Reynevan snorted. “Delighted with my frank admission, Otto of Bergow will have me broken on the wheel. Assuming he believes me. It would suffice to ask me what his son looks like and the lie will be revealed.”

“You are a mage. Don’t you know any persuasive or empathic spells?”

“No.”

“Well, bad luck.”

“Damn it!” Reynevan exploded. “Stop deceiving me! I don’t want to read too much into it, but you came in here through the sodding wall! So open it and let me leave!”

The visitor said nothing for a long time, not looking at Reynevan, but at the skeleton.

“Unfortunately, that outcome is not possible,” he finally replied.

“What?”

“I cannot do that… Sit quietly or I’ll cast the Constricto on you. For you’ve already learned the hard way that your magic’s no match for mine.”

There was a note of conceit in the visitor’s voice—and that conceit helped Reynevan solve the mystery, played the role of a catalyst which made the hazy solution become transparent. Hunger may also have been sharpening his perception.

“Well, well,” he said slowly. “Just to think, my reason for coming to Trosky was to meet you. You and no other.”

“What are you saying?”

“I cannot compete with you in magic,” Reynevan drawled, “for you are a truly powerful sorcerer. And on top of that, a polyglot, for no one else in the locality knows the word ‘oubliette.’ Were I to escape through a magical passage, were I to vanish mysteriously, the alarm would be sounded: a sorcerer must be hidden at Trosky. A sorcerer who is capable of overcoming the dungeon’s magical protection. For he himself installed it. I got into Trosky in order to meet you, Master Rupilius. To ask for your advice.”

“I congratulate you on your imagination,” snapped the man. “You ought to write romances… What are you bloody doing?”

“I need to relieve myself.” Reynevan stood astride the skeleton. “Why do you ask?”

“Get the fuck away from there!” yelled the visitor. “Get away, do you hear? Don’t you dare desecr—”

He broke off, choking on the unuttered word. Reynevan turned around, smiling triumphantly.

“As I thought,” he said. “Not a kinsman, not a friend, but he comes with a candle and mistletoe on All Souls’ Day to visit his own remains. And falls into a frenzy when somebody makes to piss on them, because I’d be pissing on your very own bones, wouldn’t I? For it’s your bones lying here, Master Rupilius the Silesian, O expert in bodies and astral beings. Your body may have died in this dungeon, but not your essence. You passed astrally into someone’s else’s physical form. Into the form of the person whose spirit you displaced into your own body. And whom hunger killed here, rather than you.”