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Those of the intruders who could run did so. A tall girl lingered at the door, hauling away any who showed an inclination to stay. The girl’s gaze met Mollandra’s for a heartbeat. One eye reflected Sharp’s fire, the other, milky, glowed with the light.

Sharp, cutting her way through the remainder of Mollandra’s family visit, was now swathed in pale flame. She glowed beneath her skin, bright fracture lines shining through the thinness of her flesh.

For her part, Mollandra could hardly keep her feet, swaying as badly as when she had been poisoned in Instructor Jane’s class. As she tried to gather both her strength and her courage, the last two intruders still in the room and on their feet backed towards Milk-Eye at the door. Sharp was too close for them to turn and run. Their rags were smoking in places and scarlet burns marked their arms. Mollandra had named them both: Lip-Scar and Runner.

She hadn’t even liked Lip-Scar, and Runner had earned his title for cowardice, though he had proved useful and even brave in later years. But to watch Sharp destroy them, under Milk-Eye’s horrified gaze, was more than she could bear.

Mollandra tried to throw herself at the backs of Sharp’s knees, but her own legs betrayed her, and she fell short, sprawling to the stone. Sharp, in the grip of her rage, hurled herself at Milk-Eye and the others. In that moment darkness pulsed from Milk-Eye’s outstretched hand, snuffing Sharp out like a candle flame. The act seemed to surprise both of them equally. A laugh burst from Sharp as she sank to her knees, then slumped to her side. For a moment it looked as if Lip-Scar would step forward to stamp on her head, but other acolytes, emboldened by Sharp’s performance, were moving forward to claim part of the victory.

Milk-Eye’s hand snatched Lip-Scar back. She pulled him away, following the sound of Runner’s rapid retreat.

37

Rue

Sharp stood in the gardens of the mansion in which she’d been left to rot alongside a few dozen old women whose wits had leaked from their ageing skulls. The rapier she’d claimed from the dead Cruelty was now levelled at Rue’s heart.

“You don’t want to kill me, Sharp.” Rue felt this was probably untrue but decided it was worth saying even so.

“I’m very angry with you.” Sharp’s anger had always been a scary thing to witness, and from the pointed end of her blade it proved considerably worse.

“I had to leave.” Rue hadn’t been fully trained to use the powers of a Cruelty, but the Ingredient, the black remnant of Megaera’s earthly form that her parents had hidden in their food, still laced her flesh. In the past she had made people forget inconvenient truths or remember helpful lies. Grievances, though, seemed to thrive on the power rather than be erased by it. It appeared that the Cruelty had inadvertently woken the memory of their falling-out more than thirty years previously. “I couldn’t stay. You know that. Nothing we were doing was right. None of it was for us.”

“You shouldn’t have run. We would have protected you.” Sharp moved with terrifying swiftness, the point of her sword pricking the soft hollow of Rue’s throat. “We. Were. Sisters.”

Rue felt the old anger catching light. “You! Wouldn’t! Listen!”

“We were a three. You gave me your coin, Mollandra. How could you walk out and leave us to die?” Sharp held the blade steady, the tremor in her voice not reaching her hand.

“You could have given it back and asked me to stay. You knew I was going to go, but you didn’t do that.” Rue closed her fingers around the blade. “And the Cruelties didn’t move on the Academy because I quit our trio. That was years later.”

Senna flapped over them, cawing.

“That your crow?” Sharp’s gaze stayed locked on Rue.

“Sort of.”

Senna cawed her outrage.

“It’s stupid.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m angry with you.” Confusion crept into Sharp’s eyes. “I don’t remember…yes! You abandoned us. We were the three who are one. You abandoned both of us.”

“I’m sorry.” Rue really was sorry, though she would do it again.

“I’m sorry too.” The steel bit deeper. “But there are rules. Lore. I have to kill you now.”

Rue could see a new clarity in Sharp’s vision. She was a heartbeat from death. Three at most. She forced the darkness to flow. Since the Cruelty had killed her it had become easier to release what they had put in her. Not as easy as biting off your own finger, but easier than it had become over the years as age wrapped itself around her. She couldn’t dull the memory of Sharp’s grievance against her. This power was Megaera’s, and the keeper of old grudges would not suffer such a trick to be played with her mastery of memories and time. Instead, Rue woke within Sharp an older need for revenge, a desire for retribution that ten years of instruction had long ago twisted into a kind of love for the Academy and all its creed. Rue took hold of the hatred they had once shared for the Academy and the horrors it had inflicted on them. She grasped it in both hands and set it on fire, overwriting Sharp’s current anger.

“Oh, those fuckers…” Sharp lowered her sword. “We should go and get them.”

“I think most of them have already been got. But let’s give it a go.” Rue turned and set off back towards the river.

“I’m still angry with you too,” Sharp said, following. “Whatever your name is. But…”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Rue replied over her shoulder.