“All right!” bellowed Vick, hopping up on the parapet and waving her arms. “That’s enough.” One of the Constables had a look of glee plastered across his face as he kicked the snot out of a scrawny boy. “I said enough!” She dragged him clear, near got an elbow in the face for her pains.

The anger could whip up in no time. But it could leak away just as fast. Those who weren’t running were a sorry sight now. All hanging heads and wobbly lips, like children caught talking after bedtime.

Vick grabbed Tallow by the shoulder. “Pick out some ringleaders. And someone fish that idiot out of the canal!”

He blinked at her. “How do I tell who the ringleaders are?”

“They’ll be the ones you’re pointing at.”

Broad dragged the sly one up by his jacket, hat knocked off and blood running from a cut on his scalp. “You fucking bitch—” he snarled at Vick.

Broad dug a fist into his stomach and doubled him up. “Have some respect.” And he shook him like a rag doll, toes of his boots scraping the cobbles.

“Thought we were meant to be free!” he whined, a string of drool dangling from his lip.

“Turns out liberty needs boundaries.” Vick jerked her head towards the Agriont. If they were still calling it that. “Get this arsehole to the House of Truth.”

Broad plucked a pamphlet from the man’s pocket, then shoved him towards the Constables so they could clap the irons on him. “One o’ Sworbreck’s, I reckon.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Vick as he peered at the ill-printed pages through his lenses. “The Great Change didn’t solve every problem, so the answer must be more of it.”

“That’s about the gist,” said Broad, crumpling the pamphlet in his big fist and tossing it away. “That was a nice speech you gave, by the way.”

Vick worked the brass knuckles from her aching fingers and frowned around at the mess. “Didn’t do much good.”

“Did a little for me. You can’t fill your belly with promises.” Broad nudged his lenses up his nose, slowly nodding. “Reminded me o’ Malmer.”

Vick took a long breath. “Look where he ended up.”

“It’s chaos out there,” snapped Vick. She still felt angry. Like she’d been tricked. Tricked into believing things could be different. When the truth was she’d only tricked herself.

Commissioner Pike looked calmly back at her from across his desk. The same bare, stark room from which Arch Lector Glokta had ruled the Union, some of its furniture still bearing the scars of the day the Agriont fell. Behind the mirrored halls, and the velvet curtains, and the gilt façades, the real decisions always seemed to be made in bare, stark rooms.

“I understand there have been some disturbances,” he droned, with his usual flare for understatement.

“A mob hanged two coal merchants the other day. They were already selling as cheap as they could. Prices are higher than before the Great Change. Higher than they’ve ever been. Folk broke into a shop, paid what they thought was fair. Then someone said they were profiteers. So they hanged ’em. Then they marched up the street to the flour merchant.”