“I’ll teach you what you need,” Mallian says, opening his eyes again. He sees the same skies, the same view. He is striving to change that, and to do so he has to maintain self-control. Fury has its place, but that is not here, not now.

Soon, though.

“It’s a glamour, both ancient and powerful. I’d do it myself but...” Mallian tenses his arms and legs for the ten thousandth time since being trapped in the Fold.

“Anything to get away from here,” Markus says. “I never thought it would be like this. When I arrived here I was angry and scared. But when the Fold closed I experienced such a sense of... freedom. As if the bonds that had held me to the world—home and wife, children and work, my friends and dreams and aspirations—had all been snipped, and for a while I was flying, and alone. I was soaring. And then she... the first time she...”

“She started eating you.”

“Yes.”

“She’s a monster,” Mallian says.

“A monster.”

Mallian nods, gesturing the pombero closer. “I can put her down.”

“I’m here to help. Only to help.”

“I know. But can you help enough?”

“What do you mean?” Markus kneels by his side, so close that Mallian could lunge and grab his arm or leg in his mouth, if he so desired. But that would be the last resort.

“I need your tongue.”

Markus blinks, then smiles. “Anything. Tell me what to say, where and when to say it. Do I speak it over these?” He picks up the rucksack again, and Mallian is struck with a sudden, rich memory. It’s been happening more and more lately, as if his mind is retreating to better times—memories sharp in sense and sound, so clear and precise that he could almost be there.

Gregor the Kin-killer holds the rucksack, proud of what he has achieved through his long years of hunting and mutilating, and ready to claim his reward. Though growing old in human terms he also retains a childlike innocence, a belief that everything he has been doing has been to elevate himself and make something new. Mallian experiences a brief but surprising pang of guilt, even regret, because he lied to Gregor. All that awaited him was a quick, bloody death at the Nephilim’s hands.

Mallian shakes his head slowly.

“The words of the glamour are ancient and very particular, spoken in a language long lost to the world. It could be that I am the only Kin sane enough to still speak these words. Your human mouth wouldn’t wrap around them.”

The pombero looks surprised, then offended.

“Your young Kin mouth,” Mallian says, correcting himself, outside at least.

“Then... my tongue.”

“Your tongue,” Mallian says.

Markus holds up the rucksack and looks back and forth between it and Mallian.

“Most of them had to die to give what was required,” Mallian says.