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She smiled that faintly patronising smile of hers that said it was nice you’d finally worked out the obvious answer to your own question, but perhaps next time you could try to get there a little quicker.

As she sped up, I trotted behind her, puzzling it out. ‘The Infernal demesne is the only place the Lords Celestine couldn’t reach you, isn’t it? What on earth have you done that’s so bad– worse even than turning one of your students against the justiciars– that has you hiding out in Hell? Hazidan,what have you done?’

She stopped again, this time in front of a pair of closed double doors. The wood was silvery-white, like the bark of a poplar tree, with carved golden handles that might have been birchwood. I was pretty sure Hazidan had timed our arrival intentionally.

‘I asked too many questions,’ she said, taking me aback.

‘What kind of questions?’

She turned away from the doors and reached out a hand to my face. I almost recoiled– she usually only did that when she was planning to smack me for impertinence– but I was right to hold my nerve, for she only stroked my cheek.

‘I demanded answers to the kind of questions you’ve begun to ask yourself, Cade: the ones that have brought you here to me.’

‘What’s happened to the Lords Celestine, Master? Why are they trading angelics for the allegiance of small-time princelings? Why are they propping up psychotic dictators like Ascendant Lucien? Why are there Glorian Justiciars following me everywhere I go?’

‘Followingyou?’ Hazidan asked. Her blatantly feigned surprise clearly meant,I trained you as an investigator, Cade. You’ve seen for yourself that questions invite consequences, so why are you still asking the wrong ones?

Finally, the penny dropped. ‘The Glorians haven’t been following me at all, have they? They’ve beenherdingme!’

She clapped her hands.

When Hazidan Rosh tells you that you got something right at last, it’s like a glorious golden sun has come out from behind the clouds to shine just for you.

I will admit there might be a small–verysmall– chance I had always been a trifle obsessed with winning my old master’s approval.

‘Play it through, Cade,’ she said, just as if we were back in her classroom. ‘Follow the threads, however tenuous they may feel at first, because—’

‘“Because sometimes those threads entwine to become a rope strong enough to strangle the truth”. Never your best metaphor, Master, if I’m honest.’ Before she could conjure up a worse one, I did as she asked. ‘Right, so I took the citadel siege job because the Glorians had been getting too close and Ascendant Lucien, whose crusade was blessed by the Lords Celestine, offered me a pardon for all my sins that would bind even the justiciars from arresting me. But then the Celestines granted Lucien permission to slaughter Archon Belleda’s surrendering forces.’

‘At which point you. . . ?’

I didn’t appreciate the knowing smirk on Hazidan’s face.

‘At which point I gave the matter careful consideration, contemplated all the ethical points in exhaustive detail and decided to murder the son of a bitch.’

‘Really?’ she asked. Her shocked expression was entirely unconvincing. ‘Youof all people decided to go off and do something incredibly reckless because the Ascendant turned out to be a homicidal maniac, and– so much worse– ahypocriticalhomicidal maniac?’

‘You’re saying the Celestines predicted that I’d lose my shit?’

‘I’m saying that given the circumstances, betting that you would “lose your shit” would be easy money.’

I walked up to the door. I was pretty sure that whatever was on the other side would be the punchline to Hazidan’s extended joke at my expense, but when I tried the handle, it was locked.

I turned back to face Hazidan. ‘The flaw in whichever convoluted theory you’re currently pursuing here is that Iwasn’tthe one who murdered the Ascendant. If the Lords Celestine were half so clever at mapping the terrain of human behaviour as they claim, how did they fail to predict that Corrigan– just about the most predictable human being alive– was going stop me? Unless—’

Ah, crap,I realised then.I’m really not going to like how this turns out.

‘Go on,’ Hazidan urged.

‘Unless they knew Tenebris would refuse to sell me the hellborn conjuration in the first place, because they were already aware that Lucien was as useful to the machinations of the Lords Devilish as to their own.’

‘And yet the Lords Celestine clearly wanted Lucien dead, otherwise he would still be alive,’ Hazidan pointed out. ‘But how to go about it without revealing their hand to the Infernals?’

There was something almost exciting about having her walk me through the case like this, as if we were back in her study at the justiciars’ hall, poring over scraps of evidence and challenging each other’s assumptions, instead of merely interrogating witnesses with fear and flame, which was what the other trainee justiciars were taught to do.

‘What you’re implying is just too convoluted, Master. Lucien was killed by a sublime. Fidick was just a little boy– he’d been so misused and traumatised that when he saw my ritual, he memorised every bit of it so he could make a deal with Tenebris. But how could the Celestines have predicted Fidick’s behaviour? Even if they had prompted Lucien to reward his war mages with the pick of his sublimes, why would—?’

‘How did you pick yours?’