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Safely away from the abattoir, Osric summoned Cinder, his deofol, with instructions to find Fairhrim sharpish, and tell her they had to meet. Fairhrim had told Osric that she would never reject his deofol again—and yet, a few minutes later, Cinder returned, her ears pinned back, to report that she hadn’t got through.

“She’s either ignoring me or sound asleep,” said Cinder, her voice husky with displeasure.

“Sound asleep? At half two in the morning? Ridiculous,” said Osric.

“What do you want to do?” asked Cinder.

“You’re going to keep trying and I’m going to make my way to Swanstone. Come back to me if you get through.”

Cinder nodded and faded from existence in a smudge of smoke.

Osric took a waystone to the Publish or Perish, from whence he sped to Swanstone. The frozen waterways bordering the fortress during his February visit had melted into proper ponds and moats, populated now by flocks of drowsy swans. They were, like Fairhrim, pretty, foul tempered, and best appreciated from a distance. They detected something of him as he shadow-walked past and hissed in his direction.

The white fortress’s battlements loomed overhead. Osric slipped into shadow, awaiting the touch of the returning Cinder against his tacn. None came. Osric stared at the ramparts above him, glowing here and there with warding. Very well: he would be visiting Fairhrim in person once again.

Slowly, carefully, using his utmost finesse to dodge the Wardens’trapping wards, he made his way to the roof of the highest tower of Swanstone.

“I can’t believe Fairhrim doesn’ttrust me,” said Osric to himself as he broke into her bedroom.

The window was large and round. Its lock gave him no trouble. He swung it open. However, there was a significant, Warden-driven upgrade to the security, if one actually wished to go inside: there was a ward around the entirety of the window frame, glowing midnight blue. This was not a ward that could be dodged or danced around. Osric would no longer be able to enter Swanstone undetected.

The good news was, neither could Tristane.

He peered inside. Fairhrim’s quarters were larger than he’d expected, encompassing the full circumference of the tower, with a high, vaulted ceiling. The decor consisted of angular furnishings looking singularly inhospitable, on which lay many books, and when not books, plants under glass cloches, and when not plants, meticulously labelled skulls. Into one of the cloches gazed a pubey sort of cat, black and scruffy. Osric recognised it as the kitten he had found at Wellesley Keep and consecrated to Fairhrim’s care. The ungrateful creature hissed at him.

Fairhrim lay in a bed against the far wall. She was in a deep sleep—the senseless, boneless sleep of one recovering from seith exhaustion. Her arm hung off the side of the bed. Osric was pleased to discover that the sight of her hand did not, this time, turn him to lewdness. It was bloody with evidence of her Cost. Her tacn shimmered with a glowing pulse now and again as Cinder tried to get through.

His deofol’s efforts came to fruition. Fairhrim sighed herself awake, cracked an eye open to stare at her tacn, and pointed it at the floor.

Cinder took shape. Fairhrim’s cat, seeing the shadow of the great wolf, fled.

In a sleep-cracked voice, Fairhrim muttered, “What?” to Cinder.

“Good evening,” said Cinder.

“Hiya,” said Osric, given that he was there, too.

Fairhrim’s bleary stare turned to Osric’s silhouette at the window.

“I wish to awaken from this bad dream,” declared Fairhrim. Then, having processed the reality of the situation, she sat up with a jerk. “Don’t touch the window. There are wards—”

“I saw.”

“You’re mad to have come here.” Fairhrim kicked off her sheets. “Has something happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Osric. “But I’ve made a worrying discovery.”

He dismissed Cinder, who dissolved into smoke.

Osric cursed inwardly, because Fairhrim, bereft of all her party accoutrements, her eyes black rimmed with fatigue, her hands crusted over with scabs, was, unfortunately, still beautiful. When she wasn’t sharing a room with him at her parents’ house, she slept in a thin, satiny nightdress, which clung to her in interesting ways. Given that her sleeping attire was of no consequence to him, he directed a powerful curiosity towards his knee while she put on a dressing gown. Her hair was pulled into a sleep-frizzed plait that unravelled down her back.

As she approached Osric, wide-eyed in the dark, she looked unusually vulnerable. Something about it made him want to be gentle.

“Did they add wards to every point of entry?” asked Osric, gesturing with distaste at the blue glow tucked into the frame.

“Yes. The Wardens brought in Tenet.”

“Who?”