Horror seeps into every pore of my being. Horror, and fear and sickness at the sight of what they have done to him.

“I swore to protect you,” Femi says, his voice still quiet. “I promised her. What will I have left if I fail her in this as well?”

I turn from him, light-headed. I close my eyes and try clear my thoughts. “I cannot just forget her, Femi.”

“And you cannot rescue her. It cannot be done, not this way.”

I turn his words over in my mind, until I finally see the meaning behind them. My eyes snap open. “You believe there is another way?”

Femi straightens, tucking his ruined hands back under his cloak. I wonder how he managed to climb with his fingers so broken.

“She cannot be stolen, but perhaps she can be bought,” he says. His words are careful, deliberate.

Hope swells in my breast. “For how much? More than twelve coins of gold?” I can raise an impossible sum if needed. Stealing precious things is what I am good at.

Femi shakes his head. “The Tiger is rich beyond measure,” he says. “Gold means little to him. But he is a man who is never thwarted in any of his wishes. What you must find is something that he wants but cannot have. Make him desperate for it until he is ready to pay any price to attain it. If you are lucky, you might have power to dictate a price: the freedom of your sister.”

His words are genius. But I frown as a new thought blossoms.

“What is it that the Tiger wants?” I look up and find Femi staring at me, his face a grimace.

“What does he always want?” he asks.

The question hangs between us, unanswered. But even now I am aware; I have seen my sister, and the truth of what she has become is so terrible I dare not speak it aloud.

Sometimes we must pay a terrible price to protect the things we love.

Is there any price I will not pay to save my sister?

No. There is not.

PART TWO

The Dead Wolf

1829

When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.

—The Jungle Book

THE FOX RENNART’S REVENGE

FROM STORIES OF THE MIRACLE COURT, BY THE DEAD LORD

Il était une fois … Rennart the Fox came to the house of Ysengrim the Boar, stealing into his lair in the darkness. The Fox’s blade was sharp, and his teeth hungered for the taste of blood. He stood before the crib where the daughter of Ysengrim lay sleeping, and he gazed upon her beautiful face.

It was for revenge that the Fox had come. Ysengrim and Rennart had once been like brothers. And yet Ysengrim had given to Rennart the gift of the seven hells. First he had betrayed his friendship. Then he had taken the Fox’s house and his name. He had killed the Fox’s loyal men. He had murdered his wife and his daughter. Lastly, he had cast the Fox into the darkest dungeon, les Oubliettes du Châtelet, the place of forgetting. And in the last of these seven hells, Rennart sat in the darkness and waited.