"I'd like it formally noted, for the record and posterity, that out of all of us, I was the only one who kept my head just there," Latham said. "And considering I have something of a reputation for smiting first and asking questions only when it's time to file the mortuary paperwork, I believe that entitles me to—at the very least—a pat on the head. Maybe even a commendation. Or a biscuit. Definitely a biscuit."

  Lowe pulled one of Mylaf’s cookies out of his inventory and, wincing, threw it to Latham. His hand was sore from where, following activating Slugger, he’d planted the biggest punch of his life onto Drefleck’s jaw. Apparently, his supercharged Perception let him pick just the right spot to render the Shimmerskin unconscious.

  As Roll with the Punches was busy reconstructing the stump on the end of his arm, Lowe took a breath. “What do you think he meant ‘have you spoken to your little ladies recently?’”

  "I don’t know, little man. Let’s ask him. Oh, wait! We can’t right now because you’ve just knocked him out. Fantastic work. Really top-notch problem-solving," Latham said, pulling a Sending Stone from his pocket and pressing it to his lips.

  "Hel, you there? Hel?"

  Silence.

  "Hel, if you’re screening your calls, you better believe me that now is not the time. This is more important than you going dark. You’re going to need to answer me. I need a status update."

  Still nothing.

  Lowe watched Latham carefully, trying to get his own worry under control. He wasn’t panicking. Not yet. That would be stupid. There were all sorts of reasons Hel might not be able to answer Latham right now. Of course, none of them were good, but still. He pulled out his own stone and pushed mana into it.

  "Bella? It’s Lowe. Pick up, please."

  More silence. That seemed to be catching.

  "Arebella," he said, more forcefully this time. "If you’re quiet because you and Hel got into a drinking contest and she’s currently passed out under a table, I will forgive you, and we will never speak of it again. Just say something so I know you’re okay. I’m sure we have all sorts of listening Skills aimed at us right now, but this is more important than subterfuge. I need to know you’re okay."

  The stone remained stubbornly, damningly quiet.

  Latham and he exchanged looks.

  “I mean, this doesn’t necessarily entail anything bad has happened to them . . .” Rook was pale. Paler.

  “Shit.” Latham popped the first stone he’d used back in his pocket and took out another one. This one was darkly red. "Tenia," he said. "Please tell me you’re there."

  A pause. Then—

  "Latham?" Tenia’s voice was wary. "How do you know to use this mana frequency?”

  “Hel left me some instructions in the event of her being . . . unavailable.”

  “Okay, then you’ll know the codeword, right?”

  “Tenia, I don’t have time . . .”

  “Codeword, or the Sending Stone you are holding will transform into a small but determinedly psychotic demon,” the Nightmare Reaver said. “If Hel gave you these details, she’d have told you the codeword. And if not . . . well, I’m sure she’ll forgive me. Eventually.”

  Latham turned away from the others, and dropped his voice, but Lowe’s insane Perception still - just about - caught the whispered words. “Moist Weasel.”

  "Fucking hell, Latham. You gave me a start! Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry for the intrusion, but I need to know if Hel’s with you, Charl and Irek."

  There was a beat of silence, then a neutral. "No. Why would she be?"

  Latham shut his eyes for a moment. "So she’s not there? Didn’t turn up, unexpectedly, a day or so back?"

  "Of course she’s not fucking here. If she was, don’t you think she’d have told you? What’s going on? Has she left you or something?"

  "No. Nothing like that. I’ve just lost track of her, that’s all. Oh, I don’t suppose Arebella’s available?"

  "What? Lowe’s better half? No, she’s not here either. You’re worrying me here.”

  "Everything’s fine. Just checking in."

  "You never check in."

  "Trying something new," Latham said, already tucking the stone back away. "Give my love to the rest of the gang." Then he turned back to Lowe. "Fuck."

  “Fuck,” Lowe agreed, turning to Rook. “You said Hel came to you after all the . . . unpleasantness and wanted you to leave Soar with her. That you refused, and she took off.”

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  “That’s right. She came knocking just after I’d got back to the graveyard after dropping my attackers. She said the rest of them had been attacked to, that things were getting too hot and that I should come with them. It sounded like she was on her way to the Temple next.”

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  “I don’t do group activities, Jana. You know that. And I especially don’t do them since a member of my last team got me killed. All it takes is one idiot tripping over a chamber pot in the dark, and suddenly, the whole safehouse is compromised. As I said to her, no, thank you very much.”

  “It’s not like Hel to take ‘no’ for an answer,” Latham said. “In fact, that doesn’t sound much like Hel at all.”

  “Oh?” Rook tilted his head. “Which part?”

  “The part where she goes politely knocking on tombs mid-crisis. She’s more a blow the fucking doors off kind of gal. Also the part where she asks, you say ‘no’ and she doesn’t just drag you along, whether you liked it or not. Again, she’s not one of life’s acceptors. Oh, and the part where she didn’t tell me she was going to head for the hills in the first place.”

  Lowe didn’t like where this was going. But Hel grabbing the others and going to ground wasn’t exactly out of character for the Wind Tyrant. She was the kind of operative who made plans within plans. And she wasn’t the sort to ask people if they’d like to cooperate. If she thought Rook needed to get the fuck out of Soar, she’d have made it happen before he had time to refuse.

  Something itched at the back of his mind.

  “What can I say?” Rook said. “She knew I wasn’t going to change my mind. Maybe she figured her odds were better without me slowing her down. And I’m a Threshold Guardian. You’ve got to know there’s a hard limit to what she was going to be able to do to me.”

  “And you’re sure it was her?” Latham asked.

  There was a moment’s pause as they both looked at the Shimmerskin on the floor. And then over to the body of Morholt.

  “Fuck!” Rook said. “I see what you’re getting at. I assumed it was her. But now that we’re saying it out loud . . .” He grimaced. “Shit.”

  “Shimmerskin?” Lowe asked Latham. “That’s the trick matey boy down there pulled on me. Pretended to be Hel and asked me to meet him.”

  “You know what that means though, don’t you, little man?”

  “Bella. Hel, Karolen and Ortel. They’re not in hiding. They’re not in a safehouse. Someone took them. And it sounds very much like someone who can change their shape did it.”

  But before Lowe could press further, there was a groan from behind him. Drefleck was waking up. The Shimmerskin stirring, his shifting features flickering through half a dozen faces before settling on something unpleasantly amused.

  “Now,” Drefleck rasped, “where were we?”

  ***

  Latham picked Drefleck off the floor and smashed him down on Morholt’s desk. The heavy wood groaned at the impact and the desk cracked. It appeared the Shimmerskin’s earlier ability to resist the Temple Warder’s attacks had long since passed.

  When he spoke, Latham’s voice was a terrifying growl. The sort of noise Lowe’s ancestors might have heard in the dark back in the time they lived in caves and had just discovered fire. “Where is she? What the fuck have you done with her?”

  Drefleck barely had time to wheeze out a single syllable before Latham’s fist crashed down into his face. Then another. And another. Lowe watched as Latham kept going, raining blows down like he was chiseling his way through a quarry. Drefleck’s skull snapped back, his ribs folded under and his mouth—if what remained could be called that—spat out something wet and not entirely human.

  "Latham!" Lowe shouted, but the Temple Warder didn’t so much as pause. "Latham, that’s enough!" Lowe tried to catch his friend's wrist mid-swing and was pulled off his feet. Then Rook was there, adding his weight to proceedings and the two of them, barely, managed to haul Latham back before he destroyed what was left of Drefleck’s uncooperative shape.

  Latham resisted—hard. But then he relented, his breathing ragged and his shoulders heaving with something worse than rage. He wanted to keep going, but his strength met their combined weight, and in the end, he let them pull him away.

  For a moment, the only sound was the wet slap of Latham’s fists clenching and unclenching.

  Drefleck lay sprawled on the ruined desk, a mess of bruises, shattered bones, and something that should have been blood but oddly wasn’t. He twitched, a half-breath leaving him like a punctured bellows. Then, he shivered.

  And that was when things got weird.

  The bones he’d broken? They unbroke, the skin rolling and shifting like something alive underneath it. His ribs reformed as if the damage had never happened, only it was too fast, the process too visible. This wasn’t healing - nothing like Lowe’s Roll with the Punches, this was a Shimmerskin simply picking a new body.

  Defleck’s fingers moved and the whole of him contracted as his muscles regrew and his bones clicked unnaturally into new places, hair changing and his flesh twisting. Then, suddenly—horribly—Hel was lying on the desk.

  And it was indespuilty her. From her pale eyes, her knowing grin, to her face framed by braids, looking up at them with an expression that was eerily detached from the nightmare happening in real-time.

  Latham made a sound—one Lowe had never heard before. Then Drefleck’s features rippled again, his eyes rolling, body convulsing until with a final lurch, he snapped back into himself. He let out a slow breath, smoothed down his tunic, and tilted his head, a smile tugging at his still-healing lips.

  "Look, I've already said I want to talk about things," he said. "You’re the guys who keep throwing hands!"

  "So, where are they?!" Lowe and Latham said at the same time.

  "Oh, now you’re interested in dialogue!" He adjusted his sleeves with deliberate slowness, seemingly savoring their fury like a fine wine. “Well, tough shit. I was trying to be all conciliatory and you guys have responded by being complete dicks. So, no. Freebies are now off the table.” He leaned back slightly, stretching as though he’d just had a refreshing nap rather than a near-death experience. “We’re going to do this my way. I’ll tell things my way and then, if you’re very good, I might get around to share what I know about the missing. Or you can just fucking get on with killing me. See if I care.”

  Latham let out a wordless roar and drove his fist into the nearest wall. Plaster cracked, dust rained down, and for a moment, it was as if the entire room had held its breath. But, clearly, the release he was looking for wasn’t there. There was nothing to fight - nothing to smash - that was going to make any of this any easier. His was a hollow, impotent fury, and, what is more, Drefleck knew it.

  “Well,” he said, “that was all very manly indeed! Consider me suitably cowed.”

  “Tell your story,” Lowe said. “But make it quick. And if it turns out you’re hurt them . . .”

  “No more of that,” Drefleck said, waving the words away. “Now, if you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin. Picture the scene. It’s a few days ago, and my boys are in the Vault . . ."