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‘There are those who might use my services here? The lady of the house, perhaps?’ Maure enquired, as though simply having turned up there as a solitary vagabond.

‘Not the lady, I think,’ Lisan Dea replied, ‘but there are others, nonetheless.’ She had clearly somehow recognized the services that Maure could provide, and there was a hint of some small tragedy written in her features, some impenetrable loss that Che would never dare ask about, and that Maure would never report. The Grasshopper nodded suddenly, gathering her composure about her like a cloak. ‘You are welcome here, Maure, for the gifts you bring. You are welcome, Cheerwell Maker, as the sister of our guest. Your companions are not so welcome, however.’

Che opened her mouth to protest, but the Grasshopper held up one lean finger. ‘They will be lodged with other servants of the Salmae.’

‘Go,’ Thalric suggested. ‘Do what you’ve come to do and then we’ll be well rid of this place.’

Stepping into the shadow of the Commonwealer castle caused an almost physical shock, so that Che was forced to clutch at Maure’s arm, feeling disoriented by the shift between what she saw and what she felt. That it was daylight outside, channelled in by the high windows, seemed to be denied by every part of her but her eyes. That the high-vaulted ceilings made the halls beneath airy and spacious, her senses insisted was false, a mere gloss. She felt as though she was entombed underground. She felt as though those lofty arches were not for the convenience of a flying kinden, but simply to accommodate ponderous forms of much greater stature than herself, and that these Commonwealers were merely living in their discarded shells.

In short, although the design was as different as several hundred miles of distance, and perhaps several centuries of time, could account for, she felt that she already knew the builders of this place. Their presence, even the last decaying scraps of it, oppressed her. Of all the kinden of the world, and of all the secrets of history, she’d had enough of them.

She glanced at Maure, but it was impossible to tell whether the necromancer recognized her disquiet. In front of Lisan Dea, the mystic was all business.

‘Your sister came to us at the start of winter, from Suon Ren,’ the Grasshopper was saying. She had deliberately slowed her long-legged pace to let Che keep up, but because of that she seemed to be watching always from the corner of her eye, reading every least twitch of Che’s features. The Beetle girl made a dutiful show of listening.

‘It seemed she was not in favour, and had little to offer us, nor did she know our ways or how to behave. It seemed that would be the end of it, and that the spring would see her dispatched back to the Lowlands.’ Lisan Dea recited the words neutrally, taking no side.

‘This has changed, then?’ Che put in, because she felt it was expected of her.

‘After winter she demonstrated talents that fit the times,’ the seneschal replied. ‘So she is in favour, so long as those times last.’

Talents that fit the times. Under Tisamon’s tutelage Tynisa had devoted herself to one particular talent and, now that the man’s ghost was guiding her through this time of conflict, the seneschal’s words were not difficult to understand. ‘She was always skilled,’ she managed. The presence of Tynisa, through walls of stone, seemed palpably closer, and Che was wondering what manner of reception she might receive. What would the ghost drive her sister to do?

Then the Grasshopper made an abrupt turn, leading her guests through an arched door flanked by tapestries of red and gold – and there was Tynisa.

The room she stood in was lit by oblique shafts of light descending from windows cut high into one wall, a light so crisp and clear that Che wondered whether guests were only received in this chamber at this one particular time. The rush matting on the floor, left mostly in shadow, spoke of martial practice. At the far end of the room stood Tynisa herself, where the floor stepped up to a raised