On the other side of the room, the old man backed away from the bayonet-wielding guard, leading her toward the room’s other door, which opened onto a narrow stairway from behind Winter’s desk. At first Winter thought the old man wanted to escape, but he backed past the door without pausing. A moment later, the thin wood exploded as though it had been hit with a cannonball, fragments scattering across the room.

Standing amid the wreckage was another man, a giant, easily seven feet tall and broad to match. Winter was forcibly reminded of the fin-katar, the sacred eunuch she’d had to kill when she rescued Feor in Khandar. He had been huge, but running to fat, while this man seemed to be a slab of solid muscle. The giant wore the same blacks as the knife man, and the same glittering black mask.

Winter had to admire the courage of the Girls’ Own soldier, if not her good sense. She turned on her heel and lunged with the simple bayonet thrust that they’d practiced so often in the yard. The giant half turned, letting the blade sink into the meat of his side until the barrel of the musket pressed against him. Then he swatted the weapon aside and grabbed the guard by the shoulder. She had time for a scream as a huge hand closed around her face and twisted her head one hundred eighty degrees without apparent effort, bones snapping with an ugly crunch. The giant tossed the limp, twitching corpse aside and looked down at Winter, ignoring the blood matting his clothes.

“Balls of the fucking Beast,” Cyte swore. “What in all the hell—”

The knife-wielding Penitent came at Winter again, and she struggled to avoid him. He wasn’t fast, at least not any faster than any trained fighter, but he seemed aware of what she was doing almost before she did it, gliding smoothly around her clumsy attempts at parries and ripostes. Winter was only able to keep him off by exploiting her longer reach and giving ground, and even so she quickly accumulated a half dozen shallow, painful cuts on her forearm where his knives had scored. Her sleeve was dark and sodden with blood, and Infernivore screamed at the back of her mind.

It wants his demon. Infernivore could devour it, but she had to lay a hand on him to unleash the thing, and the Penitent in front of her seemed as insubstantial as mist. She hurled herself desperately to one side to avoid getting backed into a corner, taking a cut on the leg as she passed, and had a moment to spare for the rest of the room.