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“They’re less interesting than your family, that’s for sure,” he mutters as he stamps over to the other stool and drops heavily onto it. There’s a book open on the table beside him, not yet assembled.

“You’re in no state for fine work,” Millie says gently.

“You won’t get paid if you ruin that.” She knows he can’t help himself – any money he’d had before the Just Rebellion has been spent on books and booze.

He’ll jeopardise his last means of support if he becomes unreliable.

She also knows that he sold her to the Witches, and that money’s gone too; that he makes deals with the innkeeper on his worst weeks.

Millie doesn’t like him enough to help out.

“Don’t you think I don’t know that?” he snarls, then calms. “What about the crown prince?”

She doesn’t mention the joy-house or the things they did, how when they talked afterwards, she realised who Gus was and how her blood ran cold to have slept with the nephew of her family’s usurper.

Instead, she just says, “C’mon, Faustus.

You must know something. Or suspect. He came to The Bureau. I didn’t like him.”

“In all fairness, you don’t like many people.”

“True but unhelpful. He wanted me to raise someone. He said ‘them’. ‘You bring them back.’ And he wasn’t right.” She raises a finger. “And before you say anything stupid or dismissive, it was the red flashing eyes.”

His expression becomes thoughtful.

“Well?” Millie prods. “Well, ex-Chief High Librarian of San’t Marten?”

“There are days,” he drawls, “when I very much regret smuggling you out of the palace before the coup.”

“So you’ve said time and again. But you did it and here we are. The crown prince?”

He shrugs. “Lad’s a reader, so I hear. There are dangerous volumes on those shelves,” – the Great Royal Library of San’t Marten – “and my sense is they’re not too careful what they give him.”

“Unlike you, who kept such things safely under lock and key.” She can’t keep the tone from her voice, but he seems not to notice.

Millie thinks, watching him stare into the flames, that he’s remembering the sight of her wandering through the palace corridors, while behind her a ruckus erupted, the beginning – and frankly end – of the Just Rebellion.

Faustus knew that he’d never survive the change of power – too closely aligned as he was with the old king – so he grabbed up the princess and fled through the hidden tunnels of the library, down into the dark part of the city.

They got lost among the denizens and the lowlifes, hiding until the guardsmen from above the sunline stopped looking.

Within six months, he’d offered her to the Witches after hearing they were looking to buy a child.

It could have gone horribly for Millie, but the Witches were kind, though very old, and taught her everything they could, nurturing the strange talent they detected beneath her skin, embedded in her bones.

They’d taught her the ways of raising the dead, of reassembling blood and bone, of making the inanimate dance like life, and the even rarer skill of remaking them when all you had was the memory of them; no corpse needed.

And, when she turned seventeen, they’d told her it was their time to go; that there were other places they needed to be.

So they departed, leaving her The Bureau and their home, money in the bank and warnings she’d never forgotten ringing in her ears.

“Focus, Faustus. The crown prince, in the dark part of the city, wanders into my business by pure chance. The crown prince about whom there is the whiff of sulphur.”

Faustus shakes his head. “I’ll ask around, but it might take some time to…If he returns—”

“Don’t answer the door. I know.”

“Well, no. Try to trap him.”

“Whatever’s sent the heir into the dark? It’s not going to be a good thing.”

***

When Millie returns to The Bureau – clambering up the rope ladder and cursing all the way – she’s surprised to hear voices, then a loud gasp.

Two. She’s careful to be quiet, making her way to the mediums’ rooms. Pandora’s door is open.

Millie peeks around the frame to see her erstwhile employee seated at the little round table with its lace cloth, lit candles and focus crystal.

Across from her is Crown Prince Augustus, surrounded by a blood-red aura that leaps like flames and flows between medium and prince.

Neither look happy about it. Pandora’s mouth is open in a scream and the prince’s eyes are wide with fear.

Before Millie can cry out there’s an ear-splitting crack .

The air smells like petrichor, and Augustus is thrown away from the table, so far that he lands at Millie’s feet.

Freed of the crimson hold, he looks different, smells different, and the eyes that stare up at Millie are the pale blue she remembers.

Millie reaches for him as she takes a last glance at Pandora – there’s nothing left of the girl but bones held together with red lightning.

An energy that pulses and pulses, pressing the air in the room outwards.

Fingers hooked in his royal collar, Millie drags the young man into the short corridor between the mediums’ rooms, her strength unreasonable, powered by fear.

She gets him into the necro-room, swings them both through the window and onto the still-dangling ladder just as an explosion rips through The Bureau.

The ladder is torn from her hand, but she doesn’t let go of the prince even as they fly, even as they land somewhere softer than they should, and even as the impact closes her eyes.

***

When she wakes, it’s to the press of a warm weight beside her, a sulphur-free scent (although there’s a whiff of garlic and red wine) and a low rumbling snore.

Every sensation casts her back to the joy-house, the room drenched in blues and greens like a deep-sea grotto, silks and velvets, cushions as far as the eye can see.

Millie B moans, keeps her eyes closed, seeks the mouth that’s oh-so-close to her ear, blowing hot air and a vague hint of stale breath.

Not romantic, but that’s not what she’s seeking, nothing so ephemeral.

No. She wants something solid though temporary, nothing as binding as commitment, nothing as clingy as romance.

And her companion responds with enthusiasm, which is when Millie realises she’s in neither a joy-house nor her own bed, and her bottom lip is stinging like a bastard.

She pushes away the body, its cunning tongue, hard muscles and all the other hard bits.

Eyes flying open, she stares into a blue gaze set in a bruised and bloodied face.

She won’t be looking any better, she realises; touches a hand to her mouth that comes away wet and red. “Shit.”

“You!” Even his voice is different – sounding less like he did a few hours ago, and more like he did a few weeks back.

“Oh, recognise me now, do you?” Millie can’t avoid the snarky tone – then realises something’s not quite right.

They’ve landed by some miracle on the roof covered in rugs and carpets, on top of the tent (which they’ve managed to collapse), and she can see him very clearly.

But it’s night, and night down below the sunline is black as a goat’s guts, and there are no torches on this roof because fabrics and flames don’t mix.

Millie sits up, feeling the ache in her muscles, her bones, but nothing seems broken.

She turns toward the source of the light. “Oh, no.”

The Bureau is ablaze, the top floor mostly gone, which means all of Millie’s possessions – her livelihood – has gone with it.

She thinks about all the books burned, all their spells released into the air, perhaps some fuelling the conflagration along with the contents of the distillery below…

Millie hopes the rest of the building was empty, that no one was working late.

No one except Pandora. Oh, Pandora. Millie imagines the girl, ambitious and defiant, waiting around on the street to see if the client might have an interesting request, sneaking in when all seemed quiet and paying the price for it.

Millie rolls back towards the crown prince (who’s reclining annoyingly casually, hands clasped behind his head) and slaps him hard.

“What did you do? What did you do to her?”

“Nothing! Nothing! I can’t remember…she was waiting…” He shakes his head. “Only it wasn’t me, not really. I haven’t been myself the whole day. It’s like—”

“Like you’re carrying a passenger around inside you,” she finishes.

That’s what she’d sensed when he walked in.

She should have done something about it then, should have tried to kill him – only she wasn’t quite sure how, not knowing exactly what it was – and she’ll admit there was genuine reluctance to take his life, and not just because he’d leave a mess to clean up.

She clears her throat. “Do you remember when you felt the change?”

“After I read that book.”

“Right, you’re going to have to be more specific. There are rather a lot in the palace.”

“There was one waiting for me on my bed, nicely wrapped.” He shrugged. “Assumed it was a present. How do you know how many books are in the—”

“Nice life you’ve got, random presents being left around,” Millie interrupts, words sounding hollow even to her – that was her life, before it all fell apart. She’d found just such a gift, once.

“That much I do recall. San’t Marten’s Book of Mild Melancholy . The first line is—”

“‘Death is the only true love.’” Millie Broad sighs. “It’s a trap, that book. A spell, really, the entire thing. There’s a demon bound inside, pops up like a jack-in-the-box when read. Makes the reader murder others – loved ones, friends, whoever the spell names.”

“Who would write such a thing? Who would leave such a thing?”

“Someone who did not wish you well.” Millie frowns. “You wanted me to ‘bring them back’. Who’s they ?”

“I don’t remember.”