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Aurienne turned to Cíele. “Now, my darling—you must go to Xanthe. Tell her that the Fyren helped me find out who might’ve sent the intruders to Swanstone: a man called Bardolph Wellesley, who is,apparently, one of the Wessexian queen’s men. Mention that the source of the evidence was a drunk lech who is now dead, because the Fyren can’t keep his forks to himself—”

“Yes,” cut in Mordaunt. “We’ve established that he’s dead. What do you want me to do? Hold a séance?”

“—so ask Xanthe how she’d like to proceed,” continued Aurienne. “And don’t forget your bows.”

“Done,” said Cíele.

There was the soft, hardly there pressure of four seith paws against Aurienne’s arm; and then, in a puff of white, Cíele was gone.

Aurienne and Mordaunt hardly had time to snarl at each other about Cíele, and whether he deserved to continue to live (Aurienne was strongly in favour; Mordaunt, against), when a push of seith, soft but leathery, tingled at Aurienne’s tacn. Xanthe’s deofol, Saophal, wanted to come through.

The wrinkled axolotl materialised and took in the room’s occupants with slow blinks. “Aurienne: hello. Put on some socks before you catch a chill. Fyren: lukewarmest greetings. No tutu today?”

“Puce wasn’t my colour,” said Mordaunt.

“Really? I thought it a nice match for your yellow liver.” The axolotl’s feathery gills fluttered towards Mordaunt. “The evidence on Wellesley’s involvement sounds feeble at best.”

“It is; it’s the slurred words of a sack of shit,” said Mordaunt. “He was, admittedly, a well-connected sack of shit.”

“It’s an avenue for further investigation,” said Aurienne. “Which is better than what we had.”

Saophal floated towards Mordaunt’s face and cocked a beady black eye at him. “Xanthe would like something more concrete.”

“Good for Xanthe,” said Mordaunt.

“Wellesley’s castle will doubtless be a challenge to infiltrate,” said Saophal.

“Send the Wardens,” said Mordaunt.

“The Wardens aren’t at our command—and they don’t do infiltrations,” said Saophal. “They’d stomp in singing a war song and hang Wellesley from his own ramparts with his limbs torn off. The situation requires a subtle approach. We find ourselves in the interesting position of needing a Fyren.”

“What are you paying me?” asked Mordaunt.

“Pay?” repeated Saophal. She turned to Aurienne. “Aurienne, what’s the rate of recurrence on emboli for a subject suffering from advanced seith deterioration?”

“Fifty percent chance within the first three months; ninety-five percent within the next six,” said Aurienne.

“You’re exaggerating,” said Mordaunt.

“The data is in publicly available repositories,” said Aurienne. “You can conduct your own review if you’d like. Let me know if your conclusion differs.”

The axolotl puffed her gills in a satisfied way. “Your pay, therefore, is Aurienne’s assistance for your next, inevitable, seith embolus.”

“Since when do Haelan bargain with Fyren?” asked Mordaunt.

“You opened the door on that when you first slithered into Aurienne’s office,” said Saophal. “Don’t play coy now. You gather intelligence on Wellesley; we save you from your body’s treachery.”

“And I’m disposable, should things go wrong,” said Mordaunt.

Saophal burbled out a laugh. “Of course. Have a think about our offer. In the meantime, no favours, Aurienne. If he blocks, he blocks. He can go to a chirurgeon for a seith embolectomy if he likes. Those aregreatfun.”

Aurienne bowed her head. “Understood.”

Saophal spun in a slow circle and fizzled out of existence.

“I won’t do it,” said Mordaunt, staring at the place where Saophal had floated. “This is shameless coercion. So much for the goodness of the Haelan.”

“Xanthe found a point of leverage and she’s going to use it to protecther Order,” said Aurienne. “Besides—you coerced me in the first place. You deserve nothing but a return in kind.”