‘The black market,’ Thalric suggested disdainfully. ‘Skater-kinden, degenerate creatures as they are, they thrive on it.’

‘He’s right,’ Gaved confirmed. ‘You can buy almost anything around Jerez.’ He raised his eyebrows at Achaeos. ‘And sell anything, too.’

‘Then we have to go to Jerez,’ Achaeos decided. ‘Now. Today if we can.’

‘Achaeos, it’s inside the Empire,’ Che reminded him.

‘Just a few of us. Myself. Tisamon and Tynisa,’ he told her.

‘Just for some box?’

‘Che, I have never been more serious in my life,’ he said. ‘You were there in the Darakyon. You saw. I made you see. That is what this is about. You have to trust me.’

‘I do trust you but… you can’t wander in and expect to find Scylis just… sitting there on this box, waiting to hand it over. I don’t care how thin imperial law runs there, it’s still the Empire.’

‘Then we shall take a guide,’ the Moth said simply.

Unwillingly, Che found her eyes being dragged down the length of the table towards Thalric. He and Gaved had both been her captors, and she had made her escape from each before they had truly had a chance to make her rue it. She saw the difference between them: Gaved had some quality in him, something that told her he might have handed her over to worse men but not touched her himself. Thalric had merely been putting off the moment when she would have screamed beneath his artificer’s knife, but it would have come sooner or later. His iron sense of duty would have subjected her to such torture without remorse.

Stenwold opened his mouth to issue one of his usual blanket refusals, but it was clear in his face that he was unsure whether being in the Empire without a guide would be worse than being there with one.

‘If he comes with us, I shall watch him,’ Tisamon supplied, ‘and he knows what I will do to him if he betrays us. There is nowhere in the Empire or beyond that will then shelter him.’