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there over on the left was the one who leaned out too far, ever threatening to drop its spear. Dill had originally sketched that one from the side.

Looking up at them now, Dill tried to fit the names he remembered to the skeletons’ bones. This one standing fierce and proud over his great sword, Simon perhaps—or Barraby? This one, more melancholy, resting on his spear, could he be Dolmen? And here, the toothy grin of a shield-carrier made him think of Praxis, the last archon before Callis to die. He imagined these angels as they must have looked in life: Ulcis’s elite sweeping into battle with their wings like shards of sunshine and their weapons glittering like ice crystals. Three thousand years had passed since the angels had risen from the abyss, and now their bones watched over the dead, and over the Soul Wardens who brought them into the temple.

He was twisting round, trying to identify the design on a shield that might have belonged to either Mesa or Perpaul, when the soulcage jerked to a halt with an irreverent thud. Dill spun round. One of the vehicle’s front wheels had collided with the column to his left.

The next few moments stretched into a long, sluggish dream. Both mares lowered their heads, chopped their hoofs against the floor, and bulled forward. Dill yelled. The soulcage groaned.

The column shifted…and teetered.

High above, the archon’s spine flexed and its legs seemed to move, as though the skeleton was keeping its balance. Slowly, the column rocked in the opposite direction. Chains creaked…Dill held his breath…the column tilted back.

And settled.

Dill breathed again.

There was a snap and the angel collapsed in a shower of bones. A helmet plummeted and hit the floor with a bang; a spear clattered on the marble and skittered off into the shadows. Bones rained down, hands and limbs and ribs smashed to fragments around him. The horses whinnied and stamped their hoofs in protest. The angel’s skull struck the seat beside Dill and ricocheted away. It flew up almost as high as the top of the column before descending again to hit the stone floor with a sickening crack. Its jaw snapped off, teeth exploded everywhere. The skull bounced again, and again, shattering more teeth each time, until at last it rolled along the passage and came to rest a dozen yards away, facing him.

Bone dust drifted down.

Borelock screamed. He flew along the corridor like a wraith, his thin arms flailing about his head. Dill sank lower into the driver’s seat and shuddered.

“Three thousand years,” Borelock was howling. “Three thousand years—preserved, protected, safe from decay and intruders. But not from you! Not from the wretched, clumsy, gangling paws of fools and children. Three—” He choked on the word.

Dill’s eyes flashed pink. A deeper, hotter pink than he had ever experienced before. He felt the blood leave his face, as though his eyes drew it into themselves like a searing beacon to proclaim his shame.

“A disaster,” Borelock wailed. He whirled round, finding yet more blasphemous evidence of destruction everywhere he looked. “Dust! One of the Ninety-Nine in ruin.” He rushed over to peer at the plaque affixed to the column, then threw up his arms. “Samuel. The Dawn Star, bane of Heshette, reduced to this. Destroyed!”

The Dawn Star’s jawless, toothless skull gazed back up at them from a carpet of broken bones.

“What will Presbyter Sypes say? Eh? What will he do? A whipping for you, no doubt. Yes, a whipping for you. Sorry and raw red you’ll be. But me? What of me?” He faced Dill, his chin jutting knife-like from under the cowl. “Go now. The Sending won’t wait. Punishment will come later, but now, go, go, and cage the dead. I must attend to this disaster myself. Go!”

Dill flicked the reins with shaking hands. As the two mares nickered and moved off, bones crunched and popped beneath the soulcage wheels. Dill left Borelock on his knees, sobbing and muttering as he picked up fragments of the fallen archon.

The journey along the rest of the corridor lasted a thousand quick, sharp breaths. At the far end, the horses stopped before the huge banded doors which opened on to the Gatebridge, and Dill found himself looking up at the last skeleton of all. There stood the bones of Callis, the greatest of the first angels. Ulcis’s Herald seemed to have deteriorated more than the archons he’d once commanded: countless staples held his old yellow joints in place. One bony fist clutched