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There was a moment, a tiny moment, when he did not recognize what he pulled out. Flimsy and almost weightless, it felt as he drew it out like crumbling parchment, like dead leaves. Then he held it in the faint grey light of the moonlit room and he saw it was a pair of khepri wings.

Isaac let out a sound, an exhalation of shocked misery. His eyes widened in horror.

“Oh no,” he said, hyperventilating. “Oh no oh no no no . . .”

The wings had been bent and rolled, and their delicate substance was shattered. They desquamated in great clots of translucent matter. Isaac’s fingers trembled as he tried to smooth them down. His fingertips brushed their battered surface. He was humming a single note, a tremulous keening. He fumbled with the envelope, brought out a single sheet of folded paper.

It was typewritten, with a chessboard or patchwork standard printed at its top. As he read it, Isaac began to cry out wordlessly.

Copy 1: Aspic Hole.

(Others to be delivered to Brock Marsh, Salacus Fields)

Mr. Dan der Grimnebulin,

Khepri cannot make sounds, but I judge by the chymicals she was exuding and the trembling of those bugger legs that Lin found the removal of these useless wings a deeply unpleasant experience. I don’t doubt that her lower body would also have been fighting us had we not strapped the bug-bitch in a chair.

Lucky Gazid can give you this message, as it is he I have to thank for your interference.

I gather that you have been trying to squeeze in on the dreamshit market. At first I thought you might have wanted all that ‘shit you bought from Gazid for yourself, but the idiot man’s wittering eventually turned to your caterpillar in Brock Marsh, and I realized the magnitude of your scheme.

You would never get top grade ‘shit from a moth weaned on human-consumption dreamshit, of course, but you could have charged less for your inferior product. It is in my interest to keep all my customers connoisseurs. I will tolerate no competition.

As I have subsequently learnt, and as one might have expected from an amateur, you couldn’t control your damn producer. Your shit-fed runt escaped through your incompetence, and liberated its siblings. You stupid man.

Here are my demands. (i) That you give yourself up to me immediately. (ii) That you return the remains of the dreamshit you stole from me through Gazid, or pay me compensation (sum to be arranged). (iii) That you pursue the task of recapturing my producers, along with your pathetic specimen, to be handed over to me immediately. After such time as this, we will discuss your continued life.

While we wait to hear your response, I will continue my discussions with Lin. I have been enjoying her company greatly over these last weeks, and relish the chance to deal with her more closely. We have a little wager. She bets that you will respond to this epistle while she still retains some of her headlegs. I remain unconvinced. The current rate is one headleg every two days we do not hear from you after today. Who will be proved right?

I will rip them from her while she twitches and spits, do you understand? And within two weeks I will tear her carapace from her headbody and feed her living head to the rats. I will personally hold her down while they lunch.

I very much look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Motley.

When Derkhan, Yagharek and Lemuel reached the ninth floor, they could hear Isaac’s voice. He was talking slowly, in low tones. They could not make out what he was saying, but it sounded like a monologue. He was not pausing to hear or see any responses.

Derkhan knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, she pushed it tentatively open and peered inside.

She saw Isaac and another man. It was only a few seconds before she recognized Gazid, and saw that he had been butchered. She gasped and moved slowly inside, letting Yagharek and Lemuel slip in behind her.

They stood and stared at Isaac. He was sitting on the bed, holding a pair of insectile wings and a piece of paper.