45

The carving above the door of the Golden Horse, a narrow tavern between narrow houses in a street south of the Grand Canal’s northern mouth, looked more like a donkey. Once cheaply gilded, it now peeled in patches. The bits not peeling were the hue of rancid fat. Tycho wasn’t surprised to hear a man pissing outside call it the Mouldering Mule. The man stank, as did the tavern and the street in which he pissed. Anywhere near a tannery always stank.

Shit shovellers and tanners’ boys bathed daily. Probably the only people in the city to do so. Except for the very rich, for whom bathing was an expression of power. The difference was that the rich bathed inside, sitting on huge sponges, their baths shrouded by tents to preserve the heat. While the shit shovellers and tanners boys bathed in canals that were frozen in winter and rancid in summer. So rancid that their sole virtue was that they stank less than those bathing.

The man leaving the Mouldering Mule worked a shit boat. From the smell of him he’d decided to have a drink or three before facing the waters of the canal.

“What are you looking at?”

Ignoring him, Tycho turned to go in. He wore his black leather coat, collar turned up. Black doublet, black codpiece, black hose, black boots. Maybe these made customers stare when he began to push his way through. Many glanced up, most glanced away. A human response to seeing someone pass.

A few kept staring.

He could stare back or look away. The first a challenge, the second surrender. So he glanced away, heard a snort and glanced straight back, hardening his gaze. It left his mocker uncertain. Shouldering him aside, Tycho found a table near the back. A one-eyed ex-soldier sat with a heavy glass in front of him.

“This stool free?”

The man spat into the sawdust. “What do you think?”

Tycho sat himself and smiled at the man’s scowl. After a moment, the soldier went back to examining his mug of wine. The woman who came over to take Tycho’s order was Schiavoni, large and busty. In a Venetian her tied-up hair would make her married. With the Schiavoni who knew?

Apart from another Schiavoni, obviously.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Barolo… A jug.”

She scowled. “Red, white, strong beer, small beer. You want anything else go somewhere else.”

“Barolo.”

The soldier laughed. “Your red’s shit,” he told her. “Your white’s worse. As for the beer, you should pay us to drink it. Tell Marco to give him a jug of the good stuff.”

When she came back, she banged Tycho’s jug down hard enough to make her breasts bounce and wine slop across the table. Running his finger through the puddle, Tycho licked it. When he looked up, she was blushing. He gave her a tornsello and a half coin and watched her flounce away. At the counter, she looked back and flounced some more.

“Too bad you’ll never get to explore what’s in that blouse…” Pushing a folded note around the newly made wine puddle, the soldier said, “Can you read?”

“A bit.” Tycho said.

“More than I can.”

Along the Fondamenta delle Tette, the bare tits and rouged nipples that gave the brothel canal its name were on display. In a hundred and fifty pairs of chilly flesh, and an endless choice of shapes from barely there to pendulous. The patriarch owned this area. The Church having decided that making whores cheap, available and frequent would cut down on sodomy, at least between men.

“You’re no fun…”

The half-naked girl in a tavern full of sailors and off-duty soldiers scowled at Tycho, who shrugged and didn’t bother to disagree.

“I’m cheap,” she said. “And good.”

He could see why she might be proud of the second. But being proud of the first was odd. Unless he misunderstood her.

“And I’m here on business.”

Turning away, she threw her arms around the neck of a passing Schiavoni bosun, who nodded at her whispered price and thrust his hand up her skirt; unable to wait until he reached the stalls before beginning to toy with his purchase.

Although Tycho drank as little as he could get away with at each stop his head was still spinning, and his thoughts wandering by the time he reached the Alexandrian, his fifth destination. A single-storey building leant against the side of a palace, with the fish market downstream on the Canalasso’s far side. He approached it along a narrow alley, and found himself facing an original palace, which was halfway through being rebuilt. Bamboo scaffolding rose in the darkness.

Slick with rain, the rope lashing the lengths together was dark and swollen. A vicious-looking guard dog turned to watch Tycho approach. And for the first time since he’d arrived in Venice a dog raised his hackles and launched an attack. Only to be brought up short by its chain.

Picking itself up, it bared its fangs and tried again.

“Easy,” said Tycho.

This only drove the beast into a frenzy of snapping teeth. Until saliva flew and the beast’s eyes looked ready to roll in its head. Dogs ignore me, Tycho thought. It wasn’t that they liked him or disliked him. They simply behaved as if he didn’t exist, until now. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.

The club’s owner obviously had permission from the palace’s new owner to keep trading, because nothing looked temporary. The Alexandrian was as far from the Mouldering Mule as two drinking dens could be. Far further than the thousand steps it would take to walk from one to the other. Above this door stood a gilded warrior, dressed in a battle skirt and holding a sword. “Iskander” said a carving on its base. “Conqueror of the Known World.”

The room was narrow but deep, with a painted ceiling. The floor paved in Istrian stone that was almost clean. A carpet hung on one wall, its reds and browns matched by smaller carpets on other walls. Marble-topped tables matched stools that didn’t wobble. Candles burnt in candelabra.

And the air stank of beeswax, incense, expensive wine and perfume so heavy Tycho thought he’d wandered into another brothel by mistake. According to Atilo, brothels existed in Venice for every taste. Young women, older women. Whores who would hurt you. Whores who liked to be hurt. Whores who didn’t like to be hurt, but, for extra, you could hurt them anyway. The best provided food, usually at a loss. Food and drink and hazard tables and areas for conversations best not overheard. According to Atilo brothels were for more than fucking.

A dozen masks looked across. None looked away and Tycho could feel their hunger. Languidly pushing back his chair, a figure in a white mask, red silk gown and golden shawl came to drape one arm around Tycho’s shoulders.

“First time?” Before Tycho could respond, a waddling doll propelled herself to her feet, and hurried over.

“He’s with us.”

“I saw him first.”

“Allophone, you’d be wise…”

The first figure dropped his arm from around Tycho’s neck and left hurriedly, muttering apologies and protests that he hadn’t realised who he’d been talking to.

“He’s a little idiot,” Hightown Crow said, pushing back his gilded mask and smoothing the front of a purple gown. “But a pretty little idiot. Who will get himself into trouble. Probably serious trouble if we’re lucky.”

Tycho gaped at him.

“Welcome to the Alexandrian,” said Dr. Crow. “I have two patrons who want to meet you.” He pointed to a door at the back.

“You’re grown,” Duchess Alexa said. She looked at Tycho thoughtfully. “Into what is another question. In height, certainly. Atilo tells me you’re ready for testing…”

“Yes, madame.”

She laughed at his flatness of tone. “Still hate me, do you?”

“I’d kill you.”

“What prevents you?”

Something did. His fury at seeing the woman who used Rosalyn as bait to catch him burnt like flame. And that Rosalyn had died that night should have… But the flame shrank and shrivelled, leaving only regret. Blinking, Tycho claimed back a little of his anger. “Magic.”

Alexa smiled. “Close enough.”

“I’ll kill you though, eventually.”

“When you’re able to kill me you’ll no longer want to…”

“Don’t count on it.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “You should know I count on nothing.” Tiny octopuses filled a plate on a table in front of her. They were dressed with oil, large flakes of pepper and sprigs of some dried herb. “Try one,” Duchess Alexa said.

Tycho shook his head.

“I insist.” Tycho popped a tiny octopus into his mouth, feeling it wriggle briefly as he crunched. “Did you taste it?”

He nodded, swallowing his mouthful.

“Now eat another.”

This time he felt a tiny spark and watched the duchess smile at the surprise in his eyes.

“Finish the plate.”

By the time he bit into the last wriggling morsel the spark was obvious. A flicker of tiny lightning as the creature died. Wiping the platter clean with a sliver of bread, Tycho was surprised to find himself happier.

“You know why you’re here?”

“For the testing.”

“In the old days my husband would give your master the name of someone he needed dead. A foreign prince. A troublesome priest. Your job would be to make that happen. Tell me what deniability is.”

“I know you did it. You know you did it. I can’t prove it.”

She laughed. “The basis of a perfect kill. No one can prove a thing. A trick kill blames someone else. A non-kill looks like a suicide. A possible kill looks almost like an accident. That’s its subtlety. Since doubt enters our enemies’ hearts like a blade. I can see from your face Atilo has taught you this. So, another question. Why do we allow this club to exist?”

“It keeps Dr. Crow happy.”

She clapped her hands. “Marco would have loved you,” she said. “So young, so cynical. What else?”

“It gives you his friends to blackmail.”

“So astute. If I told you to kill Dr. Crow, would you?”

“Happily, my lady.”

“I almost want to make him your target. Sadly, this comes first.” Unrolling a piece of paper, she revealed an ink drawing. Somewhat between man and wolf, with sharp ears, shaggy fur, pointed snout and long claws. Tycho felt his throat tighten.

“You recognise it?” Alexa asked.

“No, my lady.”

“Would you lie?”

“Of course not, my lady.” Tycho glanced round the room. A raised divan covered with a silk carpet was visible behind her chair. More carpets draped the walls. A tiny single window was leaded with small circles of glass. The room’s only real oddity was its smell. A mix of smoke and something sharper. Tycho had been catching traces of the latter all night.

“Hashish,” said Alexa, “the poor man’s opium.” She nodded to a fretted brass dish, which dribbled smoke. “Your nose wrinkled.”

“And you read my thoughts?”

“Not easy. In fact, surprisingly hard. But tell me first how you got here…” She waited expectantly.

Tycho opened his mouth to say he walked from behind San Simeon Piccolo, along the edge of the Rio Marin, and Rio di San Polo, then cut between the churches of San Aponal and San Silvestro to the Rialto bridge. The way anyone Venetian would describe his walk. Only, he realised, as he prepared to answer, this was not what she meant. “I don’t know.”

His words tasted bitter as ink.

“Ragnarok,” she said. “I see more than you think.”

“Not my beliefs.” He said it without thinking, but it was true. Lord Eric and his followers believed in flames and fire at the end of time. Tycho’s mother was not Viking, nor Skaelingar. That much Withered Arm had told him.

Duchess Alexa seemed strangely pleased with his answer. “That’s Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland.” She gestured at the drawing. “His father’s emperor, his mother’s French. He’s a krieghund. As the German’s bastard, a krieghund and the German envoy, Leopold is protected. In all senses…”

Tycho should ask what the duchess meant.

She sighed when he stayed silent. “Officially, we can’t touch him. No matter what he does.” Tycho shouldn’t ask what that meant. This was not his to know. Assassini orders existed to be obeyed, without question and without thought. Thought limited action in the happening, according to Atilo, and destroyed the chance of rest afterwards.

“What’s he done?”

“None of your business.” Duchess Alexa tipped her head. “Surely you were told that?”

“It’s almost the first lesson.”

She laughed, reached for her glass of wine and sipped it, careful not to stain her gauze veil. “He murdered fifteen women over the course of five months. Well, his men did. Only three of the deaths mattered. The third, the seventh and the last. There’s a subtlety in that. Killing at random so his target kills appeared also to be by chance. And then, to finish, he destroyed the Assassini. In a single night, a year and a half ago, his Wolf Brothers killed most of Atilo’s men. They crippled Venice’s reach and left us open to threats.”

“Why not act before now?”

“So,” she said. “You can think as well as look pretty. In which case, answer your own question…”

“The time wasn’t right?”

“You weren’t ready.”

Tycho looked at her and knew his mouth hung open. So he shut it smartly and smoothed the shock from his face. More rested on tonight than he first thought.

“How could so many Assassini be killed?”

Duchess Alexa took a deep breath. Such a deep one that her breasts rose beneath her dress, and she saw him notice… “Concentrate,” she snapped, and Tycho knew she intended to tell him.

Lady Giulietta had been abducted twice.

Most recently by the Mamluks. There was something about the way Duchess Alexa said this that troubled Tycho. But by then she’d returned to talking about Prince Leopold. He’d been behind the first abduction. And Alexa and the Regent hadn’t even known about it until Atilo returned Giulietta, distraught and in tears, to the palace and reported his losses to…

“The Council,” Prince Alonzo said, shutting a door crossly behind him. “You should have waited.”

“I did…”

“And yet here the two of you are.” His gaze swept the room, the carpeted bed and single glass of wine before finally reaching Tycho and dismissing him. “I guess I should be grateful talking’s all I find you doing.”

“Is there a point to this?” Duchess Alexa demanded, sliding the freshly rolled scroll discreetly into her pocket. The Regent and his sister-in-law faced each other, both on their feet and leaning forward. The difference was that Alonzo was blind drunk.

“We agreed to do this together.”

“I was simply awaiting your arrival.”

“Of course you were. You…” Alonzo glared at Tycho. “What do you know so far?”

“Nothing, my lord.”

“Good. Your job is to kill a German princeling. He means nothing. It’s a test. That’s all you need to know.” Leaning forward, he emptied Alexa’s wine glass, either forgetting or not caring it wasn’t his. “Kill the bastard, kill his sister, kill everyone in the house…”

“Alonzo…”

“You have a problem with that?”

“This isn’t what we agreed.”

“We didn’t agree you’d see this brat first, either. Do you see me complaining? He kills Leopold, end of story. Let your Moor prove he hasn’t lost his grip.” Refilling Alexa’s glass from a jug, Alonzo emptied it again. Only to look up and appear surprised Tycho was still there. “You,” he said. “Go make yourself useful.”

At the door, Tycho was stopped by a question. “How old are you?” asked Duchess Alexa.

Prince Alonzo snorted.

“Seventeen winters. Maybe eighteen.”

And maybe more, if the fact that Bjornvin burnt a century before meant anything. And there were his dreams of slaughter, of light and ice.

Ca’ Friedland was ten minutes’ walk from the Rialto bridge, north along the right bank of the Canalasso, at the corner with Rio di San Felice. A once unfashionable area that was obviously being redeveloped. Prince Leopold’s palace was a huge waterside mansion in the old style, its grey façade black with age. A single lamp burnt in an upstairs window and an ordinary looking gondolino was moored by its watergate. Tycho had assumed a prince’s gondolino would be grander.

Tycho would have liked a house like this. One that rose five storeys, with endless arched windows. A house with columns and statues, and probably carpets and tapestries.

“No you don’t,” said a voice.

A beggar squatted on the quayside. Rat eyes bright in the night as he curled a turd into the dirt. He was squinting to see more of Tycho than shadow.

“Fuck off now. This is my patch.”

Closing the gap, Tycho killed. Simply shifting from there to here to break the man’s neck and lower him silently, before life left his eyes. A splash, and the current carried a new corpse. The kill was instinctive, unpremeditated.

Tonight he’d discovered Atilo’s truth. A truth Tycho doubted Amelia and Iacopo had worked out. The Assassini’s greatest weapon was currently their name, backed up by the occasional murder, and the fact no one had yet discovered how weak they really were. It would take years to rebuild the group. Atilo didn’t have years. He was an old man busy making a fool of himself with a younger woman. And looked—more so every day—to be regretting it.

The Assassini were there for Tycho’s taking.

Atilo insisted belief made fools of men. Tycho had started to wonder if lack of belief wasn’t more crippling. Tycho didn’t believe in anything. Not really. He might do if he knew how. But, most days, the hole where his heart should be felt too huge to fill. Being the duke’s Blade might fill it.

Get to it, he told himself.

The walls were built from crudely cut Istrian stone, and rotting brick held by mortar that had soured years earlier. Cracks meant handholds were easy. All the same, Tycho made himself edge round to Rio di San Felice, and scale the side of Ca’ Friedland that rose from the narrow canal, using the shadows to hide himself. Tycho had no wish to be spotted by the Watch, another beggar or some passing drunk.

Idle thoughts filled his climb.

Another handhold and he’d be outside the only lit window. A balcony called him from above and Tycho reached for it, hooking one hand over a decorative detail made from a single run of bricks, before stretching for the balcony’s floor.

He should concentrate but the climb was easy. Not suspiciously so. Simply easy. A climb that would have left Iacopo exhausted barely troubled him. His heartbeat as slow as ever. His skin cool to the touch.

No sweat, no sign of fear.

Listen, he told himself sharply. Do this properly.

The problem was he knew three drunks were leaving a tavern in Campo San Felice. He’d already noticed the splash of oars from an unlit vipera in the rio below. The law forbade unlicensed movement on the side canals after dark, and sluice gates blocked many of the smaller intersections, but gates could be raised if smugglers offered enough.

A clipclop of hooves came from the street.

To ride like a Venetian was an insult. For all stables existed in the city, the standard of horsemanship was appalling, according to Atilo. Anyway, riders had to dismount before crossing the Rialto bridge, and horses couldn’t be brought into Piazza San Marco, but had to be tethered next to the Mint. So the only point of owning one was show.

And from inside the Ca’ Friedland?

The sound of a harpsichord. An instrument he recognised because Desdaio had one at Atilo’s house. Hers was Flemish, as were most in Venice. Whoever was playing was good. Desdaio simply managed basic tunes.

See who was in there or keep climbing? The question answered itself when the music stopped, a stool scraped back and he heard a woman grunt gently as she lifted a heavy lamp. Behind the shutters the room dimmed to darkness.

Tycho kept climbing.

Grit rattled beneath his boots and fell with the sound of rats scuttling as it trickled down the wall to patter lightly on a balcony below. Too much noise, he thought, listening to falling dust settle and wondering why it didn’t worry him.

Because he was drugged.

The twist of Iacopo’s body as he picked the glass from the floor. Iacopo’s sudden decision not to drink small beer after all. Tycho using the glass, to drink down the last of the water before leaving for the Mouldering Mule. It all made sense. He’d been feeling strangely relaxed since.

One chance, Atilo said.

That was what everyone got. No exceptions.

Failure would see him sold as a slave, supposedly. Although Tycho suspected, given his recently learnt skills, failure would see him dead. Which was fine, he didn’t intend to fail. He intended to kill the German and return to Ca’ il Mauros to rip out Iacopo’s throat.

Levering himself over a parapet, Tycho dropped to a crouch and discovered he wasn’t alone. A dark-haired man waited five or six paces away, lazily elegant in an open shirt; his crouch a mocking mirror of Tycho’s own. He was grinning behind his beard. “I hope you realise you stink like a polecat? And—I have to admit—I thought you planned to hang on the edge of that balcony all night.”

“Leopold Bas Friedland?”

“Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland.” His eyes slid over Tycho’s costume. “Is that how Atilo dresses his bum boys these days? And that sword… I thought a dagger in the back was more the Venetian style?”

“You’re not an assassin?”

The German flushed at Tycho’s jibe. Much of the humour going out of his face. “I’m a soldier in a secret war. A peasant like you wouldn’t understand what that means.”

Tycho snorted.

“Took you long enough to get here.”

“A few minutes to climb your crappy wall.”

“Eighteen months to pluck up the courage.” Prince Leopold saw Tycho’s scowl. “Oh, not you. You’re the disposable bit in this. The Regent, Duchess Alexa, that raddled Moor she’s fucking. Perhaps you should tell me before you die… What took them so long?”

Tycho drew his sword.

In the muted light of a cloud-shrouded moon he saw Prince Leopold’s eyes narrow. Tycho’s blade glittered like water reflecting sunshine. And then Prince Leopold’s gaze flicked upwards, and a patch of black detached itself from the night’s upturned bowl with a creak like old leather.

“Six months to make the sword,” it said. “A year to turn this boy into your death. Another five minutes for that to become a reality. Emperor’s bastard or not, Prince Leopold, you’ve plagued this city too long.”

“Alexa, and I thought you didn’t care.”

Rolling the sword across his hand, Tycho swept a figure of eight. It felt like any sword to him. For all that its blade… Stepping closer, Tycho saw the blade brighten. So he stepped back quickly and saw it dim.

“Well I never,” the prince said. “A mage sword matched to a boy who doesn’t quite know how to use it. This should be interesting.”

He drew and lunged in the same second.

His lunge changing direction. Tycho was so busy blocking he almost missed the dagger in Leopold’s other hand. It would have killed him had it pierced his side. Instead it ripped his doublet and drew blood.

Both men stepped back.

Your job is to kill a German princeling. He means nothing. That’s all you need to know. The Regent’s words rang sour in Tycho’s memory.

In a year, Tycho had swapped a crude knowledge of axes for swordplay, knife work and unarmed combat. But he’d also half-learnt to read, studied poisons, and discussed politics. He felt spread thin in the face of a man who held a sword like an extension of his own arm.

“Ready to die?” Prince Leopold asked.

Dropping his dagger, the prince raised his sword. As if intentionally opening himself to attack. But he could sweep his weapon down to either side or straight ahead. He could block every stroke Tycho offered with a single move. So Tycho raised his blade in turn, and waited.

Overhead, cracking leather circled.

Dipping and swooping and offering dry clicks that sounded like falling dust. When it swooped close, Tycho realised it was large. As large as his doublet given the power to fly. Prince Leopold snorted, flicked his gaze at the clicking darkness, and struck as Tycho’s gaze followed, swinging his blade in an arc brutal enough to lop a man off at the knees.

Metal met metal. Sparks flying as shock numbed their arms.

Tycho had no idea how he blocked the blow. From the look on Prince Leopold’s face he had no idea either. Sweeping the man’s sword aside, Tycho went for his throat. Almost losing his own entrails as Leopold ducked beneath the strike and spun, his sword passing a hair’s breadth from Tycho’s belly.

The princeling changed styles three times in seven moves. Switching again for the three strikes after. Blocking a skull strike, Tycho jumped a Sicilian sweep, just avoiding a backslash to his Achilles heel. Tycho’s arm was already dead to the shoulder. His fingers gripped his sword from instinct.

When he stepped back, Prince Leopold was also gasping, sweat running down his face. The veins in his neck standing out like hawsers. His scowl said Tycho shouldn’t have been able to survive that rally.

His next attack came so fast it drove Tycho to the parapet.

Risking a glance, Tycho saw a low wall stretch away on both sides behind him. Beyond his attacker, a roof rose steadily. On that slope’s far side would be another slope falling gently to a gutter cutting across the roof’s middle. A second slope would rise and fall beyond that, ending above the land gate.

It was a traditional design.

Ducking a blow, Tycho tried to spin past Prince Leopold, risking death to reach the slope. Had he succeeded he’d have had the roof’s height on his side and room to fight freely. But Prince Leopold’s sword caught his above the hilt and took the blade from Tycho’s hand.

The princeling’s smile was gone.

Opening his mouth, he bared teeth in a grin that narrowed his eyes to slits. A trickle of drool ran down his beard and Tycho felt his stomach lurch. Lord Eric’s brother had been berserker. They lived outside pain. Died outside it too. They’d crawl up a sword to gut the man who stabbed them.

As Tycho waited, night clouds parted.

A full moon nailed Tycho to the spot, fever waterfalling through his body as the sky went red around him and the city acquired hard edges and the water in its canals glowed like molten steel. For the first time ever, he let the moon’s rays take him and felt his dog teeth descend.

Opposite him, Prince Leopold raised his face to the blood moon and howled, his body arching as his shriek split the air. Behind him the stars distorted, and the shimmering air ripped as worlds fought each other.

The stronger of the worlds won.

Peeling back, the skin of Prince Leopold’s chest split to reveal blood, raw flesh and fur beneath. His ribcage cracked. Muscles tearing and ribs breaking as unseen hands racked him, dislocating his joints and twisting him to a newer shape. Prince Leopold’s clothes tore too. Rags he ripped away to stand naked. His fingers turning to claws and black fur flowing in a wave across his reformed body. Blood dripped from his jaws where his teeth had extended.

Sex erect, head back, Prince Leopold screamed at the moon.

When his gaze flicked to Tycho it was animal.

The sword he’d been wielding fell from his claws and clattered to the lead of the roof. The prince barely noticed. He was too busy completing the changes that made him krieghund.

Tycho moved.

He moved so fast the roof blurred as he reached the sword he’d dropped, grabbed it up and adopted the stance Prince Leopold had used earlier. Legs apart, blade held high above his head.

“Ready to die?” he asked.

The krieghund’s eyes blazed as it dropped to a crouch and sprang. Leaping high over Tycho, it twisted on landing, claws raking down Tycho’s spine. Blood rose black and sticky through torn leather, pain hitting Tycho a moment later. So shocking, he dropped to his knees.

The red sky faltered.

A second later, Tycho realised he’d dropped the sword.

The creature reached it before him.

It stood on Tycho’s blade, jaws so wide its tongue lolled from one side. While Tycho stood in a puddle of his own blood watched by the grinning monster. Stepping sideways, Tycho saw the krieghund do the same.

So he did it again and again.

Always moving closer to Prince Leopold’s own sword. Until he was close enough to grab it from lead flashing at his feet. And the creature howled with laughter as Tycho let go, clutching his fingers.

The sword was bewitched in some way.

Magic was all Tycho needed.

He reached for Prince Leopold’s sword again, his fingers blistering. The prince was judging distances and Tycho only just ducked in time to avoid claws jagging for his throat. He was about to retreat, when crackling blackness eclipsed the moon and Prince Leopold leapt high, trying to hook the irritation from the air.

And in that moment the red sky steadied.

“Become yourself,” the bat said.

To do so was to ignore every rule Atilo had taught him about remaining in control. But Tycho obeyed anyway, embracing the moonlight. Across his back cuts began to mend. The pain in his fingers vanished. The city became as clear as day. Stretching out around him with a shocking clarity. Light scribbled bright lines around the buildings. He had the secrets and the scents of the city in an instant

He discovered how both Leopold zum Bas Friedland and the guard dog from the Alexandrian knew he was coming. His boots stank. It should be unmissable. And then Tycho identified the drug in his blood dulling his senses, and felt the effects wither as whatever made him who he was swept it swiftly away.

Standing on Prince Leopold’s blade, Tycho snapped it in two and hurled handle and hilt, seeing it scour a line in the wolfthing’s cheek. His blade might be magic. The handle was common metal. Stepping back, Tycho swallowed the roof’s layout in a single glance. He felt…

Good came in there somewhere.

Good, and focused. And here, and now. He belonged inside his own skin for the first time ever. Looking at his fingers, he realised they were longer. His skin whiter. When he raised a hand to his mouth his fingers came away bloody. His dog teeth had grown. Not like this creature’s. His face hadn’t twisted and become animal, it had refined.

This was what being Fallen meant.

His speed and strength were simply side effects. Good ones, but side effects as surely as his hatred of sunlight. “You die here,” Tycho said.

And the krieghund feared him.

They met in the middle of a leap. Crashing into each other so hard a human’s bones would have broken. Tycho landed three paces away, spinning sideways as the krieghund used the parapet for leverage and leapt straight back. Tycho swept one foot under the creature as it landed, sending it rolling towards a corner.

As he grabbed the creature’s hips to hurl it to the canal below, it twisted and sank claws into his shoulders, dragging him close. Tycho could smell the krieghund’s fetid breath. Feel dog-like heat rise from its body.

Struggling would bury those claws in his flesh. Pulling away wouldn’t free him. Going close put him within jaw reach. The krieghund was strong but Tycho was faster. That had to count for something.

He kneed the krieghund from instinct and heard the creature gasp. So he kneed it again, and as its grip faltered, put his elbow into its throat.

The beast stumbled. Clawed hands clutching for its neck as it fell to its knees, rocking backwards and forwards. As if keening in silence. Maybe it was, Tycho thought, not caring either way.