That night, like every night, the mast-towers of the Uroc blossomed with the unearthly luminescence known as saint’s fire. It afflicted all ships at some time-during an elyctric storm, or when the air was desiccated-but for the moonship it was as certain and regular as tides.

Night birds, bats, and moths flocked to it and danced in its glare. They battered and snapped at each other, and some descended to be waylaid by the other, smaller lights emitted by windows. In the Brucolac’s meeting room, the Curhouse councilors looked up, made nervous by the constant drumming of little wings on the glass.

The meeting was not going well.

The Brucolac was struggling. He sincerely needed to engage with the councilors, and he tried to work with them, to propose strategies, to review possibilities. But he found it hard to rein in his ability to intimidate. It was at the heart of his power and his strategy. He was not Armadan born: the Brucolac had seen scores of cities and nations, in life and in ab-death, and something had been made clear to him: if the quick did not exist in fear, then the vampir would.

They might style themselves merciless night hunters, of course, where they hunkered and hid their identities in cities, emerging at night to feed, but they slept and fed in fear. The quick would not tolerate their presence-discovery meant true death. That had become unacceptable to him. When he had brought haemophagy to Armada two centuries back, he had come to a city free of the reflexive, murderous horror for his kind-a place he could live openly.

But the Brucolac had always understood the payoff. He did not fear the quick, so they must fear him. Which he had always found easy to ensure.

And now, when he was sick of intrigue, when he hungered for complicity, when he needed help and this mixed bag of bureaucrats was all he had, the dynamic of terror was too strong to overcome. The Curhouse Council were too afraid to work with him. With every look, every lick of his teeth, every exhalation and slow clenching of his fists, he reminded them of what he was.

Perhaps it meant nothing, he reflected savagely. What help could they be? He could not tell them about the Scar. They would ask him how he knew, and he could say nothing; then they would not believe him. Or he could try to explain about Doul, in which case they would see him as a traitor, swapping secrets with the Garwater right-hand man. And still they would almost certainly not believe him.

Uther,he thought slowly, you are a clever, manipulative swine.

Sitting in this room surrounded by his supposed allies, all he could think was how much closer he felt to Doul, how much he and Doul shared. He could not shake the sensation-which made no sense at all-that the two of them were working together.