Even the hallway where Fennec was imprisoned was deserted, its guards summoned to defend Garwater like all the others. That was the bargain, Bellis understood suddenly. That was the deal. These empty corridors were what the Brucolac had delivered to the intruders.

Only the two thaumaturges outside Fennec’s cell had been left, and they were dead. Blood was still slicking across the floor as Bellis approached the corpses. The man had been attempting some hex, and little arcs of energy spat and dissipated like static from his fingers, which spasmed as his nerves died. The woman was next to him, splayed and opened.

Bellis was clumsy with fear, which welled up like vomit in her. She hovered outside the cell, standing in the blood, her hand poised to open the door, held back by terror. She battled with herself, utterly unsure of what to do.

Just throw it in there,a part of her said. Just leave it by the door, just run , just get out.And at that second there was a scream from inside the room, a dreadful panicked noise all full of terror. Bellis echoed it, crying out in horror, and she threw open the door and stepped in.

"It’s here!"she screamed, ripping the cloth from the hideous statue and holding it like an offering. "Stop! I’ve got it here. Stop! Take it; you can take it and go!"

At the far side of the room, separated from her by the bars, Silas Fennec was crawling backward, screaming again, driving himself into a corner of his cell. He did not even look at her. He was scrabbling like a child, gazing in a stupefaction of terror at what had come for him.

With a horrible slowness, turning her head through thick air, Bellis followed his line of vision, and with a spasm of cold shock that made her stumble, she saw the grindylow.

There were three. They were staring at her.

They jutted prognathous jaws, their bulging teeth frozen in meaningless grimaces, massive eyes absolutely dark and unblinking. Their arms and chests were humanoid, tightly ridged with muscles and stretched skin, grey-green and black, shiny as if with mucus. And narrowing at the waist, the grindylow bodies extended like enormous eels into flat tails several times longer than their torsos.

The grindylow swam in the air. They flickered, sending quick S-curves down the lengths of their extended tails, rippling them liquidly. They moved their arms in a random dance, like submerged swimmers controlling their buoyancy, clenching and unclenching their webbed claws.

They were absolutely quiet. Even with their hideous faces turned to her, Bellis was wooed by their languid, constant, silent motion. Their bodies were level with hers as their tails eddied in the air, suspending them above the floor.

One of them was adorned with a mass of necklaces in stone and bone. It was streaked with human blood.