She did not know what was happening, what was behind her.

She knew nothing about the moths.

Isaac saw her hesitate, and began to howl at her not to stop.

Lin was an artist. She created with her touch and taste, making tactile objects. Visible objects. Sculpture to be fondled and seen.

She was fascinated by colour and light and shadow, by the interplay of shapes and lines, negative and positive spaces.

She had been locked in the attic for a long time.

In her position, some would have sabotaged the vast sculpture of Motley. The commission had become a sentence, after all. But Lin did not destroy it or skimp in her work. She poured everything she could, all her pent-up creative energy into that one monolithic and terrible piece. As Motley had known she would.

It had been her only escape. Her only means of expression. Starved of all the light and colour and shapeliness of the world, she had focused in her fear and pain and become obsessed. Creating a presence herself, the better to beguile her.

And now something extraordinary had entered her attic world.

She knew nothing of the slake-moths. The command don’t look behind you was familiar from fables, made sense only as a moralistic injuncture, some heavy-handed lesson. Isaac must mean be quick or don’t doubt me, something like that. His command made sense only as an emotional exhortation.

Lin was an artist. Savaged and tortured, confused by imprisonment and pain and degradation, Lin grasped only that something extraordinary, some utterly affecting sight had risen up behind her. And hungry for any kind of wonder after the weeks of pain in the shadow of those drab, colourless and shapeless walls, she paused, then quickly glanced behind her.

Isaac and Derkhan screamed in terrible disbelief; Yagharek called out with shock like some livid crow.

With her one good eye, Lin took in the extraordinary sweep of the slake-moth’s shape with awe; and then she caught sight of the gusting colours on the wings, and her mandibles clattered briefly and she was silent. Enthralled.

She squatted on the floor, her head twisted over her left shoulder, gazing stupidly at the great beast, at the rush of colours. Motley and she stared at the slake-moth’s wings, their minds overflowing.

Isaac howled and stumbled backwards, reaching out desperately.

The slake-moth reached out with a slithering clutch of tentacles and pulled Lin towards it. Its vast and dripping mouth slid open like a doorway into some stygian place. Rank citric spittle drooled across Lin’s face.

As Isaac grabbed backwards for her hand, staring intently into his mirrors, the slake-moth’s tongue lurched out of its stinking throat and lapped at her headscarab briefly. Isaac shouted again and again, but he could not stop it.

The long tongue, slippery with saliva, inveigled its way past Lin’s slack mouthparts and plunged into her head.

At the sound of Isaac’s appalled yells, two of the Remade trapped behind Motley’s enormous bulk reached over and fired erratically with their flintlocks. One missed completely, the other clipped the slake-moth’s thorax, eliciting a brief dollop of liquid and an irritated hiss, but no more. It was not the right weapon.

The two who had fired shouted at their fellows, and the small squadron began to shove at Motley’s bulk, in careful, timed thrusts.

Isaac was clutching for Lin’s hand.

The slake-moth’s throat swelled and shrank, its gristly throat swallowing in great swigs.

Yagharek reached down and grabbed the oil-lamp that stood by the foot of the sculpture. He hefted it briefly in his left hand, raised his whip in his right.

“Grab her, Isaac,” he called.

As the slake-moth clutched her thin body to its thorax, Isaac felt his fingers close around Lin’s wrist. He clenched hard, tried to pull her free. He wept and swore.

Yagharek hurled the lit oil-lamp against the back of the slake-moth’s head. The glass broke open and a little spray of incandescent oil spattered over the smooth skin. A burst of blue flame crawled across the dome of the skull.

The slake-moth squealed. A flurry of limbs whipped up to batter out the little fire as the slake-moth jerked its head back momentarily in pain. Instantly, Yagharek snapped his whip with a savage stroke. It smacked loud and dramatic against the dark skin. Coils of the thick leather wound almost instantly around the slake-moth’s neck.

Yagharek pulled hard and fast, with all his wiry strength. He drew the whip absolutely tight and braced himself.

The small fire kept stinging, burning tenaciously. The whip cut off the slake-moth’s throat. It could not swallow or breathe.

Its head lurched on its long neck. It emitted strangulated little cries. Its tongue swelled and it lashed it out of Lin’s mouth. The spurts of consciousness it had tried to drink clogged up in its throat. The moth clawed at the whip, frantic and terrified. It flailed and shook and spun.

Isaac hung on to Lin’s shrunken wrist, tugging at her as the moth twirled in a hideous dance. Its twitching limbs flew away from her, clutching vainly at the thong that choked it. Isaac pulled her clear, dropped to the floor and scrabbled away from the rampaging creature.

As it turned in its panic, its wings folded and it turned away from the door. Instantly, its hold on Motley was broken. Motley’s composite body stumbled forward and collapsed on the floor as his mind crawled back together. His men pushed over him, picking their way past a tangle of his legs into the room.

In a hideous drumming of feet the slake-moth spun. The whip was wrenched from Yagharek’s hands, tearing his skin. He staggered back, towards Derkhan, out of range of the slake-moth’s razored, spinning limbs.

Motley was standing. He stamped quickly away from the beast, passing back into the corridor.

“Kill the damn thing!” he shrieked.

The moth danced in a frenzy into the centre of the room. The five Remade stood in a little clutch around the door. They aimed through their mirrors.

Three jets of burning gas burst from the flamethrowers, scorching the vast creature’s skin. It tried to shriek as its wings and chitin roared and split and crisped, but the whip prevented it. A great gob of acid sprayed the twisting moth square in the face. It denatured the proteins and compounds of its hide in seconds, melting the moth’s exoskeleton.

The acid and the flame ate swiftly through the whip. Its remnants flew away from the spinning moth, which could finally breathe, and scream.

It shrieked in agony as fresh gouts of fire and acid caught it. It hurled itself blindly in the direction of its attackers.

Bolts of dark energy from the fifth man’s gun burst into it, dissipating across its surface area, numbing and scorching it without heat. It screeched again, but hurtled on, a sightless storm of flame, spitting acid and flailing ragged bone.

The five Remade moved back as it stumbled madly for them, following Motley into the corridor. The intense moving pyre slammed into the walls, igniting them, fumbling for the doorway.

From the little hallway, the sounds of fire, spewing acid and quarrels of elyctro-thaumaturgy continued.

For long seconds, Derkhan and Yagharek and Isaac stared up dumbfounded at the doorway. The moth still shrieked just out of sight, the corridor beyond was radiant with flickering light and heat.