“I suppose we aren’t,” Vex replied. “But if you think you’re going to get your hands on the sword, you can forget it. All it’ll take is one phone call and the English Sanctuary will shut up so tight you’ll never get inside.”

“Do you honestly think we hadn’t thought of that?” Sanguine asked, smiling. “Tanith has contingency plan after contingency plan. We’ll get that sword, don’t you fret.”

“And the dagger?” Vex asked. “Do you really think you’re going to get another shot at that? What about the bow? We’ve got that safely hidden away. Tanith can have all the contingency plans in the world, but the fact of the matter is she wanted four weapons, and the only one she’s got is the spear.”

Sanguine’s smile widened, but he didn’t answer. He just shrugged, put one hand on Dusk’s shoulder and another on Sabine’s, then stepped back into the crumbling wall with them and disappeared.

Vex frowned. He crossed to the broken window, looked out at the smoking plane. Gracious and Frightening were seeing to Aurora’s injury while Saracen and Donegan kept watch. Wilhelm poked his head out of the plane, clearly terrified. Saracen looked up, gave him a shrug. The enemy had retreated. Vex looked back at the cracked wall, his concern deepening. Something was wrong.

He limped down the steps on to the tarmac. Donegan frowned at him. “You’ve been shot.”

“I know,” said Vex. “I’m trying to be brave, but I think I might start crying. How’s Aurora?”

“Aurora’s fine,” said Aurora through gritted teeth. “He only shot me with a little bullet. If I’m not going to cry, you can’t either.”

“Everyone else OK? Donegan?”

“I’m good.”

“Are they gone?” Wilhelm asked.

“Yeah,” said Vex. “Come on down here and put pressure on Aurora’s wound.”

The fear on Wilhelm’s face was replaced with uneasiness. “I don’t do well with blood.”

“Get down here, Wilhelm.”

Looking like he might throw up at the idea of it, Wilhelm came down the steps.

Saracen reloaded his gun, and stepped up beside Vex.

“Sanguine’s still around,” he whispered. “He’s underground, listening.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Vex nodded. “I think I know why.” He turned to the others. “Tanith has the spear. We’re in no fit state to take her on, not after an ambush like that.”

Aurora hissed and Gracious apologised. “How’d they know?” she asked, speaking quickly to distract herself from the pain. “How’d they know where and when we’d be landing?”

“That’s something I’m wondering too,” said Vex. “One obvious answer is that they’ve got a Sensitive on their side. Other obvious answer is that we’ve got a traitor on ours.”

Immediately, all eyes swivelled to Wilhelm, who gurgled something unintelligible.