‘Guard!’ said the convener. ‘Please take the witness Joanna Selborne back to…’

He broke off and started coughing. Sweat suddenly broke out on his forehead.

‘To the tribunal chancellery,’ he finished, sniffing loudly. ‘Write out the appropriate documents. And release her. The witness Selborne is of no further use to the court.’

Kenna surreptitiously wiped away the drop of blood that was trickling from her nose. She smiled charmingly and thanked him with a delicate bow.

‘They’ve deserted?’ Bonhart repeated in disbelief. ‘More of them have deserted? And just rode away, like that? Skellen? You permitted it?’

‘If they inform on us…’ Rience began, but Tawny Owl interrupted him at once.

‘They won’t inform, because they don’t want to lose their own heads! And besides, what could I have done? When Kriel joined them, only Bert and Mun were left with me and there were four of them…’

‘Four,’ said Bonhart malevolently, ‘isn’t many at all. As soon as we’ve caught up with the girl I’ll go after them. And I’ll feed them to the crows. In the name of—’

‘Let’s catch her up first,’ Tawny Owl cut him off, urging on his grey with his knout. ‘Boreas! Keep your eyes on the trail!’

The valley was filling up with a dense blanket of fog, but they knew that down below was a lake, because there was a lake in every valley in Mil Trachta. The one, meanwhile, to which the black mare’s hoof prints were leading, was undoubtedly the one they were looking for, the one Vilgefortz had ordered them to look for. Which he had described to them precisely. And whose name he had given them.

Tarn Mira.

The lake was narrow, no wider than an arrow shot, crowded into a slightly bent crescent between high, steep hillsides covered in black spruce, beautifully sprinkled with a white, snowy powder. The hillsides were swathed in such a silence that there was a ringing in their ears. Even the crows–whose portentous cawing had accompanied them on the trail for the last fortnight or so–had fallen silent.

‘This is the southern end,’ stated Bonhart. ‘If the mage hasn’t made a hash of everything and landed us in it, the magical tower is on the northern shore. Keep your eyes on the trail, Boreas! If we pick up the wrong one, the lake will separate us from her!’

‘The trail is clear!’ Boreas Mun called from below. ‘And fresh! It’s leading towards the lake!’

‘Ride!’ Skellen brought his grey, skittering on the steep slope, under control. ‘Downhill!’

They rode down the slope, cautiously, reining back the snorting horses. They struggled through the bare, black, ice-covered thicket blocking the way to the bank.

Bonhart’s horse stepped gingerly onto the ice, crunching through the dry reeds sticking up from the glazed surface. The ice creaked and long arrows of cracks diverged like a star from under the horse’s hooves.

‘About face!’ Bonhart pulled in the reins and turned his snorting horse back towards the bank. ‘Dismount! The ice is thin.’