Like a schoolboy with his first crush, Jack reckoned that the little thief and confidence trickster Sabine was the best thing to ever happen in this wicked world, of which he had grown so tired and bored. Sabine was his spark. She was his light, his warmth. Her face made him smile, her smile made him giddy. When he was around her, all he wanted to do was look at her. When he wasn’t around her, all he wanted to do was talk about her. It was embarrassing. Humiliating, even. He’d have been angry with her if he didn’t fancy her so bloody much.

That morning, he’d found himself daydreaming. He had imagined an entire conversation where she had laughed at his jokes and hadn’t flinched at his touch. Ridiculous, childish daydreams, that nevertheless made him feel so nice, and so warm, and so hopeful. Sick, the whole affair was. Sick and wrong. He was a monster, and monsters didn’t have crushes on pretty girls. Thirty years old, he reckoned she was. Thirty years old, pretty as a picture. She had a pretty laugh, too. It lilted, like birdsong. It sounded especially pretty when she was laughing at something funny he had said in his daydream.

Jack stood, scowling at the city. Listen to him. Listen to the thoughts in his head. Was this any way for a grown monster to behave, especially one who had a job to do? That’s what he should be focusing on, not some random little skirt he’d taken a passing fancy to.

He slipped through the window that had been left open for him. Standing next to the door, hearing the voices on the other side, he did his best to smooth down his hair. Adopting a heavy-lidded nonchalance, Jack opened the door and sauntered in.

“Jackie Earl is the man who has the bow,” Tanith was saying to the others from her place at the head of the table. She glanced at him, but didn’t stop talking. “He’s been running organised crime in the city for almost fifteen years now, ever since he usurped the previous crime boss and his gang. Some of them were killed the old-fashioned way − bullet to the head, knife to the gut, garrotte to the throat... but some were found with arrows sticking out of them. Mr Earl may not be a sorcerer, but he knows power when he holds it in his hands.”

“So what makes the bow a God-Killer?” asked Sabine. What a question. What a wonderfully incisive question that had been, and no mistake. And then she added, “Does every arrow kill?” just to prove how sharp her mind was.

“That,” Tanith said, nodding, “and the fact that the arrow never misses.”

“Rarely misses,” Sanguine corrected.