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Smoky black wisps infested the place and coalesced into a wolfishshape. The white grin of Mordaunt’s deofol materialised among the shadows, followed by a pair of golden eyes.

“You’d better have an excellent reason to have pushed like that,” said Aurienne. “I’ve half a mind to sever my link with your master.”

The deofol attempted an ingratiating grin, but given that it was all sharp teeth, it had rather the opposite effect. “Greetings, Haelan. How are you? You’re looking very well today, if I may say—”

Aurienne, operating on three hours of sleep, two pretzels, and one specimen container of tea, did not harbour delusions in this regard. “You may not. What do you want?”

“So sorry for pressing you,” said the deofol, lowering itself to its belly and whisking its smoky tail across the floor in obsequious sweeps. “It’s urgent. My master is having—he’s having a seith constipation.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He can hardly push it out. It won’t come to his tacn. He nearly hadn’t enough to send me.”

“A blockage?” asked Aurienne.

“I don’t know. Can you come?” The deofol resumed its cajoling tail wags. “No one will see you. His steward and groundsman are away.”

“You’re far more polite when you need something,” said Aurienne.

“I know,” said the deofol, with more tooth baring. “I’m manipulative like that.”

“Where is he?” asked Aurienne.

“The family seat. Rosefell Hall. There’s a private waystone. Will you come? Please?”

The deofol was now attempting puppy-dog eyes, but, given that it was a creature of soul-corroding darkness, the endeavour was more perturbing than anything else.

“Fine,” said Aurienne.

“Thank you,” breathed the deofol. “I’ll tell him you’re on the way.”

“I’ll be there in a bit,” said Aurienne. “I’ve got to wrap up here. Leave. You mustn’t be seen.”

“Of course,” said the deofol, bowing its head low as it faded away. “Thank you, Haelan. He’ll be waiting for you.”

Aurienne returned to her office to find both Trauma and Virology enjoying a nap on the floor. She let out an envious yawn as she packed her satchel. Thanks to Mordaunt and his newest crisis, her nap would have to wait.

She glided about on tiptoe, gathering her things as Cath and Élodie slept. Her efforts were for naught, however; just as she was snapping her satchel shut, an eruption of shouts echoed from the courtyard below her office.

Aurienne strode to the window, intending to whip it open and berate the culprits—raucous apprentices with the Friday happies off to the pub, probably—but, as she pushed open the window, she saw that the commotion wasn’t caused by raucous apprentices. It was the Wardens.

“What on earth?” gasped Aurienne.

She was joined by a bleary-eyed Élodie and a grouchy Cath. They caught the tail end of a fight: the blue glow of the Wardens’ tacn (the horned head of an auroch), the glimmer of their trapping wards, and the capture of three or four black-clad figures. The Wardens speared the figures into the ground—who twitched and went still.

On the far side of the courtyard, curious apprentices popped heads round a door. A Warden snapped an order at them; they pivoted and ran back in.

Swanstone guards jogged into the courtyard, bearing torches. By their light, Aurienne could see blood splattered across the flagstones, and the figures of three men and a woman, hooded and cloaked, impaled into the ground.

One of the Wardens lifted a dead man by the scruff of his neck and tore off his hood. His head lolled. Another Warden pulled her spear out of the corpse—or plucked, rather; she made it look effortless, even though she had driven it through the man’s spine. The third Wardensearched his body, stripping it of clothes as she went, until the dead man was naked, save for the blood running down his middle from the gory hole at his diaphragm.

The Wardens proceeded in this manner with the three other corpses. The first man had fared the best, frankly; the others had fought the trapping wards, and so dropped a limb or two when lifted to be searched.

Aurienne recognised none of the bodies.

Cath made a low whistle. “Fresh organs for Transplant Surg.”

“And fodder for the anatomy lab,” said Aurienne.