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 …  it’s time I went, Zara. Your father will be after the names in my head and we can’t have that. Think what would happen to the poor man if he found out about you, for instance.’ He snorts.
    Gerontius is putting up a good front, but I don’t believe it one bit. ‘Where will you go? They’ll be watching. You won’t be allowed out of the city.’
    â€˜I’m not without resources, child.’ But his voice shakes. His eyes are watery. Gods. I can taste his fear. It fills the room like night mist. Panic floods my body, churning my stomach.
    â€˜What resources? Gerontius!  … 
Time’s grace!
What are we going to do?’
    The old man looks at me. Then, slowly and carefully, he closes the book he has been reading and pushes himself upright. He lumbers around the desk and takes me by the shoulders. I cringe slightly at the unaccustomed intimacy of touch.
    â€˜There isn’t time for explanations.’ His eyes look past me into his own thoughts. ‘I made my plans long ago. Thank you for telling me. Now  … ’ His fingers tighten on my arms. ‘Get the hell out of here and stay clear of me, no matter what happens. Swear it by Time’s grace, girl!’
    I stare at him. He shakes me. ‘Swear!’
    â€˜I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you’re going to do. I can’t just leave you!’
    â€˜You always were a worrier.’ He smiles. ‘Now. Remember your mother and what she died for. Remember Swift. And, if you can bear such an unsavoury old man, remember me.’
    And then I know: he doesn’t plan to leave this room alive.
    â€˜Gerontius!
No!
I won’t let you!’
    He sweeps me into a bear hug, gently kisses the top of my head and releases me. And before I can say anything – do anything to stop him – the old adept gathers his magic and shoves me out the door on a gust of wind. I fly across the corridor, slam into the opposite wall and tumble to the floor, bruised and dazed. The door crashes shut behind me and, as I stumble to my feet, I watch the wood change to stone before my eyes. And then I’m pounding on a wall where there’s no longer a door – or any sign that a room exists behind the thick stone. Gerontius has walled himself inside his own tomb.
    And I have been Death’s messenger.

3
    I left him. Left him to die and ran away. I don’t think I had any choice. As quickly as I crumbled the stone, he would have replaced it. Fighting me would have wasted the little time he had – time to die. But in the place and manner of his choosing. And with his mind still his own. Better that Gerontius should kill himself than Benedict take him. The Archmage would have done to him what he did to me all those years ago: break open his mind and read what was inside. The first precept does not apply to heretics and traitors.
    I’m the only one left now. Gerontius killed himself to save me. It doesn’t make me any fonder of myself.
    I sit in my room. I’ve closed the shutters to my windows. I don’t want to watch the sun setting on this hateful day. The fading light filters through the slats, striping everything with thin bars of white. Pointing out, ever so ironically, that I’m a prisoner. I feel numb. And so, so alone.
    I reach down inside my tunic, pull out a slender leather tube, prise off the lid and slide out a roll of paper. There’s barely enough light to read by, but I know the words by heart. I just want to see the sprawling shape of the letters. To touch the the blots and scratchings-out. To hold the only thing I have left of her.
    Gerontius gave them both back to me – Swift and my mother. He took them from the dark and made them live again.
    I didn’t know my mother’s story until the winter I turned ten. I had been living a half-life for nearly a year. Then one frozen afternoon the strange old tutor – the one