was not the only favour I have gifted to Calidus. How did you think the Vin Thalun scaled Ripa’s cliffs?’

‘I will kill you for this, I swear it,’ Krelis said, a coldness in his voice more daunting than his rage.

‘Unlikely,’ Ektor shrugged, picking up the bunch of keys from the floor. ‘Time to call some guards, I think.’