“That’s better, is it?”

“I guess once these are cleared that’ll be it. Back to normal.”

“That’s what the Breakers said. And the Arch Lector before them, for that matter. A couple of enemies to cross out. Just get to the bottom of the list. Except the list kept getting longer.” She ventured a little sniff, a squeak of barely moving air in her swollen face, a hint of salty snot at the back of her throat which she could never quite manage to swallow. “We must have enemies, Tallow. Always.”

“You’re a ray of sunshine.”

“Sunshine’s not really appropriate for an executioner. Specially one with a broken nose.”

They rounded the corner and Vick stopped dead.

“Oh, bloody hell,” squeaked Tallow.

They’d been expecting her, but the sight of Savine dan Brock under the House of Questions was still as shocking as suddenly spying a diamond in the gutter. She looked a different woman from the one Vick first met in that bouncing carriage on the way to Valbeck, with the glassy perfection of an expensive doll. The same immaculate poise, perhaps, the same assessing eye, but more honest. More human. Fewer jewels, less ornament, lots of virtuous white. The Mother of the Nation, they were calling her. She’d even somehow turned the clipped hair and the scar into advantages. She looked beautiful and like she didn’t care a shit about anyone else’s opinion.

“Lady Regent.” Vick gave an awkward bow. “I apologise, but my curtsy’s a thing no one of your refined tastes should be forced to see.”

“I have braved worse horrors, Inquisitor Teufel. Are you Inquisitors again?”

“I’m not sure anyone really knows at this point.”

“We are all finding a course through uncharted waters.” Though she looked to Vick as if she knew exactly where she was headed. “Are you well, Master Tallow?”

“Tolerably so…” he managed to gurgle out. “My lady.”

“Tolerably well is as well as can be hoped for these days. I understand you swore an oath of loyalty to my son.”

Vick raised her brows. Even that felt like an effort. “I spent years working for your father—your adopted father, not the other one—so I learned how to take a hint. I got the strong feeling your husband’s offer was to swear the oath and stay in the Inquisitor’s chair or refuse and go in the prisoner’s one. But then I’ve always been a traitor and a liar so… wasn’t difficult to do.” She gave a hopeless shrug. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of the new Union. Or the new new Union, is it?”

The Lady Regent had the good grace to show a touch of guilt about the way it had all turned out. She even managed to make that look good. “Please believe me when I say that things are not the way I wanted them.”

You can never let them see your feelings. Never let them think you’ve got any. Show hurt, you’re asking to be hurt. But Vick was so tired, and broken, and aching. All she could think of, for some reason, was Sibalt’s last sad smile. Malmer and the rest dangling over the road out of Valbeck. All those names carved into the Square of Martyrs. All those people who fell from the Tower of Chains.