He was impatient to start.

‘Your Imperial Majesty, it wants but the time, the most auspicious date.’ The Mosquito glanced between the Emperor and General Maxin. ‘And the box, of course. We must have the box. Gifts such as you seek must be had only with the correct materials.’

‘It is coming,’ the Emperor said. ‘Our agents carry it to us even now.’

‘I hesitate to correct His Majesty in his proclamation,’ said Uctebri, turning to the nearest wall to make another few chalk scratches.

‘You are not to use your sarcasm on us, creature,’ Alvdan snapped. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘I am naturally concerned at the progress of this most puissant gem, Great Majesty, but my arts have told me that all is not well. Your agents have miscarried, have been suborned or have turned traitor, for the box is no longer being fetched here.’

‘General?’ Alvdan demanded, suddenly unsure. This news was as impossible as the mooted ritual, but he had already accepted that as possible, and so how could he feel sure that this creature could not know?

‘In truth, Your Imperial Majesty,’ Maxin said slowly, ‘I had expected before now to hear from my agents.’

‘But this is not good enough,’ Alvdan reproached him angrily. ‘If we must possess this thing then we will have it. Uctebri, where is it now? Your arts have surely furnished you with that knowledge?’ He tried to make his tone mocking, but his uncertainty sounded through it.

‘It has gone into the lawless lands around Lake Limnia, where the Skater-kinden live and where many things are lost and found – or change hands. My arts, alas, can be no more exact.’

‘You have heard,’ Alvdan turned to General Maxin. ‘Send your hunters there. Stop at nothing. Obliterate every cursed Skater if you have to.’

‘As you wish, Your Majesty,’ replied Maxin.

‘And, Worshipful Majesty, if I might ask…’ Uctebri began softly.

‘What is it? Speak.’

‘I require the opportunity to further examine your sister in closer detail.’

Alvdan smiled. ‘Oh, as close as you wish, monster. Of all the things I have to give you, she is least precious by far. I give her to you for whatever you need.’

The Mosquito’s answering smile contained a hard edge that promised those words would not be forgotten.

A

Forty-Two

Thalric loosed his sting at her even as she came into the room, and Stenwold assumed it was over then, an absurd anticlimax. The impact rocked her back, but the crackling energy just scattered from her glittering armour, leaving black marks like soot. Then she was on him.

He had the table between them and Stenwold saw him try to get up quickly, and tumble backwards over the chair, face suddenly twisting in agony as his unhealed wound racked him with pain. With a single downward swing Felise cut the table in two, shearing the wood across the grain in a way Stenwold would not have thought possible.

Thalric had lurched to his feet, and his hands spat fire again, but she turned, shielding her face with her pauldron and, although she had to brace herself against it, again the crackling blast just danced off her mail.

If Thalric had been whole and well, he might have stood a chance. He was a resourceful man, but his wounds hobbled him. Even this much exertion had a fresh spot of blood leaking through his tunic. When he raised his arm again the strange sword nearly took the hand from his wrist, instead laying open the skin along the back of it. Thalric hissed, and went for her, and in a moment of cool decision she reversed the sword and smashed him across the face with the pommel.

He fell back against the wall and slid to the floor, dazed, and she thrust the sword into one tilted half of the table, as sickle-claws folded out from her thumbs.

He had his uninjured hand extended at her defensively, but she lanced it through the palm with a lightning jab of one claw and he gasped in pain and withdrew it. For a second she regarded her talons, one bloody and one clean.

She placed them, very gently, so that they pricked him in the hollows beneath his jaw, and began to force him upright. For a moment he seemed about to resist, but then, as they drew blood, he was struggling to his feet, digging at the wall with his elbows for purchase until at last he was standing, face to face with her at last, and so close they might be lovers.

She showed no expression.

Stenwold stood at the doorway with Tisamon watching over his shoulder, but now someone was pushing in on the other side of him. It was Felise’s Spider-kinden companion.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ the Beetle asked him, as Felise held Thalric by the points of her thumbs, staring into his face.

‘Destrachis, doctor.’ The Spider was watching the woman intently, waiting for something.

Thalric studied the face of his antagonist, pushing his thoughts through the pain in his side, the pain of his hands. ‘Before you kill me,’ he said, and even that drew some fresh blood as his throat worked against her talons, ‘tell me one thing.’

Her face neither denied nor permitted his request.

‘What will you do next?’ His last gambit, his last chance, and once the words were out he closed his eyes and waited.

Destrachis leaned forward, but Felise made no move. There was no sign that she had even heard the words.

‘What is going on here?’ Stenwold demanded in a hoarse whisper.

‘This man Thalric has a good mind,’ Destrachis said. ‘He has got to the heart of it.’

‘Next?’ came the voice of Felise, uttering the word as though it was wholly unfamiliar to her.

‘We took him outside your city, you see,’ Destrachis went on. ‘But he was near-dead, and so instead of killing him she had me patch him up and send him on ahead. Because revenge on a dying man was not what she was looking for.’

‘This is hardly better,’ Tisamon observed from behind.

‘He fought back this time.’ Destrachis shrugged. ‘Now we must see if she can bring it to a close.’

‘Spider, I should have slain you before,’ said Felise, still holding Thalric up on his toes, holding her perfect pose without the slightest tremor. ‘What is this Wasp to you?’

‘Nothing,’ Destrachis said. ‘I have never been the Empire’s.’

‘But you are not mine either,’ she said. ‘Who is it that pays you, Spider?’

Destrachis pursed his lips. ‘Must there be someone?’

‘You are no gangster from Helleron, and it was no mere chance that we met. Do not take me for a fool.’

‘Or I will be “next”?’ Destrachis wondered aloud. His voice was casual, but Stenwold could see how tight his face had become with controlling his expression. ‘But you’re right, of course. I spun my way into the fiefdoms of Helleron. I engineered it so that I would travel with you.’

Stenwold could see Thalric watching with the utter concentration of a man whose life is being extended by every word spoken.

‘Mantis warrior,’ Felise said. ‘If I asked you to slay that Spider there, would you do it?’

‘Without hesitation,’ Tisamon said, and Destrachis went pale all of a sudden, feeling a subtle change of stance in the man beside him. The claw was abruptly raised to hover over Stenwold’s back, the point pricking the nape of the Spider’s neck. Stenwold himself had gone very still. He had been about to protest, to remind them that they were in Collegium, in the very Amphiophos – but they were not. At least Felise and Tisamon and Destrachis were not. The place they shared was infinitely older, where such things as this were done.

‘If he gives me no answer, you may slay him,’ Felise decided. She was still staring into Thalric’s face, had not once taken her eyes off him. ‘Who has hired you to plague me, Destrachis?’

‘Arante Destraii, your aunt,’ Destrachis said, still holding tenuously on to calm. ‘Ask me no more questions, Felise.’