The evening in the Great Solar had begun, as many evenings at Kyneston did, with Gavar Jardine hurling a whisky glass into the fireplace. Perhaps it would end with him exploding one of the glass-fronted bookcases or a piece of his mother’s prized porcelain—neither was a rare occurrence.

This evening Abi had not only seen Gavar smash the glass, she had been standing next to the fireplace when he did it. Jenner half rose from his chair and snapped at his brother to take better care, but Gavar only laughed contemptuously. Sitting opposite, alone on the two-seater sofa, Bouda Matravers pinched her lips together like someone watching a toddler throwing a tantrum in a supermarket.

Current probability of wedded bliss for this pair, Abi thought: about zero.

Wedding planner had been added to Abi’s job description a few hours earlier. She and Jenner were to pin down Gavar and Bouda for more specifics, given that the ceremony was now just two months away. Bouda had stalked in to the Solar after supper and sat down, smoothing her skirt, then checked her diamond-studded watch and told Jenner he had her attention until nine o’clock. Gavar had slouched in soon after.

Abi was fascinated to be in such proximity to the Matravers heir. She’d seen pictures of Bouda before, of course, in magazines. She’d even quite admired her. The young parliamentarian was always poised and polished, a cool intelligence evident in her pale blue eyes. She was a woman unapologetically making her way in a man’s world. (Abi was quicker to flip through pictures of her sweet-faced sister, who was invariably papped falling out of nightclubs, accessorized with a tiny dog and a gargantuan handbag.)

Bouda Matravers in person was another matter altogether. The intelligence was there, sure enough. But it wasn’t cool, it was ice-cold—the kind of cold that could burn. Not that she’d notice you were there in the first place. Bouda was one of those Equals for whom commoners were simply irrelevant. Invisible. Abi wondered, briefly, what it would take to get her attention. A jab in the leg with a sharp pencil, perhaps. She had no intention of trying.

“Ignore him,” Bouda told Jenner, pointedly not looking at Gavar, who had stopped pacing and was now staring morosely into the fire. “Justice Council voted this afternoon to send him back to Millmoor tonight. Unfinished business from his last failed trip there. So he’s sulking and completely sloshed already, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Abi fumbled with her pencil, catching it clumsily before it dropped to the floor.

Millmoor? Why Millmoor?

Positioned to one side of Jenner’s armchair, she couldn’t catch his eye. But he knew how worried she was about Luke, especially because the communications lockdown meant they’d still had no news of her brother since the day he’d been taken from them. So she could have hugged Jenner when he asked, mildly, what was going on in the slavetown.

“Nothing, is what,” said Gavar, rummaging through the drum-shaped drinks chest. “Rumors. A prisoner escaped just before Christmas and now there’s been some new intel, so Father and Bouda have got it in their heads that something’s going to kick off tomorrow. Zelston was too gutless to authorize the use of lethal force himself, so yours truly is being sent up there to”—and here Gavar turned, a rectangular green bottle gripped too tightly in one hand, and mimicked the resonant tones of the Chancellor—“make the decision on the ground.”

He unstoppered the spirits and drank straight from the bottle, gulping it down.

“Lethal force?” Jenner’s tone was sharp, but it didn’t come close to capturing Abi’s fear.

Please let Luke be safe. Please.

“The only one talking any sense was Rix,” Gavar muttered. He wiped his chin with the back of one hand and addressed his future wife. “Pointed out that no one’s storming the estates with broom handles and kitchen knives, so why should we intervene. He’s right. The people working in Security in the slavetown are all commoners. Why should it concern us if they turn on one another?”

Bouda threw her hands into the air with exasperation, then almost instantly clasped them and brought them back down to her lap. Her every gesture, every word, was controlled, Abi realized. What would it take to make Bouda Matravers crack? She didn’t like to think.

“We can’t tell you more,” Bouda said to Jenner. “We’d fall foul of the Quiet. But let’s just say that this is Gavar’s chance to shine, and as usual he’s doing the best he can to throw that chance away.”

“Because your father really shone this afternoon,” Gavar retorted. He turned to Jenner. “Darling Daddy”—and now he mocked Bouda’s husky voice—“threw a hissy fit at Armeria Tresco for correcting some misapprehensions on the part of my future wife. Suddenly his Skill starts fizzing and he rips the council table in two. It’s some mahogany monstrosity, must weigh a few tons. Never knew Lord Lard had it in him.”

Bouda jumped to her feet. Her hands were up again, clutched and twisting in front of her as if one were trying to choke the life out of the other.

“Don’t,” she snarled. “Not my father. Don’t you dare…”

“Or what?” Gavar’s voice was singsong, taunting. He really was exceptionally drunk, Abi realized.

“Or you’ll regret it,” Bouda said.

And Abi saw it—saw the moment at which, with a slight clench of her fingers, Bouda Matravers stopped the words in Gavar Jardine’s throat. Gavar gagged and his left hand came up to claw at his collar. His other hand let go of the bottle, which fell heavily, releasing a sickly aniseed smell as its contents spilled across the oak floor. Gavar fumbled at the mantelpiece for support, knocking to the ground a silver-framed photograph of a younger Lady Thalia and three small boys, two auburn-haired, one dark.

“Now, where were we?” said Bouda, sleeking her long ponytail over her shoulder and sitting back down. “I know. Pink roses for my bouquet and the buttonholes, or ivory? I think pink, don’t you, my love? They’ll go so nicely with your complexion.”

The sound that burst from Gavar Jardine was an inchoate roar. A simultaneous expulsion of sound and a sucking intake of breath.

“Bitch!” he howled.

And as Abi watched, appalled, Bouda Matravers was snatched up by nothing at all and tossed through the air. She slammed against the wall and there was a sickening crunch as her head collided with the massive gilded frame of a serene landscape of the Kyneston Pale. Abi saw a gash rip open along that white-blond hairline and bright blood well up as Bouda collapsed to the floor.

Before Abi could even yelp, the door to the Solar shattered into splinters.

Lord Jardine stood there, his arm outstretched for the door handle that his Skill and fury had rendered superfluous. His face was as red as Gavar’s but his voice, when he spoke, was as controlled as Bouda’s.

“What is going on here?”

Bouda rose to her feet. She should have been unconscious, surely, or at least unsteady. But not a bit of it. Blood daubed half her face red and dripped onto the neckline of her sky-blue dress, but the gash in her scalp was no longer visible.

Was no longer there, Abi realized with a start. So it was true, then. The Equals could heal themselves. How was that even possible?

“Difference of opinion about the wedding plans,” Bouda said coolly. “Gavar objected to my choice of color scheme.”

And could Equals kill using Skill? Abi wondered. Because Gavar Jardine ought to have been a smoldering cinder-smear on the carpet by now if they could.

“Gavar,” his father said. “Why are you still here? You should be on your way to Millmoor. Go.”

Lord Jardine stepped to one side of the empty doorway and gestured through it. Father and son stared at each other for a moment before Gavar gave a low growl, ducked his head, and left, kicking through the litter of splinters.

Bouda Matravers stared after him with a look of triumph. It didn’t last long.

“Bouda,” said her future father-in-law. “You are not to provoke him.”

The blond girl opened her mouth but Lord Jardine cut her off.

“Do not argue. Gavar is my heir, until such time as I—and this family—have a better one. Your job is to manage Gavar, not rile him. I expect you to do that job better. Now come.” He beckoned and Bouda went to his side.

She’s not marrying Gavar at all, Abi realized, watching. She’s marrying his father. His family. His house. The Jardine name. And she’s giving herself to a man she despises in order to get it all.

Lord Jardine placed a hand in the small of Bouda’s back and steered her toward the corridor.

“Oh, just one moment,” the blond girl said, looking back over her shoulder. “While we’re managing things. Don’t want any belowstairs gossip about this.”

Those manicured talons pinched: a falcon taking a mouse.

“No,” Jenner said, stepping forward. “It’s not necessary.”

But Bouda Matravers’s Skill was already inside Abi’s skull. The Equal rammed it in like a poker and was rolling it around, burning away the memory of what had just taken place in the Great Solar, then cauterizing the loss. The shock made Abi’s head recoil with such force that she bit her tongue, and her scream bubbled through the blood filling her mouth. Dark clots swam before her eyes.

Then it was over and she was sitting in the armchair, with Jenner and Lady Thalia watching her with concern. She blinked: once, twice. Her eyes stung—had she been crying?

Abi tried to stand up, but her legs trembled. She reached out to clutch at Jenner’s arm and steady herself. But he lightly unpeeled each finger and transferred her hand from his sleeve to the claret upholstery of the chair. Though gentle, his action felt unmistakably like repudiation, and Abi felt the skin around her eyes prickle with shame. Her head ached terribly. The smell of alcohol hung on the air.

She looked around the room—they were in the Great Solar—but could see nothing out of place. The door was shut, the furniture neatly in position. The only items to catch her eye were an empty bottle propped against the chimney breast and the framed photograph that Lady Thalia held. Abi’s notebook and a pencil were set neatly on the floor. The objects didn’t add up to a coherent memory.

What had she done? Had she got drunk? Made a fool of herself? The idea was unbearable. She wouldn’t be allowed to work with Jenner anymore. Maybe they’d even send her away to Millmoor.

At the thought of the slavetown a final spasm of agony jolted through her brain and she gasped.

“What happened?” Abi asked, looking between Jenner and his mother. “I don’t remember. I’m so sorry. I hope I haven’t done anything wrong?”

Mother and son exchanged glances. Abi felt her insides clench, like a wave of nausea when there’s nothing left to bring up.

“Of course you haven’t, child,” said Lady Thalia, placing the photograph back amid the Meissen figurines and jeweled gewgaws. She put her hand up to Abi’s face. Her fingers were cool against Abi’s cheek and her perfume was faint and floral. “You were here taking notes about my son’s wedding plans. But you must have caught your foot on the fender rail or these wonky old floorboards of ours, because you took a bad tumble and banged your head. You gave us quite a fright. But you’re all right now.”

“I still feel a bit funny,” Abi admitted. “I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you?”

She looked anxiously at Jenner. His expression was miserable.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Lady Thalia, with a glossy smile. And Abi sensed that beneath the show of concern, she was being dismissed. “Gavar had to head off on parliamentary business, in any event. I think it would be best if you went back to your parents and had an early night. Jenner will see you home.”

Under other circumstances, Abi would have been delighted to have Jenner’s company for the long walk to the cottages where the slave families lived. But this evening he didn’t say a word. He just dug his chin into his scarf and his hands into his pockets as they headed toward the Row, keeping always several paces in front of her. Abi had the sense of being in disgrace, though for what offense, she had no idea.

The night was cold and clear, the sky more star than dark, and their breath plumed as they walked. Abi felt her temples gingerly. She couldn’t work out exactly where she’d hit her head. Perhaps Lady Thalia had healed her, she thought. Just not very well. Kyneston’s mistress was only weakly Skilled, though she was a dab hand at repairing things broken by her eldest son in one of his rages.

At that thought, a fresh surge of pain seared the inside of her skull and Abi moaned, stopping where she stood. That made Jenner turn around, and when he saw her he immediately came back.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

And Abi couldn’t help herself. He was right there next to her, so concerned. And it was such an innocent thing to do. She reached for him again.

But he stepped away. His movement was deliberate, and it wasn’t done beneath the hawk eyes of his family. Abi ached with disappointment.

Jenner held his hands out as she’d seen him do to his gelding Conker, when the horse went skittish.

“Abigail,” he said soothingly. The assumption that he could calm her like an animal drove a spike of fury through her distress. “Please stop this. You’re a lovely girl. We make a great working team. But I think you’re getting muddled up. I’ve seen it happen before, with other girls here. Though I can’t say it’s ever happened to me.”

He gave a self-deprecating laugh, and even as Abi felt her every nerve ending tingle with shame she wanted to slap him for having such a poor opinion of himself. He was the best of them all. The only truly good and kind one.

“You’re a slave,” Jenner continued. “I’m an Equal. Wouldn’t you rather have a quick ten years in the office than be banished to the kitchen or the laundry, or sent to Millmoor, because one of my family thinks your behavior isn’t appropriate?”

Was it possible to die of mortification? Abi thought it quite possibly was. She’d be a first in medical literature. They could cut her up and study her, the pathologists’ metal hooks pulling out first her overlarge brain and then her small and shrunken heart. She felt hot tears running down her face and put her hand up to her forehead, wincing as if the pain were back. But it wasn’t her head that hurt.

“I’m sorry, Abigail,” Jenner said quietly. “But please understand, it’s easier this way. I think you know where you’re going from here? It’s not far now.”

“I know where I’m going,” she confirmed. “Thank you. I’ll be at my desk at eight-thirty, as usual.”

Abi turned away with as much dignity as she could muster. She strained to hear the moment when he went back to the house, to at least have the illusion that he stood there and watched her go, but any footfall was muffled by the grass.

She wished people had an “off” switch, she thought as she walked. Something you could just flip to shut down thought and feeling, letting muscle memory go through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other. The confusion in her heart was beyond her brain’s ability to solve. What problem in a textbook was more difficult than this? None.

The cottages of the Row were still out of sight beyond the steep rise that hid the slave quarters from the mansion. Abi was trudging up it when something monstrous and snarling plunged down toward her from the crest. She threw herself to one side as Gavar Jardine’s motorbike gouged past, the beam of its gaze dazzling her for one terrifying instant.

The heir was heading off on parliamentary business, Lady Thalia had said. So what was he doing out here? Suspicion blooming in her brain, Abi jogged up the incline.

From the top she saw the long line of whitewashed cottages, almost luminous in the moonlight. And moving toward them was a shape so large and lumpy that Abi at first thought she was mistaken, until she puzzled it out.

“Wait,” she called, and her sister turned and stopped.

Daisy had put on every coat from the hallway pegs: her own, then on top of it their father’s fleece and Mum’s down jacket. She carried an immense nest of blankets in which the swaddled form of Libby Jardine was barely discernible.

“What are you doing out here?” Abi demanded. “It’s freezing. Why did you let him drag you both outside?”

“He didn’t drag me anywhere,” her sister said stolidly. “It was my idea. He’s being sent to Millmoor again and came to say goodbye to Libby. I said I’d bring her out and told him to wait beyond the end of the Row.”

“What on earth for?”

Daisy narrowed her eyes. It would have been comical, if what she said next hadn’t been so disturbing.

“I wanted to talk to him privately.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.” Her little sister shook her head. “Might not happen. If it does, you’ll know.”

Daisy wouldn’t be drawn further. She bent over the blankets, fussing needlessly.

“You know what Gavar’s like,” Abi snapped, her frustration finally finding an outlet. “You know what Silyen told us about Libby’s mother. He’s not someone you should be having secret conversations with. Don’t be a baby; we’re not in a playground now.”

Daisy glared up at her. “It’s Heir Gavar,” she said. “And he’s always been good to me. I’m appreciated. Can you say the same?”

Daisy stomped off back toward the cottage, but Abi had no comeback to that anyway.

It was strange—she had been so certain that an estate would be the best way to keep her family together, safe and comfortable during their days. And yet here they were, divided and vulnerable like they had never been before: Luke in Millmoor, Daisy under the sway of Kyneston’s volatile heir.

What have you managed to achieve, Abi Hadley?

Not much, she told herself. Not nearly enough.

She thrust a hand into her coat pocket and felt around. There it was, the small square of metal cold against her fingertips.

There was at least one thing she was doing that made a difference. She turned her back on both the Row and the great house, and began to walk across the frozen grass.

Inside the kennels, the man was doing push-ups, muscles bunching in his arms and across his back. The cage was too small for him to stand up in, and this was the only exercise he got. As Abi’s shadow fell across him he instantly dropped to the floor, motionless. Which meant his exercise routine was covert.

Which meant that he was not entirely broken by his captivity.

“It’s me,” she said, edging closer. The light had been on in the Master of Hounds’ rooms in the eaves, which meant that the kennels would be unstaffed, but he would be close enough to hear any disturbance.

“I’ve got your antibiotics. And something to help them down with.”

Sinewy fingers thrust through the pen and took the palmful of pills. They ignored the offered apple. The dog-man shoved the medication in his mouth and gulped from his water bowl.

“I thought…” Abi hesitated, not quite able to believe what she was doing. “I thought we could take a walk. Not with the leash, I mean. Upright.”

His eyes, when they looked at her, were wary.

“Yes,” he rasped eventually.

“And you won’t run away? Or…or hurt me?”

She hated herself for having to ask that. But during her visits to the kennels she had realized that whatever had been done to the dog-man—she still didn’t know his name, because he couldn’t remember it—had chipped away at not just his humanity, but also his sanity. Occasionally on previous visits he had snarled at her. Once he had even snapped his teeth at her hand. Shaken, she hadn’t gone again for nearly a week.

Those eyes met hers. Human. Mostly.

“I won’t hurt,” he growled. “You. I won’t hurt you.”

“Anyone,” Abi insisted. Her hand shook. What was she thinking? She had no idea what he had done to be sentenced in this way—to be Condemned. All she knew was what the Master of Hounds had told her: that he had deserved his punishment at the hands of Lord Crovan. And given the horror of that punishment, she didn’t want to guess at the awfulness of his crimes.

“I’m trusting you,” she said, fitting the little key to the padlock.

“Trust,” the man rasped, before being racked by a ghastly, wheezing paroxysm.

It was laughter, Abi realized a moment later, feeling sick.

She could walk away now and leave him penned. The lock had clicked open, but it was still threaded through the clasp, holding the door shut. Her hand hovered over it.

Then she remembered Lady Thalia’s veiled dismissal. Jenner unpeeling her fingers from his sleeve. The fuzziness in her head as she came to in the Great Solar. The pain, afterward, as thoughts and memories swam through her brain and tried but failed to connect.

Something had happened in that room. Something had been done to her by the Equals. What?

“Let’s get you out,” said Abi. She plucked off the padlock, lifted the cage door slightly on its hinge so it didn’t grate across the floor, and swung it open.

For a moment, the man simply stared. Then he crept out on all fours and lay on the damp concrete. He rolled onto his back and stretched his arms above his head, straining to point his toes. He looked like a man on the rack. Every one of his ribs was visible; his abdomen a shallow dish; the hair at his groin dense and matted. His face was twisted with what could have been pain, or equally ecstasy.

Turning back onto his stomach, he hauled himself onto hands and knees. His fingers clawed their way up the side of the cage until he was kneeling upright. He paused there a moment, diaphragm ballooning. Then, with a horrible broken-boned movement, he dragged each leg into a squat.

And silently—though he must surely have wanted to howl, because what it cost him was plain on his face—the man stood.

He staggered around. It was horrible to see. Like a parody of walking performed by something inhuman. And all the while, he didn’t utter a sound.

There was a scream outside, and Abi froze. Above, a window clattered open and the Master of Hounds bellowed something obscene before banging the casement shut again.

“Owl,” gasped the dog-man.

Abi checked her watch. It was later than she’d thought.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you’d better get back in the pen. I need to go home. But I’ll come again soon, I promise. There must be something we can do. If they see you walking and talking, can see you recovering, they surely can’t make you carry on living like this, whatever it is you’ve done.”

The man wheezed again. That mirthless laugh. He dropped to the floor, slung back his haunches, and crawled inside. Turned.

“You’re in—the pen—too.” He peered through the bars, fixing Abi with glittering eyes. “Just—I see—my cage—my leash.”

Abi’s hands shook as she snapped the padlock shut.