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herself from turning around and fleeing as far and as fast as she could.
    There were carved wards set into the stone either side of the doorway, faintly glowing in the shadow. She could see them for what they were because she wore the ink to do so, although their designs were arcane and their functions obscure. Those shallow engravings were responsible for part of her terror. The rest came from inside herself.
    She took a step closer, and felt their full impact. If they’d gone for her, she’d have been a mewling, vomiting heap on the ground, unable to escape, utterly defenceless. Perhaps someone would have been along later to drag her away and trust she’d learnt her lesson. Or drag her inside, depending on their mood.
    She’d seen it for herself, once, down at the novices’ house. It had been instructive, but if she’d been asked to say what had actually happened, she’d have shrugged and said that the man had died, eventually.
    It was still the effect of the wards. She swallowed hard and pushed through. As soon as she crossed the threshold, their influence faded, and she was left in the wide corridor that led to the main hall. Behind her, the outside had gone. There was nothing but a black wall. Ahead of her was a mess of hazy light, where blurred shadows walked.
    She reached up and pulled her veil aside, folding it back over her head to expose her face. There was no point in hiding anything here, not from them. She served the hexmasters without question, obeying reflexively to avoid the pain of punishment. She went to find the master who had called her.
    The space she was in was luminous, so bright that the hexmasters’ white robes were grey in comparison. She couldn’t tell how far the hall extended – even whether or not it was too large to fit inside the circumference of the tower.
    There was no time to explore though, nor to wonder at the space. The moment she entered, she was surrounded. Figures coalesced out of the white mist, drawn towards her by the flame of her youth. Every one of them was old. All of them were shorter than her. They leant on their staffs and their hands were as white as parchment, as thin and brittle as twigs.
    Mundanes could never attain that age. These men should all be dead. And yet … and yet, here they were, eking out their threadbare lives.
    The air around her seemed to seethe with magic. She shuttered her usually impregnable defences down further to prevent her coming to inadvertent harm.
    Her mouth was dry, though, and there was nothing she could do about that. “Master Eckhardt?” She didn’t know which of them was Eckhardt. He had come down to the adepts’ house, fully veiled.
    “Adept Agana.” A man taller and straighter than the others moved through the crowd. He was still old: the skin on his round head was heading towards his feet, and his owlish eyebrows were pure white. “What did the prince say?”
    She closed her eyes to remember, and was suddenly aware of the pawing, the dry brushing of withered fingers against her robes, tracing the outline of her breasts, her belly, the hollow of her back.
    Block it out, block it out. “Hoson zês, phainou, mêden holôs su lupou.”
    “The prince, Adept?” The mood of the master was plain. Eckhardt was quick to anger, slow to forgive.
    “Gerhard is going to press the Teuton leader and send the body back to his men. He believes this will be sufficient warning to stop the Teutons crossing into Carinthia.”
    The touching didn’t stop. If anything, it grew more intimate.
    “Where are they now?”
    “They are camped by the river at Simbach. If they cross, Gerhard means to call on you to kill them.” Nikoleta shivered. The butterfly caresses fluttered away for a brief moment.
    “This Teuton: what was he like?”
    “Coarse. Rude. Tall. Strong. Smelt of horse.” She wanted to leave, and knew she mustn’t. “Brave. Unschooled. Cunning. Proud. Mortal.”
    Eckhardt grunted at her description. The light was blinding her,