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"Then," Ruuk said. "We Wave a foe, you and 1. He dwellssss above, in cavernssss dark, there deceivessss, demon sssservessss."

Twilight opened her mouth but wisely did not speak. Instead, she reached up at the black fluid coating her face, and realized it felt like blood-blood mixed with bile and tears, but blood nonetheless.

The sharn spoke more softly then, though its voice was no less powerful.

"Long ago," the sharn said. "Before the elf ssssang, before the human dreamed, my and mine came, out of the formlessss dark-nessss from which had arissssen moon and her dark ssssisssster.

Chaossss had ever been our sssstrength…"

Ruuk hissed with one mouth, screeched with another, and whined with the third.

"Now dying," he said. "Killed by antihessssissss, buried by logic. Ssssoul-sssstuff becomessss bane, madnessss issss death to him-her-it. Trapped!" The last was a shout, with all three voices. "Now demon-fiend-prince'ssss power waxessss and wanessss that of my people."

Twilight was uncertain whether he was talking about the race or himself. That Ruuk might be dying, Twilight had not realized, but once that thought occurred, she accepted it as a possibility-an unsettling one. What could kill a sharn?

A buzzing warned her. She cleared her mind as best she could.

The sharn gave a gesture with its three heads that might have been a nod. "Ssssink to rise, do the deed. Kill Gesssstal, your friendssss be freed."

Though Twilight's blood raced at the suggestion, she had negotiated too often to be fooled. "What if we refuse?" she asked, having no intention of doing so.

Gargan blinked at her in shock. As she could separate truth from falsehood as easily as an angel might, so could she lie with the best devils.

"Ruukthalmuramxamin issss not cruel," the sharn said. "You and he remain here, my guesssstssss until you go."

So those are the stakes, Twilight thought. She did not know how long a sharn could live, but fancied it would prove much longer than her own span.

"What if Gestal kills us? Will you release them, or keep them as prisoners?"

The sharn answered instantly, having already considered that. "No use for them," it said. "They go free."

"Your word?" she asked. Gargan looked at Twilight as though she had lost her mind, but she did not react.

The sharn growled, hissed, and spat at her, all at once with three heads. A spasm shook its body, and rune-shaped veins stood out on its black torso. It wrenched its heads toward her and bowed. "My word bindssss," it said. "My word given." "All of them go free?" she asked, her heart speeding up. "Both them."

A weight pressed upon Twilight's chest, then, and she would have fallen had not Gargan reached out strong arms to steady her. In one three-pronged syllable, the sharn had told her that Liet might live, yet his chance was only two in three.

"Which?"

"Those whom order definessss," said the sharn. It spat the word "order" with another gob of the blackish blood.

Twilight's mind raced. Surely that included Davoren-he was vile, yes, but predictably vile, to a fault. And devils had created the most rigid hierarchy in the multiverse outside the planes of law and clockwork. So that was one. One other…

Was it Slip or Liet?

Twilight closed her eyes and swore inwardly. What did it matter? She owed it to both of them, and if she might save one… she preferred Liet.

It was not that she felt remorse. Twilight had never had much use for morality. Foolish concepts like right and wrong fell before necessity, in every instance. Two things she understood, though, were weakness and shame, and her cheeks colored in both.

What kind of monster could have wished the sweet halfling dead in that moment? One with black hair, pale skin, and eyes that seemed gold-red in the light of heavy magic.

Oh, Liet.

"Release one of them now," Twilight said.

The sharn glared at her with something much like surprise, mingled with a goodly amount of outrage. "Who, why, what?"

"The one called Liet Sagrin. If you release him, we will-"