‘Your plan sounded pathetic,’ he said, ‘but I needed a story to tell my father. I thought that it might get his attention and then maybe I could change his mind. I thought, if I could just talk to him for a bit he might . . . come back to himself. Forget about the rot and Bitterblight. It’s all he’s been on about for months, and then he left the city. And you said he was there when the seepers attacked. That means it’s true – all the gossip about him betraying Arborven. But I had to try! I couldn’t just let him become . . . become evil!’

‘What did you do, Odis?’ Liska took a step towards the older boy. ‘What did you tell him?’

Odis made a sobbing, choking sound, and rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles. ‘I went to a place in the mountains, one he’d told me about, and I sent a signal. He came to me but he was with a horde of those things, those seepers. They were under his control, like he was leading them.

‘I tried to speak to him. I told him about how much mother and I missed him, that we forgave him, but . . . but he didn’t care. He was just full of anger, and his eyes were all grey and misty. Like he’d been filled with that seeper sludge.

‘He made me tell him why I’d summoned him. He made me tell him everything I knew. I had to do it or he would have killed me. He really would. His own son . . .’

‘So, he knows about our plan?’ Liska said. ‘He knows we’re going to get Nammu’s heart?’

Odis nodded. ‘I never imagined he’d take it seriously; you have to understand. I just wanted to talk to my father . . .’

‘He believed you, then?’ Lug was peeping out from Liska’s shoulder. ‘What is he going to do to us?’

‘Yes, he believed me,’ said Odis. ‘And he must think it’s a real threat to him. He said he was going to stop you. He said he was going to set Thresher on you. The hunter. The one who started all this with her tales of the Rotlands. He’s sending her to kill you.’

There was a long moment of silence. Liska could feel Lug trembling behind her, small, squeaking noises coming from his throat. While Elowen was calmly observing everything as if it were another scene in a puppet show.

Finally Liska spoke. ‘Why did you warn us, Odis? Why didn’t you stay in the Rotlands with your father? You could be helping him with the attack right now. Getting yourself in his good books . . .’