‘Where were you supposed to take the box?’ the Moth asked.

‘Back to Helleron,’ Gaved replied promptly. ‘Believe me when I say I wish I’d never taken on this job. Helleron’s usually as far south as I make it, and I should have kept it that way. This was a fool’s errand: Phin and the Fly dead, and I didn’t even come away with the goods.’

‘Which brings us to your companion,’ Achaeos said carefully. He had already made his suspicions known to Che and Stenwold.

‘Oh, Scylis?’ Gaved said, in tones of disgust. ‘A treacherous bastard, he is. By now Scylis will be living it up in Helleron with all four helpings of our bounty money.’

At which point the last man seated at the table said, ‘Scylis?’

It was the first thing he had said so far. He was similarly unbound, but Tisamon stood close behind him, wearing his clawed gauntlet, and with a stance that said he was looking forward to any attempt at escape.

‘Thalric,’ Stenwold acknowledged his query. ‘The name means something to you?’

It had been an uncertain decision, whether to bring Thalric to this table, but, suspect as he was, he was their authority on imperial affairs, and they had a Wasp to interrogate. The initial reaction between the two men had been one of outright hostility. This was not Gaved hating the deserter but Thalric loathing the mercenary for, despite his turned coat, Thalric’s mind was still black and gold.

‘Oh, I once knew a Spider named Scylis,’ Thalric explained. ‘A very… able agent. Your niece, for one, should have cause to remember him.’

‘We all have good cause, Thalric,’ Stenwold informed him flatly, as Gaved merely looked on frowning. ‘We know something of what this Scylis is capable, and if anyone could walk out of Collegium in the middle of a siege and get all the way to Helleron…’

‘I had wondered,’ Thalric said, with a tinge of mockery in his voice, ‘if you would finally start believing.