another hand, and then the largest, ugliest man Dill had ever seen dragged himself up and into the Sanctum. He wore torn rags that exposed a hundred lacerations. Dirt, blood, and stubble had turned his face into a vision of Hell. His eyes were burning with hate.
The newcomer pulled a cleaver from his belt, raised it.
“Mr. Nettle!” Adjunct Crumb cried, suddenly aware. “The scrounger!”
Devon wheeled drunkenly, arms outstretched.
The massive muscles of the scrounger’s arm bunched, ripping apart seams in his filthy rags. He brought the weapon down with a ferocious swing.
The cleaver severed Devon’s right hand at the wrist. Blood sprayed everywhere. The hand, still firmly clutching the syringe, dropped to the floor.
Devon gaped at his wrist as arcs of blood jetted from the stump. He seemed about to say something, then closed his mouth and stood there, just blinking, for a dozen heartbeats, before finally he clamped his good hand over the wound. Blood sluiced between his fingers, spattered on the Sanctum floor.
Dill had never seen so much blood.
Mr. Nettle picked up the severed hand and held it up like a trophy. The syringe glittered red in the candlelight. “Abigail,” he said.
Devon roared and threw himself at Mr. Nettle, slamming into him. Both men fell sprawling to the floor. The hand flew upwards in a high arc towards the pit.
Mr. Nettle rolled aside and was on his feet instantly. He scrambled, crawled, slipped across the bloody floor, after the hand.
He was too late. Hand and syringe fell into darkness.
Angus had been slow to react, but now he rushed towards the scrounger, raising his pike. Mr. Nettle had his back to him, standing on the edge of the abyss, numbly gazing down.
The temple guard put all of his weight behind the impact. The blow connected with a crack. Mr. Nettle tumbled forward into open space.
In a heartbeat he was gone, swallowed by the abyss.
“No!” Devon cried. He ran to join Angus at the edge of the pit, still clutching the stump of his wrist. Both men stared down into the darkness.
Dill felt his eyes crackle with unknown colours.
Suddenly the Poisoner twisted away, face sour, and stormed back to confront Adjunct Crumb and the Presbyter. “Another of your assassins?”
“Not ours,” the Adjunct said quite calmly. “I believe you murdered that man’s daughter.”
“Ignorant savage,” Devon spat. “I merely displaced her soul.”
“I think,” Adjunct Crumb said, “he might have preferred her soul to remain where it was.”
Devon ignored this. He was studying the stump where his right hand had been. Blood glistened wetly but had stopped spurting from the wound. “It matters not,” he said. “Look how it heals already.” He brandished the damaged arm.
Dill saw that it was healing. New skin was growing over the wound even as he watched.
“Angus, we’re leaving now,” Devon said. “Sypes is coming with us. If he resists, put a hole in him.” He returned to the soulcage, rummaged among the shrouds, and pulled out a leather travel bag.
The temple guard nudged the Presbyter away from the lectern with the point of his pike. “What about the other two?” he asked.
“What do you think I am?” Devon said. “A common murderer?” He gave a small shrug. “Deepgate needs to know what has happened here. I don’t think it would serve me well to slay Ulcis’s last archon. The god of chains might take that personally. And as for the fat man”—he frowned at the Adjunct—“no finer fool could rule in Sypes’s absence. Lock them both in the soulcage.”
Pike wavering, Angus steered Fogwill and Dill into the soulcage, locked the door, and tossed the key into the shadows. He then urged Presbyter Sypes towards the door, while Devon lifted his travel bag and followed them.
Adjunct Crumb stumbled over the shroud-wrapped bodies at his feet and fell heavily against Dill. He shouted after Devon, “You expect to simply walk out of here? The city is full of armed men looking for you.”
Devon let out a long and weary sigh. “I believe the search has now reached the outskirts of Deepgate. And I have suddenly developed a lack of confidence in your soldiers’ weapons.”
As they reached the doors, Devon winked back at Dill, who was busy helping the Adjunct to his feet. “Well fought, archon,” he said.
For the first time, Dill remembered the sword sheathed at his hip. His eyes flared red.
The Sanctum doors closed with a boom.
A bolt snapped shut, the sound of it a knife in Dill’s heart.
19
A Dangerous Plan
He was wounded, had one guard with him, and