‘No, no.’ He suddenly shook his head. ‘Not even this: what’s insidethis.’ He flipped the book open, thumbed through the pages with a sneer painted on his face. ‘Ink, letters, words I can’t even read.’ He glanced over at Xhai. ‘The Grey One That Grins … he said that no overscum could read it, either, didn’t he?’

‘He did,’ the female replied.

‘And yet so many creatures want it,’ he whispered, astonished. ‘The overscum wish to keep it out of the underscum’s hands. The underscum desire it for reasons I can’t even fathom. The Grey One That Grins wants it for reasons he wants us notto fathom. And those green things wanted it to protect them …’

‘From us,’ Xhai finished, grinning.

‘No, not those green things. The other ones … the tall, tattooed ones.’ He shook his head. ‘So much worth fighting for … and they choose this.’

‘Are you going to read it?’ Xhai asked. ‘If the Grey One That Grins wants what’s in it, we should know.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t trust him. Or the screamer. We should have hurt her a little. I don’t think she should-’

‘Of course you don’t,’ Sheraptus said, sighing. ‘That’s what makes you a netherling. You come from nothing, you return to nothing. Your entire life is set: your actions, your fate, your …’ His gaze drifted towards Kataria, causing her head to duck sharply, drawing a grin from him. ‘Instincts.’

She cursed herself instantly; the movement was too sharp, too sudden. It had drawn his attention. She heard his chair slide as he rose from it, his feet scraping softly on the wood floor. She heard Xhai’s teeth grind, felt the milk-white scowl levelled at her like a weapon. She tried to swallow, finding it difficult to do so with her heart lodged in her throat.

She heard his hand before it reached her, heard the quiet moan of the air as it parted in fear before his fingers. It did not stop her from cringing when it cupped her beneath the chin.

‘But these things … these creatures …’ He whispered, a farce of gentility in his voice. ‘Nothing is certain. They do things that make no sense, worship creatures that don’t exist, fight over ink, scream in pain when pain is a certainty …’ He tilted her face up, stared into her with burning eyes. ‘Why?’

Her eyes wanted to burst from their sockets, to let tears boiling behind them come flowing out. Her lips twitched with the scream that sought to pry them open and be heard. She buried them with her fear, or tried to.

But his eyes of fire searched her face, searing away masks of confidence and burning down walls wrought by defiance. He sought her fear, caught it in fleeting glimpses, and bid it to emerge within her stare as his fingers slid down her chin, brushing lightly against her throat, trying to coax out the scream inside.

She trembled, a shudder that rose in the pit of her stomach and coursed through her body, up to his fingers. He sensed it, a smile tugging at lips too long, eyes brightening wickedly. The jewels on his crown shone, wordlessly squealing, whining, suggesting, pleading, demanding that she stare into his eyes, that she loose her terror and fold over and tremble and weep and feel his eyes and teeth upon her, sinking into her flesh, drinking her fear.

Do not.

She heard it. Not a voice, but a confirmation not from her own thoughts. It did not rise in her head, but in her heart.

He is a predator. All predators are the same.

It did not inform her of this. She found she knew it. It was not a message. It was simply a reinforcement of knowledge, of instinct.

Do not scream. If you scream, you will never stop.

And she knew she would not.

‘This one, I think,’ he whispered through his grin.

The moment he rose and stepped back, Xhai swept forward in great, angry strides. She seized Kataria by her arm and hauled her towards the cabin’s support pillar. She felt her muscles tense, protest welling up inside them, only to be quashed by the sudden knowledge that rose within her.

They are all base creatures, uncomplicated. They know weakness and kill it. They know defiance and kill it. Be as the air: light, unconcerned. They do not know the air. They cannot kill the air.

The fear did not abate, but it suddenly felt less pertinent, if no less certain. Something had intervened itself between her and the longfaces, buried the fear deep behind its shadow. She felt her breath returning slowly, even as Xhai slammed her body against the pillar and swiftly bound her wrists to it. He was a predator; she knew how to deal with predators; she could survive.

She knew this because someone else knew this. Someone else told her this through their mutual instinct, their common, racial voice. Someone told her through the Howling.

Another shict. Close enough to hear. Close enough to smell.

‘Not knowing … makes me uncomfortable.’

Her eyes were drawn back to Sheraptus as he stood over the table, running long fingers over a smooth, blackwood case. His hand lingered on it with unnerving sensuality.

‘It’s not right that the pursuit of knowledge should be hindered, that wisdom should be kept from the mind that thirsts for it.’ The case opened at his touch with a bone-deep creaking noise. ‘This is the flaw of most creatures, I find: overscum, underscum, netherling alike. They are all satisfied by what they think they know.’

His hands went to his brow, fingers digging beneath his crown. It parted with him after some hesitation, the glow burning brightly in protest, and then going dark as he set it next to the open case.

‘How is progress made, then, if everyone is sated with gods, with theories, with instinct? No. Progress … true progress …’

From red silk lining, it slid out: a jagged sliver of a blade, as long and thin as two of his purple fingers. Its metal was polished to a high sheen. He turned. The fires in his eyes had been extinguished with the removal of the crown. Behind them, in that milk-white stare, a sadistic glee that had been hidden in crimson was reflected in the blade.

‘Is found deeper.’

Bury your fear deep, the Howling told her. Show him nothing.

It was difficult for her to comply with that as he drew closer, the blade hanging at his side, dangling limply from his fingers. She took it in, along with his stare, his grin, with equal dread as he came upon her.

‘And look at how you look at me,’ he whispered, his voice an edge itself, ‘with such judgement. I’ve seen it before, of course, and it strikes me as so hypocritical. That is the word, isn’t it? Wherein you deny one truth because it seems inconvenient? Yes, hypocritical. It is hypocritical for you to think that the pursuit of knowledge can ever be second to anything. If you think the pursuit of it cruel, then clearly, you don’t know enough, do you?

‘The netherlings know. We were born in nothing. We expected nothing. But this world … it’s so brimming with … everything.’ His tongue flicked against his teeth with each word, unable to be contained. ‘And we owe it to ourselves to know, to find out. We cannot be content with instinct, with what we suspected we knew. It would be disingenuous. We would never progress.

‘This, I believe, is why I arrived here. Certainly, the Grey One That Grins opened the door in his search, but it had to happen for a reason. Divine happenstance, as you might suspect? No, no … it was natural. It was inevitable. Someone had to come, to understand this world so that netherlings and overscum as a whole might progress.’

Show nothing. Say nothing. Do not look away. Do not give him reason.

She felt a bead of sweat form at her temple. It felt her fear as it felt his stare upon it. It fled, sliding down her brow, over her jawline, rolling across her chest, through the fur garment to drip down upon her belly. As it chased the centreline of her abdomen and hung above her navel, his finger shot out, pressed against her skin. At her gasp, the shudder of her stomach, his grin grew as broad and sharp as his knife.