Lowe was aware that the rest of the day passed, though not in any meaningful way he was truly able to mark. It was just a bunch of somethings that happened, with the bells sliding past in a shapeless smear of movement, voices and obligations that he, temporarily, did not have the energy to care about.

  He wasn't entirely sure who had come to collect him from the rooftop. Probably Latham. Yes. It had to have been Latham, didn’t it? No one else would have been able to so easily pick him and carry him down to ground level. And even if they could, they’d have needed the sheer bloody-minded force of will to bother.

  At some point, he thought he had given a statement. To Staffen, he believed. That much he thought he could remember. Or at least, he remembered saying words and hearing questions, but the actual content of either was lost somewhere in the fog of his fear. He assumed his boss had said something comforting. Probably something about getting a fucking grip you utter wetwipe.

  Lowe remembered that Cenorth had said something similar to him in the days following the collapse of the Highberg case - another time when everything had ended and he had spent too much time staring at the inside of a bottle, trying to find a version of himself that he didn’t hate. That was the last time he had experienced such a strange unreality of time. The sense that existence was something happening to him rather than something he was involved with.

  Except, and he couldn’t believe he was even thinking this, he thought back then had been preferable to now.

  Back then, he’d still had choices. Not many, for sure. Whether he’d choose Classtration or Execution wasn’t much of a menu to select from, but at least that veneer of possibility still existed.

  Now? Now he had nowhere left to fall. And the Black Knight had taken his friends from him again.

  Lowe didn’t think the full horror of that had fully hit yet. He sensed he was too numb to properly appreciate it and that the pain was lingering at the edges of his awareness, waiting for his brain to slow down enough to really feel it. But he knew the moment was coming.

  And when it did, he suspected that it would break him.

  So he didn’t dare let his brain stop whirling. He couldn’t stop, because if he did that would be it . . .

  Somewhere between leaving the rooftop and ending up—wherever the hell he was now—he thought his memories must have become unreliable. He felt like he was experiencing a mix of a hangover, severe head injuries, and particularly ambitious drug cocktails. Whatever mental Skill had battered against him had packed quite a punch. Just because he’d been able to tank it, didn’t mean there were no after effects. And, on top of everything else, they were kicking his arse.

  His body was moving on autopilot, responding to the external stimuli of the chaos of an urgent Cuckoo House investigation without the inconvenient process of thinking getting in the way. Because people he cared about were missing, but that seemed to be being trumped by the Warden of the Reserve being murdered and evidence of an OOB squad operating in Soar.

  He guessed, in a moment where rationality and consideration met, it was unsurprising that the disappearance of an assassin, a lawyer, a bean counter and a truth-teller ranked pretty low in the scheme of things.

  Not when it seemed like the Black Knight was riding again.

  At some point in the day, it seemed he’d taken a shower. He remembered the warm water had washed over him, dragging some of the dried blood and soot away but failing to remove any of the actual dirt he felt under his skin. At some point, he appeared to have changed his clothes. At another, he’d ended up in a chair. And at some point—definitely later, possibly earlier—he’d come to this bar.

  The drink in front of him was full, although the six glasses next to it were not. He had no memory of ordering it. Or them. He wasn’t sure if that meant he had drunk the empty ones, but if he had, they had scoured his taste buds clear and completely lost track of tasting them. But, he supposed, it didn’t really matter. The point was, he was still sitting. He was still waiting. For what, exactly?

  He had no idea.

  The laughter from the box was still ringing in his ears. Thin, warped and ever-so amused. And somewhere beneath it, the image of his friends, looking up at whoever had captured the image of their faces. Man, had they all looked pissed . . .

  He had asked each of them for their help. And as repayment for their kindness, he had let them be taken.

  That thought slipped through his mind, causing Lowe to dive once again into his drink. Then somewhere, in the periphery of his vision, the world tilted again. His hand twitched toward his manacle on reflex, but there was no mental attack taking place.

  No, there was no Skill being used on him this time. Just his memory choosing to torture him some more.

  The fractured - too-bright - wrong kind of memory that didn’t feel like remembering so much as reliving. It was Grid View mixed in with remembrance, so it came in uncertain flickers. There he was, inside Soar Museum. And he was dead. The heat. The pressure of the Dreadnaught crushing him. Then, the moment when the Dungeon had collapsed in on itself, when the past had forced itself upon him—when it had dragged him back into the moment of his Classtration. Into the screaming. The pain. The sensation of being ripped apart and left hollow—

  And now. Now, this.

  A different kind of hollow. A different kind of being ripped apart.

  Something in the back of his mind laughed—the box, the Black Knight, Soar, Arkola, himself—and the memory shifted.

  He was back in the park as it erupted into chaos with the horrifying suddenness of the end of the world. Faulks. Her head— A crack, echoing off the buildings, off the cobblestones, off the inside of his skull— The moment of frozen horror, the stunned silence before the screams— “Sniper!”

  No.

  Not again.

  This isn’t happening again.

  Arman.

  His chest, caving inward like someone had taken a hammer to a porcelain doll.

  Coda.

  Golden light shattering through his shield, his body twitching, the smell of burning flesh.

  “Faulks, Coda, Arman…”

  The words were falling out of his mouth again, like a prayer. Like a curse. Like a fucking tally sheet.

  “Rook? Can you see anything?”

  Silence.

  The bags of gold rolled harmlessly to the side. Mocking. Mundane. The people behind them, however, were gone. Just like now. Just like . . .

  No.

  Not like now.

  Lowe snapped back to himself. His knuckles were white against the glass. His jaw hurt. Had he been gritting his teeth? He didn’t remember. He supposed it didn’t matter. He forced his fingers to unclench from the glass, and dragged himself back into the present. If there had ever been a time to wallow in it, it wasn’t now. Because, right now, his friends had been taken. And he could either be all sad, or he could get them back.

  Lowe finished his drink, pulsed Roll with the Punches through him to clear the alcohol and stood up.

  He was done playing the Black Knight’s game. It was time to put some pieces of his own in play.

  ***

  “How good is Hel?”

  “Little man, what the fuck of you doing here? We both need to sleep if we’re going to be any use to the search tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to be any use tomorrow. I want to be useful now. Which is why I need you to confirm something for me. How good is Hel?”

  “Lowe, you smell like a fucking brewery. What have you been drinking?”

  “The sweet scent of inspiration, my friend. A little smell I’m thinking of bottling and selling to the masses. I’m thinking I’m going to call it ‘victory.’ But only, and this is crucial, only if you wake up and clarify for me how good Hel is.”

  Latham swung his legs over the side of his bed and sat up, staring at Lowe. “Look, I get you have had a shock, we both have. But you have to believe there’s no way they don’t get found tomorrow. The Mayor’s authorised all sorts of exciting overtime to find the fucking Black Knight. In a few bells, we’re not going to be able to move for motivated and well-recompensed powerhouses kicking arse and taking names to solve the murder of the Warden of the Reserve. Very, very quickly, the Black Knight’s going to have nowhere to hide and that is when we’ll find our friends. You breaking into my house and waking me up is not going to help with that.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “What if I told you I could find a way to get our hands on him before anyone else. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  Latham’s hands bunched, then he said softly. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  “Well then, how about you answer my question. How good is Hel?”

  Latham stood and it appeared that he was sleeping in his Temple Warder armour. That was quite a trip, Lowe thought. “She’s the best I’ve ever known.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought. Okay, so I have a plan.”

  “Is it a good plan?”

  “It’s not a terrible plan.”

  “How likely is it to get us killed?”

  “You? No chance. Me? An absolute certainty. But I’ll rally.”

  “Sold. A plan with no downsides. So what do we do?”

  “First up, we need to make sure that neither of us are Shimmerskins,” Lowe said. “There’s far too much of that sort of bollocks going around and if we’re going to do this properly, then we need some sort of safeword.”

  “Little man, I never, ever want to hear you tell me the two of us need a safeword.”

  “Fair point. Tell you what, you tell me what Hel’s codeword to Tenia was, and I’ll believe that you are you.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I’m serious.”

  A Rune of Silence appeared in Latham’s hand, and he crushed it, putting an impenetrable bubble around them. “Moist weasel. You happy?”

  “Very happy. Okay, so the plan is this . . .”

  “No, no, no. You now know I’m not a Shimmerskin, but how do I know the same about you?”

  “Ask me something only I would know.”

  “Actually, I think I need something a bit more . . . you know, hands on. Something you can do, but a Shimmerskin wouldn’t be able to.”

  “Like what?”

  Latham moved too quickly for Lowe to be able to track, striking him under the chin and sending him flying through the air. Blood of the Phoenix had kicked it before the Inspector even hit the floor. “What the fuck, Latham! You just killed me!”

  “And you broke into my house in the middle of the night. We’re quits. Now, tell me your plan?”

  ***

  Lowe held the picture the Black Knight had sent in his mind, studying it through Grid View, letting his Perception go to work. Latham, standing beside him, held the actual photograph, pouring over it, trying to identify what it was Lowe wanted him to notice.

  “It’s no good, little man. I just don’t see it,” Latham said. “It’s a picture of all of them tied up. Which, I agree, is not ideal. However, there’s no way the Black Knight’s going to let you have anything with any sort of clue in it. This is supposed to be mocking you. Nothing more. ”

  “I get that’s the intention,” Lowe said. “He used to send us loads of these when he was first active. They drove us all mad because they felt like they should mean something, but never did.” For a moment, he was back in the past, Arman furious. Faulks swearing a blue streak. Rook silently pinning the images on the board whilst Coda studied them, He shook his head, looking the memory away. He needed to stay grounded in the present. “But we already know something about this picture which he doesn’t.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is Hel being a fucking legend. Bear with me a moment,” Lowe said, zooming into the image using Grid View as quickly as he could: Latham did not look like a man prepared to bear with anything. He looked like a man prepared to grab Lowe’s head between his hands and crush it into atoms. But, even though his healing cooldown was still not reset, Lowe did his best to ignore him.

  His friends were all there in this image. Each of them was furious, clearly exhausted and very tied up. None of them had any obvious injuries, which was both a good thing but was also a touch confusing. Neither Latham nor Lowe could think of many circumstances where Karolen or, especially, Hel were going to be trussed up without fighting back.

  However, the lack of obvious wounds suggested the Black Knight wanted them alive. That, or he was saving the entertainment for later, but Lowe was trying very hard not to go down that particular mental alley. Some of the bodies he’d seen during the man’s first rampage had been . . . not well treated.

  Lowe let his gaze drift over the details in the image, cataloguing everything in a desperate attempt to focus on anything except how completely he had, once again, failed to keep his friends safe.

  Karolen’s jaw was clenched with a barely suppressed fury that suggested whoever had tied her up should be very grateful she didn’t have access to sharp objects. Ortel’s lips were pressed into a thin, white line, the edges of his mouth betraying a curse frozen mid-sentence. Arebella’s glare was fixed on their unseen kidnapper, a look that, under normal circumstances, would put a man in an early grave. She’d only looked at him like that a few times and it had been more than enough.

  But then there was Hel.

  Lowe’s focus narrowed. And narrowed. And narrowed.

  She was tied up just like the others, but she wasn’t angry. Okay, she was pissed, but she wasn’t ‘just’ angry. She was focused. On something that was just over the shoulder of whoever was capturing the image. At first glance, it might have seemed like she was just looking in the same direction as the others. But no. Her gaze was almost distant. As if she was making use of a Skill.

  “I knew it. There it is,” Lowe said.

  “What?” Latham said, flipping the photograph over, as if the back of it would reveal some hidden context.

  Lowe didn’t answer. He was zooming further in, honing in on something else that had just caught his eye— Hel’s fingers. They were captured in the process of twitching. Small, tiny movements. And Lowe didn’t think it was just her struggling against her bonds. And it wasn’t her fidgeting. He thought Hel was shaping air.

  Now, most people thought of Wind Tyrants as these flashy powerhouses. Big, sweeping gales. Storms. Tearing things apart with violent hurricanes. Literal forces of nature. But the best of them? The truly terrifying ones? Sure, they could do all that but, what was so much more, they could do some of their best work with subtlety. A hand resting on a table could steal the air from your lungs just as effectively as a hurricane could crush your skull. A whisper on the breeze could slice through armour as easily as a lightning bolt. A locked room with all of its air removed was as much as a death sentence as a tidal wave.

  And Hel? Well, Latham had confirmed it, hadn’t he? She was the best.

  Lowe’s eyes were on her hair. All things considered, it should have been lying flat. Tangled. Limp from all the stress and the captivity. But a single lock—just one—seemed to be settled wrong. And he didn’t think it was caught by a stray puff of wind, not disturbed by an unseen breeze. It was twisted. Looped.

  It spelled something.

  Tiny letters, formed by air, held for the briefest moment against the strands of her hair—just as the image was taken—before they dissipated away. It would have taken split second timing, and it needed to be ever-so subtle for the Black Knight not to notice it.

  Lowe focused Grid View in even tighter, stretching the bounds of his Perception and the letters solidified.

  GNROLLG

  “Got you,” he said.

  “Got who? What? You’re going to have to let me in on whatever grand revelation is happening in your brain, because I’ve got nothing.” Latham was staring at the physical picture. “What are you even looking at? Because all I see is Hel tied up and glaring like she’s trying to unmake whoever took the photo.”

  “She’s doing something with her hair,” Lowe said, still locked onto the strands in Grid View. “Or rather, she’s using the air around her hair. Just enough to shape the wind for a fraction of a second.”

  Latham frowned at the image again, flipped it over, held it up to the light, then—just for thoroughness—gave it a little shake. “Fuck it. I can’t see anything.”

  “That’s because you’re working with peasant-tier vision,” Lowe said.

  “How long is it before I’m allowed to kill you again?”

  “Too long,”

  “Fine, then you better explain.”

  “She’s spelling something,” Lowe said. “Seven letters. GNROLLG.”

  Latham’s expression went through several phases of incomprehension before finally landing on, “That’s not a word.”

  “No. It’s an acronym.”

  “For what?”

  “I think she’s telling us where he’s holding them.”

  “You mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that instead of just writing it normally, she decided to give us an anagram hair puzzle?”

  “It’s not an anagram puzzle. It’s an acronym.”

  “Oh, forgive me, I must have missed the national fucking standard for emergency hostage messaging!”

  “Look, I get it. You’re upset. You wanted a straightforward message. ‘Help. We are here. Come quickly. They are not feeding Ortel and he is getting cranky.’”

  “Well, that would have been nice and straightforward, little man.”

  “Well, welcome to Hel’s way of doing things. She didn’t know how long they’d have before they were searched. She didn’t know if this picture would be sent immediately or later. And she needed to tell us where they were in a way the Black Knight wouldn’t spot.”

  “But you know where they are?”

  “I think so.”

  “Could you be wrong?”

  “Have you ever known me to be wrong?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Okay. Not a high bar, that’s on me. But, yes, I think I know where they are.”