“Friend.” He blinked and the fairy fell to the ground. She landed softly, then staggered and fell onto her side. Then she was up again, as if hauled upright by invisible puppet strings. She swayed a little, wings tucking in against her back. She shivered, and the wings fluttered and shook as she pulled them close.

Lilou could not see her face.

“Yes,” Lilou said. “I always have been, you know that. I’ve only wanted what’s best for us, and for the Kin. Ascent isn’t for the best.”

He chuckled. It was a deep throaty sound, like something was broken inside. Lilou realised that even though he looked thin and malnourished, even though he smelled of filth and decay, Mallian was as strong as he’d been the day he was trapped in the Fold. Perhaps stronger. His mind endured, and with it his aims and ambitions, enriched and refined by his time away.

Now he had the fairy in his thrall, and the possibilities were horrific.

“I’m not going to beg you,” she said.

“Good.”

“Mallian, I’m appealing to you with the memory of all the time we’ve spent together, and all the things we’ve seen and done. You hate humans, but you also know their power and might.”

“Against her?” he said, nodding past her at Grace.

“A fairy who cries when she flies?”

“Pft!” He waved a hand at her. “Flying is just a trick. You know the things she can do, the powers she bears. They’re mine now. The only limit is my imagination.”

He’s right, Lilou thought. She tried not to show it. And he will never change his mind.

She looked back at Vince and the others, hoping to steer Mallian’s attention that way. As she did so she gripped the handle of the short knife in her belt.

“You betrayed me,” he said. “Left me trapped in there with her. You know what she was doing to the other Kin she drew in, the sad mongrels like the girl there? She was eating them, one piece at a time. Chewing off chunks of Kin meat, letting them heal, then hunting and eating them again. Imagine being eaten alive for eternity? That was her aim all along.”

“And you?” Lilou asked, trying to hide her shock.

“Maybe my old meat was too tough for her,” he said. “But that’s what the best of us, the most powerful, have come to. Eating each other. What do you think happens to the rest of the Kin if we do nothing to reassert our place in the world?”

“We fade away,” Lilou said. “We’ve had our time. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t remain civilised and enjoy the time we have left.”