“When he was dead, they lost their only chance of winning the war and the last of the true Tap wielders went into exile. The wellsprings were closed, one by one, until only a handful remained. From that, they could reclaim a shadow of their former selves in time…which is lucky for us, otherwise they would never have been killed.”

“Why would the Thayne go to so much trouble to kill one man?” Lilith pictured the threads of fate in her mind’s eye. Whichever ones she cut, none lead to a logical conclusion – an end game.

The rest of the troupe took a glass, drained it, and held it out for Leopold to refill it in silence. Ruby brooded, still angry over Duffy’s deception. Arden tried to gauge how serious his brother was, unsure wherever or not he could give up his own power carved into the world for a higher cause. Lilith hushed the growing voices in her head, the Greater Oni reminiscent of the Forgotten Ones. Leopold just drank, eager to prove he was at least good at something. At the back of his mind, the merchant clamoured for the chance to be his true self…to claim back some of the trappings of being an Old God, which he abandoned long ago for the sake of a love he now knew to be undying…to be worth any suffering.

“He was the only chance the Tap wielders had of defeating the Thayne. With them gone, the Thayne could establish themselves as divine, beyond doubt. Magic, and the Old Gods, and all the joys of the golden age died along with Apotheosis. Irony is a bitch, but worse still…becoming a Thayne gave me everything I needed to give up everything to rectify.”

“You’re saying to me with an honest face that the Thayne messed up?” Arden shrugged. “Won’t they expect us to try and stop them?”

“They tried. Hromargh is dead. Well, his avatar is, but that means he will need time to recover. Remember what you used to say to me, when I was a street thief?”

“What bleeds must die…”

“And if it can die, then it is not a god.”

“Why did you take so damned long to tell us this?” Ruby tossed her glass to one side, and Leopold conjured a vortex to suck it up, aghast that she didn’t recognise it as their wedding toast set. “The battle in Scara Brae was three months ago!” Fire danced in the spell singer’s eyes. Half wine, half winnow, Duffy was running out of time before the inevitable kick in the bollocks.

The bard slouched, momentum spent. He had hoped to get them on side before revealing one final humbling truth. He had spent that time scouring every inch of his past, every place he’d ever slept, every home he’d ever robbed, visited, and partied in. Every street corner on which the troupe had performed and every caravan with which he’d travelled to spread poetry and song across the world. Finally, he found what he was looking for.