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“I’ve already told you—the mechanisms involved in seith-fibre genesis are still under study. In mammals they occur during embryonic development; no one has found a way to replicate it in adults.”

“Ow.”

“Indeed,” said Aurienne, who had pushed experimentally at the edge of the hydgraft. “It seems a shame to remove it; the graft took beautifully.”

“Get it off me. It stifles my seith.”

“Lovely capillary ingrowth,” said Aurienne, tilting Mordaunt’s palm into the light. “It’s fully vascularised. You’re certain you want to remove it? Professionally, it hurts me to undo it—but beyond that, you’ve a rare chance to start a new life as a man without the brand of a monster.”

“Ilikemy brand. Ilikebeing a monster.”

“Pity. Sit, then. This won’t take a moment.”

Mordaunt joined Aurienne on the bed. Aurienne positioned his hand on a pillow. It was altogether less than ideal; she would have had serious words with any apprentice of hers operating in such conditions.

Bit by bit, with a silver curette she removed the graft, as though she were debriding a failed one and removing a flap of necrotic tissue. And bit by bit, the hellhound tacn came into view—the curling horns, the empty eye sockets, the grinning teeth.

She pressed her tacn to the edge of Mordaunt’s hand and healed him where the graft had adhered to his palm and the flesh was raw.

Now he was well and truly the Fyren again. Lingering on the insideof Aurienne’s eyes, like a sunspot, was that vision of what could have been—of this man in bright armour, proud featured and noble.

But it was a phantasm. She blinked it away.

Mordaunt pushed an experimental flare of seith to his tacn. The hellhound’s eyes and mouth glowed their unholy red. “That’s better.”

Aurienne disagreed, which she expressed by tidying with unnecessary briskness.

Mordaunt pulled his hood over his head and placed his cowl over his face. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I’m leaving her with you.”

“Her?” asked Aurienne, but Mordaunt answered her question by summoning his deofol.

The smoky form of the great wolf materialised. Normally she had an unsettling tendency of floating her teeth at Aurienne’s eye level, but today she hung low. Her golden eyes glowed insolently at Aurienne, then fixed themselves upon the door.

“She’ll find me if you need me,” said Mordaunt.

“All right.”

Now he was a shadow in the darkness of the antechamber. “And Fairhrim—”

“What?”

“Don’t look so grim. It’s the monster you need tonight, not the man.”

Aurienne rolled her eyes so hard, she saw her frontal cortex.

The monster, stiff with vexation, left.

Aurienne mightn’t have minded amateurphilosophising about monsters and men if the monster had been successful. However, he returned at five in the morning, looking pouty and having found nothing of use. His deofol dissipated in a moody smudge of smoke.

“The entire Keep is clean,” said Mordaunt, pushing his hood back. “I found things, of course—military plans, billets-doux frommistresses, bits of intel—but nothing that connects Wellesley to Swanstone.”

“Perhaps he wasn’t involved after all,” said Aurienne.

Mordaunt looked as unconvinced as she felt. “Why have a Haelan in today, then? For a child bursting with health?”

From his cloak he produced letters, scrolls bearing royal seals, maps, and glittering handfuls of jewellery. He proceeded to stuff these into Aurienne’s satchel.

“What is all that, and what d’you think you’re doing with it?” asked Aurienne.