Khassian did not, could not, reply. And it saddened him that he must play word games with the man he had once honoured as patron, protector… and lover.

‘You have changed, Amaru. I do not recognise the man I once knew.’

‘It must be the effect of the Sulien waters.’

Khassian’s riposte was flippantly bitter; even as he heard himself deliver it, he knew he should have kept silent.

Ilsevir reached out and, fingers closing around the bell-rope, pulled it.

Khassian panicked.

He could still retract. There was still time –

The doors opened and the two Guerriors entered.

‘The Illustre is ready to return to the Sanctuary,’ Ilsevir said. His face betrayed nothing. He looked straight through Khassian as though he was not there as he turned back to the sketches of the Fortress of Faith.

Dame Jolaine Tradescar had lodged for fifty years in the same ramshackle garret over a courtyard tucked behind Millisom’s Street. Behind the elegant carved façades of Sulien, many such dingy courtyards were to be found, criss-crossed with lines of washing. She had never troubled to find anywhere more spacious or elegant as she spent her days in the Museum or below ground, investigating and mapping the Undercity.

Now that she was forbidden the Undercity – and had been locked out of her own Museum – she found her rooms confining and stuffy.

Frustrated at the very moment when her researches were coming to fruition, she whiled away the days poring over her notebooks, looking at her sketches of the mosaic floor in the Hall of Whispering Reeds from every conceivable angle, and postulating, puzzling, theorising…

So when she heard someone tapping politely at her door, she leapt up from her chair, eager for distraction.

Theophil Philemot stood on her doorstep, a large bundle in his arms.

‘Your – possessions, Dame Tradescar.’ He seemed a little out of breath.

‘You can bring them in,’ Jolaine said stiffly, all her earlier good humour evaporating at the sight of her successor, ‘and then you can be off about your business.’

But there seemed nowhere to put the bundle in her cramped parlour; every available space was piled high with books.

‘Maybe on the table?’ Philemot suggested, moving towards the least cluttered area.

‘No!’ Jolaine hurried to slam shut the open books, placing herself in front of them. Her work on the hieroglyphs. Her mosaic floor. ‘Just put the bundle down. Anywhere.’

Philemot did as he was told.

‘I’m sure you have much to occupy your time, Dr Philemot, I don’t wish to detain you a moment longer.’

‘Dame Tradescar,’ he burst out, ‘you must believe me – I would like to consult you on some matters of scholarship. I would truly value the benefit of your expertise which is without parallel in the field –’

‘So unparalleled that I have to be pensioned off, hm? And young upstarts like you brought in?’

‘It’s about the hot springs.’

‘Well?’ At least the young man was persistent.