The doorknob turned and the door swung open, leaving Broad framed in the doorway, huge, armoured, red-eyed. He took a heavy step into the room. He frowned towards the children. He frowned towards Freid and she shrank behind the dressing table. He frowned towards Savine.

He looked ill, drunk, furious and sentimental all at once. The definitive Burner, in fact. As if he couldn’t decide whether to beg her forgiveness or smash her face in.

“You’ve got one hour,” he said, turning back towards the door.

“I appreciate the reminder. And I have something for you.” Savine held the folded paper out to him. “From Liddy.”

His slack face twitched at the name. “Liddy can’t write.”

“I suppose May must have written it. It came with some dispatches from Leo’s mother.”

Broad’s jaw worked, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the letter, his hand halfway towards it. “What does it say?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gunnar, I don’t read letters that aren’t addressed to me. Honestly. You’ll be telling me Zuri eats people next.”

She pressed the letter carelessly into his hand and turned back to her powder, but she studied him in the mirror. He stared down at that paper for a long moment, then walked very slowly to the door, and pulled it very slowly shut. Savine clenched her jaw and made a trembling fist. She might be going off the Tower of Chains—the Fates knew, the odds were against her—but she would not be going without a fight.

Freid was over one of the cribs, cooing gently to Harod. “Do you want

me to take the children?” Her eyes were getting moist again. “I mean…

when they put you in the dock—”

“I may need you to take them…” Savine lost her voice for a moment, had to clear her throat. “When I am condemned.” It was better to say when than if. She did not dare to say if. “Until that moment, in the court, in the dock… they come with me.”

This was not a trial. It was a show. And Savine knew how to put on a show. No one better.

Adua was hidden behind a rise, but you could see the great shadow of its smoke from miles around.

“The furnaces are still lit,” said Jurand.

“No matter how you try,” murmured Leo, “you can’t stop progress.”

Lord Marshal Forest squinted up at the sun, providing some actual warmth for what felt like the first time in months. “Don’t like marching in the open like this.”

“If you can call it marching.” The drums were beating double time but the demoralised remains of the People’s Army and the exhausted remnants of the Crown Prince’s Division moved at a trudge, their ranks dissolved into a shambling mass, flags limp and polearms drooping, a trail of mud and rubbish in their wake. A giant military slug, squirming spent across the damp country. “They hardly look ready for a fight.”

“They’re not,” said Glaward. “We’ve lost more deserters without fighting than we’d ever have lost casualties if we had.”