She grabbed Valkyrie’s head with both hands, started to twist. Valkyrie felt the cartilage in her neck about to pop and she panicked, tried getting the hell out of there. Stephanie’s shoe came in, connecting solidly with Tanith’s jaw. There was a mad scramble for the sword, but Tanith got there first, swung round and the blade pressed against Valkyrie’s throat.

They all froze.

“Bring Darquesse back,” Tanith said.

“We can’t,” said Valkyrie.

“How did you do it? How did you regain control?”

“I didn’t. She’s not with me any more. She was thrown out. She’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Cassandra called her an untethered entity.”

Tanith looked at them both. “A ghost?”

“Kind of.”

“Oh,” Tanith said. There was a long pause. Then Tanith sighed, and took the blade from Valkyrie’s throat. She went and sat on the couch.

Valkyrie and Stephanie looked at each other.

The black veins faded, and Tanith’s lips returned to normal. “Sorry,” she said.

Stephanie frowned. “I don’t get it. Are you going to kill us or not?”

Tanith hesitated.

“Please say not,” said Valkyrie.

“I don’t know,” Tanith said. “I mean … I should kill you. Killing you would make sense. You took away Darquesse, and I want Darquesse to destroy everyone. Or … I did.”

Valkyrie made a decision. She righted the armchair and sat in it. “You changed your mind?”

“I don’t know,” said Tanith. “The more I think about it … yeah, maybe. The Remnant part of me is, like, whoop, let’s kill everything. But the human part of me is all, why? Killing everything would make the world so boring. And to be honest, I think the Remnant part of me is also starting to think along those lines, even though it’d never admit it.”

Stephanie sat down slowly, rubbing her jaw. “So you’re not going to kill us?”

“Probably not. I mean, don’t let your guard down or anything. I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep, but as of right this second, no, I have no intention of killing either of you. But I may change my mind.”

“Well, that’s progress,” Valkyrie said. “That’s something, isn’t it?”

Tanith nodded. “I think so. I mean, it feels like I’ve just taken a big step. That’s how it feels. It feels important.”

“Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery,” Stephanie said.

“That’s what they say, isn’t it? And I do have a problem. I sometimes want to kill everything. I don’t have a conscience and occasionally I do things that could be labelled as, you know …”

“Evil,” said Stephanie.

“Right. Yes. Evil. Occasionally I do evil things. I don’t mean to be evil. I’m not evil just to be evil. But evil things happen and I’m responsible.”

“Are you going to take Moribund’s advice?” Valkyrie asked.