His contact had informed him that guards searched the garden in the morning, before the Heir-Empress was allowed up. They were just as aware as Purloch was that the concealing shadows of night might afford an intruder a slim chance of getting past the sentries, and even that slim chance was too much. The information was good. Purloch heard the clatter of pikes as they passed him by. But they had searched the garden a thousand times before and never found a thing, so their search was only cursory. They never suspected. The newly turned soil of the flower bed showed no sign of the disturbance Purloch had created while digging himself into it.

Now the guards were gone, and the child was here alone. Time to do what had to be done. Slipping silently along, he undid the clasp of the dagger at his belt.

He found the girl in a small paved oval hemmed in by trees. A cat was chasing its tail, while the Heir-Empress watched it with a strangely detached look on her face. The cat was absorbed in its own capering, so much so that it did not hear his approach. Lucia did, however, though he had made not a sound. She slowly looked into the foliage, right at him, and said: 'Who are you?'

The man slid out from behind a tumisi tree, and the cat bolted. Lucia regarded the newcomer with an unfathomable gaze.

'My name is of no consequence,' Purloch replied. He was clearly nervous, glancing about, eager to be gone.

Lucia watched him placidly.

'My lady, I must take something from you,' he said, drawing his dagger from its sheath.

The air around them exploded in a frenzy of movement, a thrashing of black wings that beat at the senses and caused Purloch to cry out and fall to his knees, his arm across his face to shield it from the tumult.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Purloch lowered his arm, and his breath caught in his throat.

The child was cloaked in ravens. They buried her, perching on her shoulders and arms: a mantle of dark feathers. They surrounded her, too, a thick carpet of the creatures. Dozens more perched in the branches nearby. Now and then one of them stirred, preening under a wing or shuffling position; but all of them watched him with their dreadful black, beady eyes.