At next light, Idris and Riette returned to the road. They travelled slower than before. Riette was quiet, scanning the landscape; Idris had dark thoughts that would not leave him, thoughts of what his father might do to secure his freedom.

  “What do you know of the disaster at Old Risston?” he finally said to Riette, his voice still hoarse and soft.

  She pursed her lips. “I know it was the last great push against what was thought to be the last living necromancer,” she said. “Kurellan fought there.”

  “I wonder if that was...”

  “Family?” she guessed. Idris nodded shamefully. “I doubt it. Perhaps we can check some records when we return to Veridia.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Regardless,” said Riette knowingly, “you do not have to place the sins of every necromancer who ever lived on your shoulders. You have enough burdens.”

  “My uncle...” Idris sighed. “He spent many years telling me that my blood did not make me wrong, or bad, and yet... I see nothing redeemable about necromancers, Riette. Every one I have ever read about or heard of is deranged and hateful. Is that my future? Is there something in the death aria that makes us that way?”

  “Maybe it is the nature of the work,” she said. “Soldiers can get like that, too. Bitter and angry and upset and hateful. Killing people for a living and... I suppose raising those people again, they are two sides of the same coin. You have to stop thinking about people as humans. You have to think of them as something... other. For you, a dead person is a vessel, like a box. For me... an enemy is merely an object in my way. Not a father or a wife or someone’s child.”

  “I have never killed a person,” said Idris. “I cannot imagine what that might be like.”

  Riette’s face was still, then. “It is something I wish nobody had to do,” she said.

  “Why did you become a soldier?”

  She smiled wryly. “The DeTrentavilles have always sent one of their number for the kingdom’s defence. None of my brothers were suited to it. Myself, I am built for combat and I thought it would stop my father from trying to marry me off to some boring noble halfway across the continent.”

  “Duty first?” Idris said.

  “Duty always,” Riette finished.

  It was a common call-and-response in the kingdom’s military ranks. Idris had believed it, too, for a long time. That afternoon, it felt like too little.

  *

  Gleesdale was quiet, but Idris noticed the Queen’s guard posted at the village borders, dressed in their navy-and-silver armour. They nodded respectfully as the nobles trotted past.

  Up at Summer’s End, Lila and Willard were waiting by the door, Willard in travelling attire more suited to his position as the Fae Ambassador, Lila in her leather armour. She hurried to help Idris down off his horse, pausing only to receive a friendly shoulder-squeeze from Riette.

  “Princeling,” Riette said warmly to Willard. He bowed regally.

  “Commander Ash-Guard,” he said in an overly-enunciated voice.

  “Ash-Guard is new, I like it,” she said, entering the house.

  “What is the situation?” said Idris, finally back on solid ground.

  “Her Majesty and Kurellan decided to head back, on account of your note,” said Lila. “They’re heading out north to see if they can catch Layton unaware. We only came to pick you up, sir, and offer support if you needed it.”

  “And to deliver the soldiers,” Willard added, clapping Idris on the back affectionately. “Now we’re to follow Majesty and the Old Honour out north.”

  “Please tell me I am not expected to ride another horse,” said Idris.

  “We brought a carriage. Ned is helping to pack it as we speak,” said Lila.

  “Then I will update you as we ride.”

  They did not stay at Summer’s End any longer than they needed to wash, eat, get a change of clothes and return to the road. It was too much like war had been. He said as much from the safety of the carriage box, with his friends beside him.

  “War was... difficult,” said Lila to Willard, who fell quiet and still.

  “Can’t imagine it being much else,” he said.

  “It is definitely not easy for a necromancer,” said Idris. “The death aria is enough to drive anyone mad.”

  “Sir Idris had to be available day and night. We spent a lot of time in carriages, travelling to battlefields,” said Lila.

  “Alone,” Idris added. “Raising soldiers to rebuild roads and walls. Alone. Making sentries. Alone. I hardly slept back then.”

  “You don’t sleep now,” said Willard in a mutter, and then, “begging your pardon.”

  Idris told them about the village and the thralls, and what Layton had insinuated, and Willard pulled a face and scrunched up his bare feet (he never wore shoes, only suede straps tied around his ankles, despite Cressida’s protests).

  “This... Remaker stuff is too knotty,” he said. “He’s got power that we just don’t know nothing about. How’s he controlling grey friends from all the way over by Veridia?”

  “It isn’t control,” said Idris. “He’s... exerting his will. Normally, if I have to leave an area where I have raised thralls, I have to leave something behind with my will contained within it, like a crystal or a sigil. That energy will eventually peter out and the thralls will stop. But he... I saw no crystals or sigils. The aria in the thralls was strong, as if he was around the next corner, and yet he was not there. He could not be.”

  “It’s the skull, aye?”

  “I think so.” Idris sighed, looked out of the window at the country rolling by. “Which again begs the question,” he murmured, “how do you kill a necromancer?”

  Another query for Kurellan, most likely.

  By the end of the week, Idris and his friends had finally returned to Veridia, to much gossip about their sudden departure from court. It appeared they were not going to meet with Cressida’s delegation after all, and that she would rather they were home. Thistle the cat met them in the courtyard and trotted along beside them towards the palace proper. The Court Crier, who dealt with all correspondence addressed to the high court, had a whole basket filled with scrolls for Idris.

  “Your usual requests?” said Lila, frowning as the poor crier hefted the basket over the counter. Idris sighed.

  “And some other problems, I should imagine.”

  Autumn was the time when Idris was traditionally busiest, but he did not know if he would get to his normal duties. In his rooms, Lila started sifting the regular mail from the irregular while Idris picked through Layton’s old books for something he was not even sure he wanted to know. Thistle slept in the basket.

  “The farmers will be disappointed,” said Lila.

  “Well, they can be disappointed for one season,” said Idris, scratching his head as he flicked through one of the oldest tomes in Raven’s Roost’s collection. “I have more pressing matters to -”

  There was a knock on the door. Lila started, moved to open it.

  “Oh. Good afternoon, squire.”

  “Afternoon,” said a rosy-cheeked young boy, clutching a note. “Um, note for Mister Idris? From Mister Willard. He says there’s a visitor in the gardens for him.”

  “Joa,” said Idris, getting up. “Yes, of course. I will be right down. Lila, can you... just ignore the mail, it is useless... that book on my desk, can you find anywhere it might give a hint to how to kill a necromancer, or remove necrotic energy from an artefact? I must attend to this urgently.”

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  “I will, Sir Idris. Give the prince my warmest regards.”

  Willard’s father, the fae prince Joy-of-Autumn, was a difficult creature. Fae were not permitted to enter buildings without the owner’s consent, but as far as gardens went, they could come and go as they pleased. Most meetings with him had to be in Willard’s pig pen as a matter of simplicity unless Cressida was there to grant him entry to the palace. Idris did not mind the walk, but the pigs did not take kindly to Joa arriving unannounced.

  When Idris got to Willard’s fence, Joa was already cross-legged on a garden bench, watching Willard corralling the swine so they would stop panicking at the fae energy that had zinged through the air. The aria bells on the side of Willard’s hut chimed with the twinkly, cold melodies of the fae.

  “Ah,” said Joa, with a pleasant smile. “Master Dead-Talker.”

  Idris bowed low, as he was meant to for royalty. “Highness.”

  Joa’s wavy blond hair was always perfect, as if carved from rays of sunlight; his spindly silver crown was never askew. In his autumnal scarlet coat, it was almost as if he had melted from the leaves. The air around him seemed to shiver with his inherent otherworldliness, like he was about to disappear at any second, and it always made Idris feel like he was talking to a reflection of a person rather than a real being.

  “I have a gift for you,” Joa said. “I must say, it was an interesting challenge.”

  “The pauldrons?” said Idris, suddenly excited.

  “Pauldrons no longer.” Joa waved his fingers beside him, and on the bench there appeared a chest. “A hammer for a builder of bridges, as requested.”

  Removing the pauldrons from the Naga vault had been the first thing they did when they returned to Veridia in the summer. Cressida had observed the stone magicians pulling the bricks out of the wall, and the archivists tugged down a thick, black chest that Idris instantly knew housed his father’s armour. The pauldrons themselves, he had seen once, and only to check it was them, before they took the chest out to Joa. A contract had been drawn up, then – a more binding sort of fae bargain – for Joa to destroy the pauldrons and make something new in their place, something that might make Idris’s task of destroying the breastplate easier. Joa had been silent for weeks.

  “May I?” said Idris, hardly daring to assume.

  “Of course. It belongs to you,” said Joa mildly. When Idris reached for the clasp, Joa murmured, “Son of the Dead-Walker.”

  The insinuation made Idris’s shoulders rigid immediately. He hesitated, took a deep breath.

  “You be careful with that, Idris,” said Willard from the pig-pen, frowning. “Ain’t to be trifled with.”

  “I know,” said Idris, and opened the chest.

  Laying on crushed emerald velvet was a beautifully crafted war-hammer. The black glass head was as large as two of Idris’s fists, inlaid with engravings of black clematis, the vines of which curled down the length of the grip, all the way to the bottom. The petals of the flowers were dark in pure, polished Spirit Glass, whereas the vines were inlaid with glittering fae runes in bright green, as if the creepers were fluid. When Idris put his hand above it, he could feel its energy in heatwaves that went beyond his skin, into his bones – but it was not necromantic. It was tingly, like pins and needles.

  “Black bells,” he whispered, gazing at it.

  “Its properties,” said Joa, checking his fingernails, “are that it will transfer energy from the wielder to the victim. If you kill a man with a single blow, that man will be directly under your control as a thrall – even if they were previously controlled by another necromancer. Aside from that, it is rather decorative, as you asked. All that remains is for you to attune yourself to it.”

  “And how do I do that?” said Idris.

  Joa smiled pleasantly. “A little fae magic. Blood, skin, bone. Some hair. That way, it will not work for anyone except you.”

  “I don’t rightly like this,” said Willard.

  “The weapon is safe,” said Joa. “I can assure you of that.”

  “It is... larger than I expected,” said Idris.

  “Two pauldrons make one hammer head.”

  “I meant the length.”

  “I know you can use a cane rather efficiently,” said Joa. “I wanted it to be practical for battle. Oh, speaking of which...” He produced another chest which had not previously been there from behind his back. “A little, actual gift, that you will be able to keep.”

  This chest was smaller. Frowning, Idris flicked open the lid, and was surprised to see a sort of metal blade, attached to a prosthetic cup. It was curved, and when he pressed the base, it had tension that made it spring back.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “We call it a hare’s foot,” said Joa. “It will allow you to run.”

  Idris forced himself not to scoff – he had not ‘run’ since he was eleven years old, and it was hard to imagine ever running again – but he gave the prince a sceptical frown.

  “Try it,” Joa said. “You will be surprised. It will take some practice and patience, but I promise you, you will be able to dart across battlefields with ease.”

  Idris lifted it; it was lighter than he imagined. “I will try it. Thank you, Highness.”

  “I look forward to the day I see the hammer destroyed,” the prince said, “because it will be the day the breastplate is destroyed.”

  “Does the hammer have a name?”

  “We call it Black Star.”

  Idris sighed. “Tell me how to make it my own,” he said.

  “Take my hand,” said Joa, holding out his palm.

  The last time Idris had given Joa his wrist, the prince had cut his arm open for the Fairy Queen, and Idris recoiled at the thought of touching him again. Carefully, he put his palm on Joa’s, and almost instantly he felt that he was no longer in the garden at Veridia, even though he could not perceive any changes.

  Then he blinked, and the garden was glittery, somehow, and Willard’s hut behind him was gone, and the pigs no longer smelled, and he and Joa were oddly alone, as if they were the only two beings in the universe. The space had the same feeling as the fae realm in that Idris found that his emotions were dulled and more pleasant, somehow, or at least that they did not matter so much.

  Joa rose from a bench that no longer existed and picked up Black Star, presenting it to Idris like a knight’s sword.

  “Hair from the head, where thought is grown,” he said.

  Gently, Idris plucked a strand of his hair from the ponytail and held it out over the shaft. The hair dissolved, like dust.

  “Skin from the body, where senses are king.”

  Idris bit beside his fingernail, pulled off a small chunk of skin and dropped it. It, too, vanished.

  “Blood from the veins, where true love lies.”

  A small knife appeared by Idris’s left hand. He took it, cut the pad of his thumb and dropped three beads of blood over Black Star.

  “Bone from within, which will live forever.”

  Idris was confused as to how he should present the hammer with bone, but when he looked at his hand, he saw that one of his fingers was stripped bare, as if it had never had skin or muscle. Instead of terrifying, he thought it fascinating. With the knife, he scraped a thin layer of bone from the finger, and let it flutter over the weapon.

  Black Star suddenly flushed with a layer of grey smoke. Idris was sure he could hear the death aria and parades of drums. He reached out to grab the war-hammer and his hand closed over the shaft, and -

  And he was back in the royal gardens, blinking the pollen from his eyes, with Black Star clutched in his fist. The smoke was gone, but the sound of drums remained, thick in his ears. The hammer was perfectly balanced, curiously light.

  “Easy,” said Joa, settling back into his seat.

  Idris glanced at Willard; the hedge witch’s face was stormy.

  “I will depart, now that my side of the contract is fulfilled,” said the prince. “Unless you need anything more?”

  “There may be court called soon,” said Idris.

  “I will await my summons.” Joa nodded to his son. “Kin Willard, always a joy.”

  Willard simply nodded, his tongue in his cheek. Joa faded into the background as if he had never been there; as usual, Idris had to blink several times for his brain to understand what had happened.

  “’Spose that went well,” Willard said.

  Idris tutted. He was rather tired of Willard’s biting remarks, the way he kept reprimanding Idris like he was a child. How could Willard understand the importance of everything a court necromancer had to do – worse than that, a man whose family threatened the fabric of their society?

  “What would you have preferred?” said Idris.

  “That my friend didn’t have to carry some cursed glass around to kill his dad with, mebbe?” said Willard.

  “We do not have that luxury.”

  “Oh aye, nothing good here, I can agree on that one.”

  “Can you stop catastrophising?” said Idris, scowling as Willard shuffled buckets around the pig pen.

  “Aye, that’s your job and all. All the jobs are your jobs. Everything is down to you.”

  “What is your problem?” Idris burst finally, and Willard rounded on him and put his hands on his hips.

  “My problem? It’s you. Ain’t nothing good enough for you, ain’t nobody allowed to help. We’re all lowly idiots who don’t understand nothing. Only, we’re all useful when you want us and you never want us for nothing but to abuse yourself with. You want to run yourself into the ground and pretend you have everything under control all by yourself and you’re willing to do all kinds of knotty dung to get to where you think you need to be. And while you’re up all night, not eating nothing, not talking to no-one, all your friends are running around like your thrice-damned slaves to try and lighten the load and not one ‘thank you’ ever comes out of your ungrateful hole.”

  Idris thought Willard was done, but he took another deep breath, his cheeks pink, and kept on.

  “You don’t never come and see me to spend any time with me at all, outside of your demanding that I get my pa to come see you, so he can make you more magical tat to kill yourself with. Or, if you’re a-wanting herbs to keep your eyes open or punish your body with. Like somehow if you make it to the end of the week without wasting a single second, it’ll be worth it. I moved my whole life out here for you, Idris,” he said, tears in his eyes. “My pigs, my home. I learned magic out of books and I made nice with all your big palacefolk friends because I thought that would help, that I could be something. I ain’t nothing. What’s worse? I ain’t nothing to you. Nothing but a... a dispensary. That ain’t what I wanted. That ain’t good enough.”

  “You are not the most important thing in my life right now, Willard,” said Idris with a disbelieving laugh.

  “No, that’s true,” Willard said. “Nothing’s important to you ‘cept your pa, who hates you, because the only time you feel good about yourself is when people treat you bad. ‘Cause somehow, that proves everything you ever thought about yourself and what you think is wrong with you.”

  “Don’t you dare,” spat Idris, every hair on his neck standing up, his stomach boiling.

  “Killing your dad ain’t going to magically fix everything,” said Willard. “There ain’t no way to fix what’s wrong with you unless you accept that you’re the problem.”

  “If you don’t want to help, then don’t help,” said Idris. “Stay here, in the mud with your pigs. Go back to your poxy forest. I don’t need you.”

  “Great,” said Willard firmly, and he grabbed his jacket off the fence. “Might do that.”

  He stamped into his hut and slammed the door.