His skull burst open, spraying red. Savine stared. She could have sworn that man Sulfur had slapped him with an open hand and torn his head half-off.

Gorst spurred past, teeth bared as he hacked savagely on one side then the other, bodies dropping. “The king!” he squealed. “The king!”

“The Agriont!” someone bellowed. “Stop for nothing!”

The carriage lurched forwards. Savine would have been thrown from her seat had Zuri not shot out an arm. She clung desperately to the empty window frame, bit her lip at another flash of pain in her swollen stomach.

She saw people scatter. Heard shrieks of terror. A body was knocked reeling by the corner of the carriage, clattered against the door and went down under the milling hooves of a knight herald. There were strands of blonde hair caught in the broken window.

Wheels bounced over a trampled sign, whirred over pamphlets stuck flapping to the damp road. The prison wagon clattered ahead, striking sparks from the cobbles, maddened horses all around, whipping manes and flapping harness. Something clonked against the other side of the carriage, then they were past, leaving Harber’s mill and its rioting workers behind.

Cold wind rushed through the broken window, Savine’s heart hammering, her hand frozen on the sill but her face burning as if she’d been slapped. How could Zuri be so calm beside her? Her face fixed, her arm so firm around Savine. The baby squirmed as the carriage rocked and jolted. It was alive, at least. It was alive.

Outside the window she saw Lord Chamberlain Hoff clinging to his reins, chain of office tangled tight around his red throat. She saw the king’s old, grey-haired standard-bearer gripping his flagstaff, the sun of the Union streaming overhead, an oily smear across the cloth of gold.

Streets whipped by, so familiar, so unfamiliar. This city had been hers. No one more admired. No one more envied. No one more hated, which she had always taken as the only honest compliment. Buildings flashed past. Buildings she knew. Buildings she owned, even. Or had owned.

It would all be forfeit now.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She could not remember how it felt, not to be scared.

She remembered taking Leo’s ring, with the Agriont and all its little people spread out beneath them. The future had been theirs. How could they have so totally destroyed themselves? His recklessness or her ambition alone could not have done it. But like two chemicals which, apart, are merely mildly poisonous, combined they had produced an unstable explosive which had blown both their lives and thousands of others to hell.

The cut beneath the bandages on her shaved head itched endlessly. Perhaps it would have been kinder if the chunk of metal that scarred her had flown just a little lower and split her skull instead of just her scalp.

“Slow!” Gorst’s squealing voice. “Slow!” They were crossing one of the bridges into the Agriont, the great walls looming ahead. Once they had made her feel safe as a parent’s embrace. Now they looked like prison walls. Now they were prison walls. Her neck was not out of the noose yet, and nor was Leo’s.