Agonised, Acir started down at Khassian. The shifting sands were already beginning to cover his body… No one could survive that storm for long. And yet if he stopped to save the musician, his message would not get through and the citadel would be destroyed.

‘The choice is yours, Acir.’

Acir paused as he approached Mistress Permay’s house in the Crescent.

Amaru Khassian stood at the window, staring out across the lawns to the misty hills beyond. His intended victim. The rebel he had been ordered to save – or kill.

Acir saw not the cynical, manipulative artist Girim had described but only a vulnerable young man, face pale and drawn with pain, brown eyes riven with a lost, hopeless expression.

His tousled hair was untied, unkempt, straying into his eyes; from time to time he irritably shook it back. His whole appearance was neglected, as if he no longer cared what image he presented to the world.

Mistress Permay showed Acir into the morning room where Khassian still stood staring out of the window.

‘You have a visitor, Illustre,’ she announced, bobbing a curtsey.

As Khassian glanced round, Acir saw the air of vulnerability vanish and his face set into a hostile scowl.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said sullenly.

‘I come as the Grand Maistre’s official emissary.’

‘I told you – I have nothing to say to you.’

‘At least listen to the Commanderie’s proposition, Illustre,’ Acir said earnestly.

‘I’m surprised you propose anything to a madman. A lunatic.’

‘I – I don’t quite follow –’

‘But all Allegonde knows, Captain. It was in the Diurnal – and as everyone knows, if the news is reported in the Diurnal, it must be true. The shock of the fire has made me lose my wits. I am at present confined in the Sulien Asylum for the Insane.’

‘I knew nothing about this,’ Acir said, puzzled.

‘Neither did the Asylum Director.’ The brown eyes mocked him. ‘So. What is this proposition?’

‘Come back to Bel’Esstar. Resume your rightful place at court.’

‘That could be a little difficult.’ Khassian raised his hands, shaking back the lace cuffs to display them fully. ‘My touch is not so good as it was and I might play quite a few wrong notes. The Prince is known to be upset by clumsy playing.’

Acir swallowed; he had seen wounds as ugly as these many times before, he had helped cauterise amputated stumps in tent hospitals on the battlefield… and yet these burned, twisted claws seemed all the more obscene for the knowledge of what they were once capable of.

‘Others will be your hands for you. You can still teach at the Conservatoire, rehearse your music with the –’

‘You’re not used to this kind of thing, are you?’

Acir shook his head, half-understanding.

‘Bandying words. Don’t you resent being asked to do this?’