Chapter Nine

Nanda’s silver knife acquired, and Ivorak shepherded off into the care of The Shandrigal’s Order, Konrad tried to sleep. Thoughts of the so-called Mr. Vakatim kept him awake, as exhausted as he was. The nerve of the man was incredible. He had penetrated Ekamet high society with ease, effortlessly passed himself off as a natural among the aristocracy, purporting to be a man with as much right to the drawing-rooms of Ekamet’s finest as he had to breathing air. Konrad had not liked him, on the one or two occasions they had met. He had come across as cold, even calculating. But Konrad had set him down as an opportunist, a social climber, a man with an eye to his position and a desire to rise.

The truth was far worse. There could be little doubt that he intended to populate his new wolf-pack with people of refined bloodlines; an aristocracy of nightwolves taking root in the very heart of Ekamet. Hakir Nasak certainly had ambition, and more than enough nerve to act upon it.

What role he envisioned for his tormented brother in this bright new future of his, Konrad could not guess. Ivorak seemed discarded altogether, but a man with so organised a plan was unlikely to leave that kind of a loose thread dangling. Nanda had taken Ivorak away, to be tended by her Order. Konrad’s strictest instructions to take care had gone with her, exhortations she had returned with equal force. Eetapi had also gone with her, at Konrad’s insistence.

‘What am I going to do with her?’ Nanda had asked.

‘Nothing. She’s going to play lookout for you.’

‘I am not in need of her assistance.’

I told you, said Eetapi.

‘Take her along anyway,’ he’d said, and added more tenderly, ‘Please.’

Grudgingly, Nanda had relented. Konrad and Ootapi had returned to Bakar House, minus Tasha, who went first to the station to apprise Nuritov of developments. She appeared in Konrad’s bedroom an hour or so later, interrupting his latest attempt to drop into an exhausted doze.

‘Nuritov says hello,’ she announced.

Konrad lay inert, staring at the bed curtains in despair. ‘How polite of him,’ he mumbled.

‘He also says that Vakatim lives on Tatav Circle. Number twelve. Big place, gilding, all that.’

‘I know the house.’ The choice of address fitted with the profile Ivorak had made of his brother: all pomp and show. Konrad threw back the blankets and tore off his night-cap, exhausted with the effort to sleep. ‘Are you up for a fight, Tash?’

‘Always.’

‘Me too. Forget waiting for morning. Let us go and explain one or two things to Mr. Vakatim.’

Considering the lateness of the hour, Konrad expected to find Number Twelve, Tatav Circle dark and quiet. Instead, lights blazed in most of the windows, and the sounds of music and raucous conversation were clearly audible even from the street outside.

‘Mr. Vakatim likes to party,’ Konrad murmured, staring up at the silhouettes of well-dressed figures passing behind the drapes that covered the house’s long windows.

‘Inconvenient,’ Tasha observed.

Highly. Konrad thought for a moment. Ootapi. Find Mr. Nasak, if you please. Softly, softly. We do not know what manner of help he may have.

Ootapi did not deign to respond, and Konrad felt disgust and affront rolling off the serpent in waves as he drifted through the wall, vanishing into what was probably the house’s drawing-room.

Sorry, Konrad said belatedly. You are always careful, of course.

It was not strictly, absolutely true, but it mollified Ootapi. The serpent’s icy disdain lessened, which hopefully meant he was concentrating more on his appointed task than on his feelings about Konrad.

While you are in there, Konrad called after him. Take note of who you see, please, and if there are other nightwolves among the company, inform me at once. How promptly had Nasak set about turning others to ilu-vakatim? His snobbishness might encourage him to take care; to be selective, elitist, and wait to act until he had forged links with the cream of Ekamet society. Or so Konrad hoped. But perhaps he would rather begin by recruiting a few lesser beings to his cause, men and women who would help him in establishing himself.

He was relieved when Ootapi reported, distantly: No vakatim, Master.

None? Konrad wanted reassurance.

None at all, Ootapi confirmed. Not one.

Oh. Literally none?

Yes, Master. Ootapi spoke with exaggerated patience. Literally not a single one.

Not even Hakir Nasak was there? Mr. Vakatim himself was absent from his own house party? Konrad stood, briefly dumbfounded.

‘He is not there,’ he relayed to Tasha.

‘Mister Nightwolf? Huh.’ Tasha surveyed the house thoughtfully, as though a closer scrutiny of its stone walls might offer some clue. ‘I wonder where he is.’

‘Yes,’ Konrad said, a trifle testily. ‘I was wondering that, myself.’

Tell me what is going on in there, Ootapi, he commanded. He needed more information, a way to picture the situation inside the house. Perhaps he would then be able to guess at Nasak’s whereabouts.

Everyone is drunk, Ootapi reported. Mixed company. No undead, no ghost presence —

Wait. Mixed company? How so?

Gentry. Occasional aristocracy. And it is my guess that some of these are prostitutes.

Konrad blinked. Prostitutes? At snobbish Hakir Nasak’s elite Solstice celebration? That did not fit with his brother’s account of his tastes.

For that matter, so raucous and inebriated a party did not fit the refined picture Ivorak had painted of Hakir’s preferred lifestyle, either.

Konrad felt a flicker of doubt.

Is there nobody presiding?

No. All is chaos.

‘We are going in,’ Konrad said to Tasha. He needed to see what was going on for himself. If he encountered anybody he knew, well, he could claim to be a late-arriving guest. But from Ootapi’s account, he did not think anybody would pay him much regard.

He dutifully lifted the knocker upon the front door and rapped. It was worth keeping up appearances, if he wished to pass for a guest, but in the tumult of the party he did not think anybody would hear the knock. And so it proved, for after a minute’s waiting no one came to the door.

Konrad turned the handle, and went inside. Tasha silently followed.

The scene within was as Ootapi had succinctly described: chaos. Revellers crowded every chamber, and Konrad had to force his way from room to room as he scanned the company for any sign of Hakir Nasak, for faces he knew, for anything that might assist him. But he saw little of use. Some of the guests were known to him, at least by sight, but their presence cast no light whatsoever upon the problem of Hakir Nasak. And as he pushed and shoved his way through the ground floor and then up the stairs, he had to conclude that Ootapi had been right about everything: the company was very mixed, and the so-called Mr. Vakatim was not there.

An unsettled feeling grew, and Konrad’s thoughts began to race. His reflections were unpromising. Ivorak Nasak had given a clear picture of his brother, Hakir, but Konrad saw little that agreed with it. Hakir had certainly introduced himself to Ekamet’s high society; Konrad could vouch for that, for he had encountered “Vakatim” himself. But the man who could throw such a riotous, raucous, absolutely unelitist Solstice party was not the would-be social leader Ivorak had described. And while Konrad had been relieved to learn that there were no nightwolves among the company, that fact, too, sat uneasily alongside everything they thought they knew about Hakir Nasak. If he had come to Ekamet in order to feed and kill as he pleased, as Ivorak had said, why had he not done so? And if he had come in order to establish his own pack, why had he not already begun? Konrad’s notion that he preferred to reserve his attention for the cream of society was decidedly belied by his choice of house guests.

And where was he? Why would a man fill his house with revellers on Solstice Eve only to disappear, leaving his drunk, out-of-control guests in unsupervised possession of his property?

Konrad fought his way back out of the house and regained the street, desperate for a moment’s respite from the noise and the crush. He needed to think.

‘Konrad,’ Tasha panted as she ran after him. ‘What—’

‘Hush,’ he said softly. ‘Please.’

Tasha subsided, and Konrad closed his eyes against the drifting snow. He tried to remember the man who had been introduced to him as Mr. Vakatim, wishing now that he had paid closer attention. He had treated the introduction with indifference, disliking the man on sight, and now he struggled to recall his face in any detail. Shiny black hair, neatly groomed beard. Fine clothes. That was all.

Oh, but Ivorak...

‘You and I,’ Konrad said after a while, ‘have been set up.’

Tasha gave him a stare of blank incomprehension. ‘What?’

Hakir Nasak. They only Ivorak’s word for it that the man had ever existed — or that “Ivorak Nasak” did, either. Which persona was invented? Perhaps they both were. He and Nanda had not found Hakir Nasak’s name in the immigration records, but they had not looked for it, for they had not known of the name at the time.

He could go back and look for it now, but Konrad would bet his house that the name was not there.

Because no such person as Hakir Nasak had entered the city lately — or ever. He conjured his memories of Hakir and Ivorak Nasak and compared the two faces, trying to see past the superficial differences — the exquisite neatness and luxuriousness of the one, the shabby, unkempt wildness of the other — and felt satisfied: they were one and the same.

‘There is no brother,’ Konrad told Tasha. ‘Ivorak and Hakir Nasak are the same man. I do not know which of those names is his true one, if either is.’

‘But...’ said Tasha slowly. ‘But Ivorak — the laughing man — you found him murdered!’

‘I found him pretending to be murdered. I think I happened upon him at an inopportune moment, and somehow or other he got my measure right away. He had killed Vasily and Albina Olga, and heard — or sensed — my approach. The serpents, perhaps, gave me away. As ilu-vakatim, perhaps he senses spirits in ways most people do not; and who wanders the city with a matched pair of ghost-serpents in tow? He knew he was in trouble. Those claws. He tore out his own throat, made me believe he was dead. After that, he followed us, Nanda and I — more than once. He wanted to know how close we were, I think, to figuring him out. He knew we were checking the immigration records. He’d used the name Ivorak Nasak when he arrived in Ekamet, and he invented a persona around it on the spot — made up a brother, too — in order to confuse us. To camouflage himself. And it worked! Oh, it worked beautifully.’ Konrad felt such bitter self-reproach he could hardly breathe for the weight of it. How quick he had been to believe Ivorak’s show of remorse, to sympathise with him, to find any reason whatsoever not to kill him! ‘As I said, he certainly got my measure.’

Were they wrong about everything, quite? What was Ivorak (or Hakir) Nasak doing in Ekamet, after all? Had he come to feast, or had he come to build a kingdom? Perhaps both. Had Vasily been sick, as Ivorak had claimed? Perhaps not. Albina had probably fallen victim to simple hunger; after a week of feeding but lightly, Ivorak had been ravenous. He had killed her, followed Illya to his shop and killed him, too. But had he killed them, or turned them? Were they dead and gone, or would they revive as ilu-vakatim?

And there was Nuritov. I’ll clean up here, the inspector had said, standing over the slain bodies of two labourers. Were the four victims dead, or were they... in transition?

‘I think I am wrong again,’ Konrad said slowly. ‘He did not fabricate Ivorak in order to confuse us — couldn’t have. He was giving out that name while wandering Ekamet as one of the street people. He’s been playing two parts all along, and why would he do that? Why pretend to be Ivorak of the streets some of the time, and Mr. Vakatim at the top end of society the rest?’

‘Same reason you do,’ said Tasha promptly.

‘What.’

‘You pretend to be Konrad Savast, society gent, but you’re also Konrad the wanderer, with that hut in the Bones and a penchant for poisons.’

‘Maybe one of those is the real me,’ Konrad protested, injured.

‘Maybe one is the real Ivorak, too, or Hakir. Either way, by adopting two personas he has access to lots of different kinds of people. “Mr. Vakatim” couldn’t walk among the street people and expect to be taken seriously, and neither could shabby Ivorak walk into the best houses in the city without being thrown straight out again.’

Hmm. ‘I do it because, when I am searching for something — or someone — I can access all levels of society at need.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So what is he looking for?’ Konrad asked the question rhetorically, not expecting a response, but Tasha immediately spoke up.

‘People don’t volunteer information lightly,’ she said, in a conversational tone which briefly befuddled Konrad, for her choice of topic seemed a complete side-step. ‘And when pressed, the stories they tell are influenced by what’s on their mind at the time, even if they’re making things up. So, Ivorak told you a great deal. Some of it may be discounted as manipulative, designed to bring you in line with the version of events he wanted you to believe. But he said more than he needed to. Like, he offered an explanation as to his choice of victims.’

‘Illya Vasily and Albina Olga. Yes. But he wanted us to believe he had chosen them because they were sick, because he didn’t want to hurt anybody. All part of his poor-Ivorak routine.’

‘Why, though? With the other two, he merely said he had lost control. He could have said the same about the first two. We know nothing about the ilu-vakatim, we would probably have believed him. Why invent a different story for Vasily and Albina?’

‘Because something about them was on his mind?’

‘It’s my belief he told us more truth than we might imagine right now — good liars do. The more truth to your tale, the more likely you’ll be believed. But I think he told us more truth than he meant to. I think he probably did lose control at the Crow’s Foot, or he was content enough to allow himself to. We know that Albina Olga was dying, and I think Illya Vasily was too, and he may have known it, even if his family did not. That’s why his attitude about his death was so resigned.’

‘So Ivorak did choose the first two because they were terminally ill. But why would he?’

‘Think about it. You’re a man with delusions of grandeur, convinced that you deserve to be of supreme importance in the world, and consumed with dissatisfaction that you aren’t. So much so that, even when your leadership bid fails so badly it almost kills you, you are not deterred. You leave behind everything you know to come to a new place, where there is no competition, where you can start afresh with no real obstacles. What do you want to do next?’

‘Build the greatest, the most powerful kingdom of nightwolves possible. Outdo the achievements of those who defeated and scorned you.’

‘Yes — and make sure nobody can seriously challenge you again, or better yet, make sure nobody wants to. What kind of people are you going to choose? Ivorak led us to believe that “Mr. Vakatim” only wanted rich and influential people, but that seems unlikely now. He has been seeking possible recruits across all levels of society; social status has nothing to do with his selection process.’

Finally, Konrad caught her drift. ‘He is choosing those who are dying, because they are about to lose everything and he can give it all back to them.’

‘Mhm. How would you feel about the man who had given you a new life? One free of the sickness that had tormented you for months or years, which was going to kill you?’

Konrad pictured a growing army of nightwolves, all desperately grateful to Ivorak Nasak. Fanatically grateful? ‘I have trouble picturing Albina Olga enjoying such an existence.’

‘The plan may not work out entirely as he intends, indeed. Some would rather die, than live such a life. But such a possibility may not occur to Nasak.’ She added, after a moment’s thought, ‘Though people can surprise...’

‘The book said nothing about how a person becomes a nightwolf,’ Konrad observed, with a short sigh. ‘There seemed nothing amiss with Illya or Albina. They were dead, we talked to their ghosts...’

‘I’m guessing it takes some time.’ Tasha smiled faintly. ‘It is not that easy to make a non-dead person undead, you know.’

‘Time, and maybe... something else. I wonder if those corpses are still at the morgue.’

‘And I wonder where Ivorak is right now.’

‘He is...’ Konrad’s heart froze. ‘He went with Nanda.’ To The Shandrigal’s Temple, the heart of the Order. What would he do there? At best, he would simply evade Nanda at his earliest opportunity and escape, perhaps leaving some tearful tale behind himself to explain his disappearance.

But, no. The Shandrigal’s Order comprised a great many healers and doctors; one of their prime duties was to tend to the sick. And Konrad had obligingly given them Ivorak. To help.

He groaned. ‘I’ve been such a fool. He wasn’t following me. He was following Nanda.’

‘Or both,’ Tasha put in.

‘And I left her with him,’ Konrad continued, ignoring that. ‘Think. Where would she take him?’

‘To the Shandrigal’s Temple?’

‘At this hour?’

Tasha looked blankly at him. ‘Where else, if not there?’

‘You know Nanda’s habit of taking in stray folk?’ He did not speak lightly. She had adopted Danil Dubin, a fellow apothecary, all the more enthusiastically since his public fall from grace. And there was Arina, a woman who had become catastrophically mixed up in the same bad business, and whom Nanda had immediately taken under her wing as well. And others. There were always others.

‘She took him home?’

‘Of course she did,’ Konrad sighed. ‘She is Nanda.’ He took a moment to breathe, to try to quiet the flurry of panic that overtook his heart. Nanda was not defenceless, and as dangerous as Ivorak undoubtedly was, he had no reason to want to harm her.

Even so. Nanda was alone at home with a monster and he, Konrad, had made it happen.

He grabbed Tasha. ‘I’m going to run,’ he warned.

‘Go,’ Tasha said.

Konrad ran.

He did not know, as he travelled, what manner of scene he might encounter when he arrived at Nanda’s house. Would Ivorak maintain the facade of innocence he had adopted, so convincingly, at the bridge, or would he throw it off? Would he be brute enough, fool enough, to threaten her? Would he try to hurt her, or even turn her? Would Nanda figure him out, as Konrad finally had, or did he fool her still? As the minutes passed, his fears grew, and the visions of likely scenarios his mind helpfully provided grew more and more catastrophic.

Konrad mustered every shred of will and energy he possessed, and quickened his already flying pace.

When Nanda’s modest house came into view, her shop beneath and her apartments above, he suffered a tumult of mixed feelings: part relief, part utter panic. Was she even still alive?

Eetapi! he bellowed the moment he was remotely within range. Tell me all is well.

Master? Brother? What are you doing here?

Tell me all is well, Konrad repeated.

I do not care for their choice of tea, Eetapi replied. The aroma is offensive.

Tea? Konrad hurtled up to Nanda’s front door, all bemusement and fright, and dragged it open so forcefully he almost tore it off its hinges. He wanted to scream for Nanda, assure himself instantly that she was well, but some buried instinct prevented him. If Ivorak yet maintained his pretence of innocence, Konrad may not wish to instantly reveal his knowledge of the deception. And Eetapi rambled about tea...

He crossed the shop floor in three great strides, his boot-heels ringing sharply upon the hard wooden floor. The tiny door at the back divided the commercial premises from Nanda’s workroom behind, and her living quarters above; he tore through it, and straight up the stairs.

The scene he encountered was the very opposite of anything he had expected. In Nanda’s little parlour sat the lady herself, on one side of the worn but elegant oaken table that dominated the room. Opposite sat Ivorak, wrapped in one of Nanda’s coats and with a ceramic hot brick balanced upon his lap. They were indeed partaking of tea, or at least, Nanda was. The cup before Ivorak looked untouched.

‘Konrad,’ said Nanda in greeting, her pale brows rising in surprise. ‘I thought you gone to bed.’

‘I was,’ he said. He did not know what to add, so wrong-footed by the placid scene was he. Did Nanda know? She could not possibly, or she would not look nearly so relaxed. He looked hard at Ivorak, but if he expected to observe any tell-tale clue in the man’s appearance, or some trace of guilt in his eyes, he was out of luck. Ivorak returned the stare with a hesitant, rather shy smile, perfectly in keeping with the character he had adopted, and Konrad could find nothing at which to object.

‘We were discussing Mr. Nasak’s future with the Order,’ Nanda said, and got up from her chair. ‘You will join us for tea, of course? And Tasha?’

Ivorak’s reaction to Tasha’s appearance was the first sign of something amiss, for he watched her with the wary alertness of a cat faced with a mouse — or, perhaps, vice versa. Tasha grinned at him, and slouched down in the chair immediately adjacent. ‘Tea would be nice,’ she said to Nanda.

Konrad took the final unoccupied chair, bemused. Here he had run in a fit of raging fury and panic, only to engage in an odd out-of-hours tea party with the person he loved best in the world, with Nuritov’s odd, undead apprentice, and with the man he had come here to kill. Nanda set a steaming cup before him, accompanying it with one of her special, warm smiles, and he only felt more confused. She looked excessively tired, and he felt smitten with remorse at having dragged her into this mess when she could have been peacefully asleep on Solstice night.

Ivorak was watching him. Konrad felt the weight of the other man’s gaze, but as soon as he returned it, Ivorak returned to staring into his tea.

A show of discomfort, however subtle. Very well. He was troubled, then, by Konrad’s abrupt and unannounced reappearance. Did he guess, that Konrad knew?

‘What have you decided, then?’ Konrad asked. ‘About Mr. Nasak and the Order.’

Nanda sat down again, and took a gulp of tea. ‘Mr. Nasak is eager to be of use, and I am eager to ascertain the extent of his abilities. I have hopes he will be of great assistance in determining the source of a sickness, and its extent, in ways we have yet been unable to achieve.’ She smiled at Ivorak as she spoke, but there was a tension about her that Konrad did not understand. Was she aware of his deception, or was it something else?

‘How generous he is with his time,’ said Konrad, unsmiling, with a hard look at Ivorak.

Ivorak said nothing.

Konrad’s temper began to fray. He had been up all night, dragging himself around frozen Ekamet on a night when, above all others, he — and Nanda, no doubt, too — would prefer to be comfortably at home. Ivorak had killed, deceived, lied, led him around by the nose, and now sat there looking as innocent as a summer sky. Why were they wasting still more time on this absurd pretence? Konrad decided to be more direct. ‘We were unable to find your brother,’ he said coldly. ‘It seems he had somewhere else to be tonight, in spite of hosting a houseful of guests.’

‘I not know where he is,’ said Ivorak instantly. He was brazen enough to meet Konrad’s gaze as he spoke, unflinching.

‘But I do,’ said Konrad, very softly. He held Ivorak’s deceitful gaze and, slowly, smiled.

He could almost see the wheels turning in Ivorak’s head. Should he try to brazen it out, deny everything, rely on Nanda’s soft (sort of) heart and Konrad’s rather better hidden sympathetic side to save him? Or accept that the game was up, abandon the deceit, and... and what? What would he do?

Ivorak looked from Konrad to Tasha to Nanda, the latter of whom continued to sip her tea with a show of placidity which convinced Konrad she knew everything he had guessed. She hadn’t reacted at all to Konrad’s revelation that he knew where Ivorak’s so-called “brother” was.

Ivorak’s eyes glittered, and his mouth twisted in a malicious smile. ‘She is sick,’ he said, indicating Nanda with a tilt of his head. ‘Very sick. You do not know it, I think.’

Konrad’s eyes flew to Nanda’s face. ‘She... she’s what? Nan? Is this true?’

Nanda met his eyes only briefly and then stared into her tea, her lips forming a grim line. Oh, she looked desperately tired, but so did Konrad himself, no doubt; probably the shadows under his own eyes were a match for hers. But was she paler than usual? Was her air of weariness merely the product of a long, long night, or was it something more?

Konrad stared long, his heart sinking like a rock. ‘You lie,’ he snarled at Ivorak, and he hoped fiercely that it was so. Ivorak had lied about virtually everything; why not this, too?

But he knew it to be false hope. Nanda’s tension was now explained. She would not meet his gaze, and she did not even try to dissemble. She merely sat, defeated, bitter, staring sightlessly into her cooling cup of tea.

Ivorak beamed at Konrad. ‘You are welcome,’ he said. ‘I cannot tell you how delighted I am to be of use.’

Then he moved. Konrad, fixed as his attention still was upon Nanda’s wan visage, realised the man’s intention too late. Ivorak shot for the stairs, moving with unthinkable speed, and within seconds he was gone.

But Tasha had been ready for him. Neither so distracted as Konrad, nor so slow, she barrelled after the fugitive, supernaturally fast herself. The room emptied of them both, and Konrad still sat in his chair, flummoxed, unable to catch his breath for the sudden weight of fear.

He had time for only one last, anguished, reproachful look at Nanda, and then he, too, was gone.

Konrad reached the street several seconds behind Tasha, too late to see where she or Ivorak had gone.

Master, hissed Eetapi from somewhere overhead. This way.

He could not see her. The night was too dark, the full moon hidden once more behind great banks of clouds. Snow blew into his face, stinging his eyes, and the street’s lamps had long since burned out.

But he could sense her: some way above his head, a few feet in front of him. That way. She set up a glow, exuding that faint, sickly ghost-light, making a beacon of herself.

She sped away, and he followed. Ootapi raced in from who-knew-where and fell in by his sister’s side, and Konrad set off after them both, his stride lengthening to impossible speed. Buildings melted away around him as he hurtled through the streets of Ekamet, noting distantly that they were not headed for Parel’s Bridge or for Tatav Circle. They were making for the west gate, and he was not surprised when his serpents led him out into the Bone Forest. Ivorak was far from the only killer to seek shelter, concealment, amongst those gnarled, craggy trees, who thought that the twisting, tangled branches and swirling snow would obstruct his pursuer.

Fool. The Malykant was at home out in the Bones; more so, in some respects, than he was among all the comforts and luxuries of Bakar House. He found a way through the maze of trees with ease, strode over the dips and hillocks and frozen marsh-puddles without missing a step. The snow he simply disregarded, for he did not precisely need his eyes, not out here. His serpents shone in the darkness ahead of him, twin wisps of deathlight half-glimpsed with every step. They shone in his mind, too, beacons to guide him safely down a death-trap of winding, treacherous pathways.

He caught up with Tasha, grabbed her in passing. ‘You should not be out here alone,’ he hissed.

Tasha writhed in his grip, seething. ‘I may look like a kid, but I’m as dangerous as you are.’

‘No one’s as dangerous as me,’ Konrad said, but the chill ebbed from his words, and he spoke them more with regret.

Tasha merely snorted. ‘Anyway, I am not alone, because here you are. Inevitably.’

‘I apologise, if my appearance disappoints you.’

‘Maybe I wanted to catch the killer.’ Tasha gave up fighting — realising, perhaps, that their joint progress was indeed rather faster than hers had been alone — but her annoyance did not lessen one whit.

‘You will help me to catch him.’ Konrad stopped speaking, for Eetapi and Ootapi had sung out in victory, their twin voices sounding like frozen bells in the darkness. There! How he runs!

Konrad saw him, too: a dark figure darting through the trees ahead, moving with all the speed of fury and terror but not fast enough, for Konrad was almost upon him.

Ivorak looked back, once, and oh, he was afraid now.

Konrad leapt, Tasha an instant after. Together they crashed into the fleeing figure of Ivorak Nasak, bringing him sharply to the hard, icy ground. Konrad felt a thrill of victory, and of malicious glee, the latter of which he tried to supress.

‘Hold him a moment,’ he said. He did not know if he spoke to Tasha or to his serpents, but they all obeyed, binding Nasak to immobility with their array of supernatural arts.

Konrad retrieved the bones he had harvested from Ivorak’s victims, and carried about with him all the night since. They fell into his hands as he opened their bundle of cloth, stained with blood and delightfully blunt.

Also, he took up Nanda’s silver knife.

‘Turn him,’ he whispered.

The motionless body of Ivorak Nasak flipped in the air, turning face-up. His eyes met Konrad’s, full of desperate fear. His teeth were gritted, and he fought. They would not hold him long.

Konrad lunged — but too late. The human, solid figure of Ivorak Nasak shimmered and transformed, and a ghostwolf leapt away into the night. What a vision he made! Thrice the size of the living creature, all rippling ghost-light, nothing of him wan or sickly like Konrad’s serpents. He shone bright and true, like the moon, and waves of fury rolled off him like mist.

But Tasha had been ready for that, too. Her body — the slim figure of the fourteen-year-old girl she appeared to be — fell lifeless into the snow with a sickening thud, and her lamaeni spirit-form shimmered into being beneath the trees. She was as bright and glorious to the eye as Ivorak, and she burned with an awe-inspiring strength. She shot after the fleeing nightwolf, Eetapi and Ootapi in her wake.

It did not take long. Tasha caught him in seconds, and after that... Konrad could not tell what followed. Battle raged, swift and fierce, the four spirits merging into a flurry of ghost-light so bright-burning that Konrad could barely stand to look. Rage and terror poured off them. In the two or three seconds it took Konrad to catch them, it was over. The light ebbed and faded, and Ivorak Nasak lay once more on the frozen ground, human and inert and furious.

Konrad wasted no time. He took the bones of Illya Vasily, Albina Olga, and the two labourers, and punched them through the shrinking chest of Ivorak Nasak, one-two-three-four, ignoring the creature’s howls of fury and pain.

Then the knife, the silver knife, its blade biting deep. Only then did the light in the man’s eyes die, and he lay with the stillness of death, blood seeping from the five wounds in his chest.

Konrad knelt in the snow, watching in fascinated horror as Ivorak Nasak died. He would never, ever get used to it, no matter how many he killed, nor how much they deserved to die. So profound was the alteration from living to dead, so permanent, so appalling. He did not know, would never understand, how those such as Ivorak could deal out death so freely and with such insouciance — indeed, some actively took pleasure in it. The thought made Konrad shudder with a crawling revulsion.

‘He deserved it,’ said Tasha.

Konrad sighed deeply, and wearily uttered: ‘I know.’ It didn’t help all that much, and it never would.

But his duty was performed. Ivorak Nasak would kill no one else. He was dispatched into The Malykt’s merciless care, there to atone for the lives he had taken, his soul irrevocably bound to the souls of those he had killed until he had done so. And they would not treat him kindly.

Nanda wanted her knife back. Konrad eyed the hilt sticking out of Ivorak’s chest with misgiving. He did not want to remove it, did not want to touch the corpse again at all, if he could help it. As far out in the Bones as they were, he could and would simply leave it here, let it rot, let the crows devour its revolting flesh.

But Nanda wanted her knife back. Konrad steeled himself and wrenched the blade out of the ruined chest, averting his eyes to the sticky mess of blood. He wrapped the knife in his handkerchief, resolving to clean it later, and return it to Nanda.

Nan. Who waited at home, her terrible secret revealed against her will, waiting perhaps with dread for Konrad’s return. He got to his feet slowly, wearily. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Tasha. ‘But for you, he might have escaped.’ He did not really think it was so; no one could outrun the Malykant, not for long. But it might be true, and Tasha swelled with pride to hear it.

And thank you, Konrad said to his serpents. You have served me well.

They were too surprised to respond, though eventually a shiver of Eetapi’s approval crept down his spine. As it felt like a sliver of ice inching its way down his shrinking skin, he did not altogether appreciate it.

‘Time to go home,’ he said, and turned his steps back towards Ekamet. Slowly, trembling with fatigue, he made his way home, Tasha and his serpents by his side.