A backlit figure appears.

Tall and thin. His eyes, obscured in the hooded shadow of a coat with an ermine-fur collar. A long staff in his hand.

“Benvenuto,” he says. “Welcome…to my world.”

44

“You” is all I can muster.

“Indeed,” he says. “Me.”

Rodolfo Graziani, the Marchese di Jöve, steps into the confined space with us. His boots clang on the metal grate. Threat pulses off him—in the economy of his movement, his coiled energy. He’s tall and lean and strong. His skin is pale as the moon and his hair is almost peroxide-white. Beneath his long, unbuttoned coat, he wears the same suit of jet-black articulated armour, etched with patterns.

Beyond him, I see movement. Someone in the shadows.

My gut tightens.

Graziani looks at me and then at Vidhan. His hand travels to his throat. He brushes aside the ermine collar and reveals a long pink scar.

“Guarda,” he says, still looking at Vidhan. “A testamento to your skill.”

Vidhan shrugs. “Skill? Nah, mate, I was bloody aiming for your eyes. But gimme another go and we’ll set it to rights.”

Graziani smiles. “And you,” he says, looking at me. “The girl with the sword. Fonzie, was it? Or is it Ana Moon?”

I glare back at him and say nothing.

“Ah, look. She is changed. Not the girl I met in the alley. Someone new.”

He moves further into the room, confidently. The door behind him remains open. An invitation? A challenge? He stops. Looks at the door. Looks at me. Smiles again. “You think you can escape? You cannot. Even if you were both fully fit, I would still cut you down. This is as true as the tides.”

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“Have you forgotten how effortlessly I acquired the sword from you last time?”

“Come and try again.”

He shakes his head, looks at the doorway again. In the darkness, I’m certain I see a shadow-shape. Someone waiting there.

Who?

“And something else,” Graziani says. “Have you so easily forgotten being defeated on the black mountains in Tir?”

I open my mouth to speak, but no words arrive.

Beyond the doorway, the shape detaches itself from the shadows and moves into the light.

My heart leaps. And then it sinks.

“Kuji?” Vidhan says.

45

She has the same skin as Graziani—that alabaster-pale tone. Then the eyes. The same startling opalescent colour. And I recognise them now—the symbols running down Graziani’s armour are identical to the tattoos I saw stamped into Akuji’s body back in Ares. Akuji—wearing a black armoured-weave suit, just like Graziani—strides into the confined space looking as self-possessed as when I first met her. But colder.

“Kuji, what is this?” Vidhan asks.

And that’s when I’m hit with another surprise. She answers back.

Aloud.

“This?” she taunts, spitting the question back in his face. “This, Vidhan, is the end of the road.”