Sarlby held up a smudged document. “Citizeness Brock, you’ve been denounced—quite fucking spectacularly, as it happens—and are summoned to the House o’ Purity to await trial.”

“Denounced by whom?” asked Savine, though it hardly mattered.

“Some noblewoman. All bosoms. Didn’t catch her name—”

“Heugen,” grunted Broad.

Selest. Not Teufel, then. Not Orso. Had she simply been caught up in the ordinary, merciless grind of the Court of the People? What a bitter joke it would be, if she was brought down not by a wide-ranging plot to betray the Great Change, but by an old feud with a jealous rival. Savine swallowed, her mind racing. Then Leo might still be free. Their schemes might still be moving forward.

“Citizeness Vallimir,” she murmured, “I would be very grateful if you could get a message to my husband—”

“Oh, the Young Lion knows all about it,” said Sarlby, pulling out a set of heavy chains, polished bright about the bracelets with use. “Done a deal wi’ Judge, I understand. Bull was there, weren’t you? What was the phrase he used?”

The light flashed on Broad’s eye-lenses. “The nation must judge her.”

Savine could only stand, staring, as Sarlby snapped the manacles shut around her limp wrists. As quickly as it had flared up, hope was smothered. Had her own husband turned on her? Or had he done what he had to, to gain control of the People’s Army? She hardly recognised him any more. Hardly knew what he might do from one moment to the next.

“Don’t worry,” said Sarlby, giving her shoulder a reassuring pat. “You won’t have to wait long. You’ve been bumped right up the schedule. Friends in high places, eh?”

Or enemies. The weight of the chains, the coldness of them, had somehow taken Savine’s breath away. She wondered how many others had worn this very set. She wondered if any of them were still alive. The reasons for your conviction in the Court of the People made little difference to the sentence, after all. The fall was still the fall.

“Citizeness Vallimir,” she managed to say, “might I beg a favour? Bring my children to me at the House of Purity. They are in danger, do you understand?” Her voice was getting higher and higher as she thought of them, helpless in their cots with only a nurse. “They have to stay with me.”

“Doubt that’ll work,” said Sarlby, rattling the bracelets on her wrists to make sure they were locked tight.

“She wants to bring her children.” Broad took off his lenses, and breathed on them, and started to polish them with his shirt-cuff. His eyes rolled up to Savine’s, red-rimmed and bloodshot. He looked as if he hardly knew her. “She can bring her children.”

There was a clattering above, the Burners bundling someone down the stairs. “We’ve got her!” one shouted in triumph. Savine realised with a lurch of horror that their prisoner was Zuri, wrists and ankles shackled with great black fetters, links a finger thick. She could hardly move for their weight.