This thing is stronger than a human being has any right to be. But it still only weighs as much as Mary Liu.

And suddenly the thing was aloft, hoisted by its own grip on the thick iron, over and about . . . and the warrior moved, putting her back, shoulder and arms into the swing. Tiphaine could hear a molten voice roar. Each time it did the world shook and blackness came over her sight. And then a cool soprano would sing out a great bell-like note and she could see again.

“Glaukopis! Nikephore!” she heard herself shout, and she knew no Greek, and yet knew the meaning of the words: “Gray-Eyed! Victory-Bearer!”

Swing and momentum and precision. The creature struck dead center in the glass and it shattered behind her, hands still reaching for Tiphaine’s throat. The slender body folded and flew back, into the lintel, and over and out through the shattered window, receding as if she were watching it through the wrong end of a telescope, vanishing down a spiral into infinity.

Tiphaine turned frantically to the cell’s gate. “Don’t go out, don’t go out, nobody go out or come in here. Let me handle it!”

She raced down the stairs, jumping sideways off that last ten steps, landing bent-knee and rolling in a clash of plates and using her moving weight to push herself back onto her feet. Stratson opened the rear door by the kitchen and she raced out into the dark waste yard behind Fen House, splashing through puddles ankle deep, fighting for her balance on the soaking sagging marshy growths. Light came from some of the windows.

Before she could call, more lights came on; Stratson doing just the right thing. She could see a little figure covered in soaking white rags trying to heave itself up on its arms through the downpour. The legs didn’t seem to be moving.

All right Rudi, you sent us the story on how to deal with this . . .

The warden staggered out. She turned to him: “There’s a wall around this piece of bog, right?”

“Yes.” Stratson craned to look at the struggling figure. “What next?”

She swallowed and answered, her voice as hard as diamonds, the bell chiming in her head and the black held at bay, but heaving and twisting with dreadful strength. Her long sword came out, a fugitive gleam in the rain and darkness.

“I’m going to dismember the thing. Then we’re going to clean everything. With fire.”

“Aye, Lady. Whatever the Crown gives you, it isn’t enough and I don’t envy you.”

Tiphaine could see the figure’s legs begin to move.

Odd, almost like each is under the control of a different nervous system. Like she’s being puppeted by a swarm of . . . things . . . crawling around inside her.