Her parents' worry was etched into everything they did that morning after Alleria told them what had happened. There was no discussion on the matter, it was a shorter conversation than she anticipated. She sometimes wished they'd show her more and wouldn't struggle to keep up a strong facade for her sake. The arrangements to move would begin that very day.

After her parents left for work, Cassel showed up at her house. "I talked to Mr. Malluri on the telephone," she told him. "He wants us to meet this evening."

"I can take you there," he said quietly.

"I didn't tell him what happened but... he sounded strange. Something's the matter. Do you think he knows?"

Cassel shook his head. "It's rich men and their rich troubles. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with you." Something in Cassel's face warned her not to question further. She had no place to pry into her patron's private affairs.

That evening, there were several strange cars parked outside the Malluri mansion. Alleria knew next to nothing about cars, though these were all black and expensive looking. It was odd for her benefactor to have guests at this time, especially when he knew she was coming. Money didn't actually give people freedom, they were bound by so many rules and restrictions that it was almost surprising anyone ever yearned to become rich. Malluri's friends, who weren't actually real friends, would never arrive without having planned it in advance and without a particular cause in mind.

Alleria walked ahead with Cassel behind her, she began mounting the marble stairs when a tall, dark, figure stepped in ahead of her, blocking her path. Her breath caught in her throat before she realised who it is.

Willum looked odd, his face was pale and drawn, there were dark circles underneath his eyes and his hair stuck out from his forehead in a way that suggested he had ruffled it many times. His eyes were steely cold, though, and he glared darkly at her through his wire-framed spectacles.

"You, least of all people, should be here." His voice was quiet, almost a whisper but closer to a hiss.

"Malluri said —"

"My father is oblivious to what's going on," Willum said in a flat voice. Alleria would have thought he sounded bored if she could disregard how angry he looked. "He'll eat up every lie that's fed to him. As long as it comes from people whose opinion he values"

"What's —?"

"Priests are here, right now, but not for you. Not explicitly." Willum passed her, and began walking down the stairs. He pulled keys out of his pocket. "I'm taking you home."

Alleria looked back, searching for Cassel, but he had vanished. She wondered if as a demon-touched boy he had a mystical power that allowed him to disappear, or he was just talented at sneaking away. "Priests? You mean from the Church? But why would they be after me?" she hurried to follow Willum, lowering her voice to nearly a whisper.

"All these exorcisms you hear about? Who do you think's performing them?"

"Individual groups, fanatics..."

"There's a known and powerful witch operating in the empire. The Church has been given sanction from the bureaucracy to act, so they act as they see fit." They approached the same car that Cassel had used to bring Alleria here. Did Cassel have a copy of the keys? Did Willum know that it went missing on occasion?

Willum was already inside the car turning the key in the ignition, Alleria hurried into the seat at his side, slamming the door. "And what does that mean?" she asked.

"It means they're networked, well connected and organised. You've been exposed, Bellencreek. They know what you are. They've hired an exorcist to take down the witch, and you can bet that they're going to use the opportunity hunt as many as your kind as they could find. "

"How do you know all this? How do you know what I am? I don't even know what I am." There shouldn't have been any exorcists in the world, not after what people had been subjected to. The Purging had cost many innocent lives and had threatened to bring the entire empire to ruin. Exorcisms were as illegal as witchcraft. But unlike the other forbidden knowledges, exorcists wrote in blood and spoke in pain, they prospered through torment and thrived on death.

"You know what you are, Bellencreek. Stop behaving like you don't." Willum's hands were stiff and white on the steering wheel as the electric gate slowly rolled open before them. Alleria noticed movement from the corner of her eye and turned her head to find Cassel in the back seat. He pressed his finger to his lips. Shhh...

But then, through the rear window, she saw that several people had come out of the mansion. Men in long deep-grey billowing robes trotting down the marble stairs — priests.

She ducked into her seat and out of view. Willum noticed her behaviour, his gaze flashing to the rear-view mirror and then fixing again on the painstakingly slow gate. Neither of them spoke, Alleria held her breath.

The priests noticed them and they began running towards the car. The first priest to make it started banging on Willum's window. Willum pursed his lips and pressed his foot down on gas. The car darted forward, passing through an opening in the gate barely wide enough to admit it. They turned with a screech of tires and sped down the road.

Several streets later, Alleria let go of the breath she had been holding.

They didn't speak until they were well away.

"I didn't know there was an imperial decree to give power to the Church. I would never have come to Callivar if I knew."

"You're behaving like a baby. You think the whole world is a dollhouse. The signs were all there you just refused to see them." Willum was one of those people who didn't need to shout to sound mad. He used cold-cutting tones that were so dry and level Alleria felt she was being skinned alive. "Go home to your little farm or wherever you came from, lock the door, don't let strangers in. The danger is never over. Keep all your secrets in a locked box on the highest shelf out of reach forever."

"How would you know all these things?" Alleria dug her fingers into the leather of the seat. She felt frightened, but also peculiar, like none of this was real. "What are you, Willum?"

"I'm no devil-spawn, if that's what you're thinking."

"I didn't ask what you weren't, I asked what you are."

Willum stopped the car, they were outside her building. He turned to glare at her. "Get out," he commanded.

She wanted to refuse, she wanted to argue, but she just didn't. The moment Alleria closed the door of the car, it drove off and was gone. She blinked after it, that had happened eerily fast.

Trudging towards the blue gate, Alleria fumbled with her keys. The small pedestrian door in the gate had been left ajar, probably old Mrs. Grupper who had trouble remembering most things these days forgot to close it. Alleria made sure to slam it shut behind her before crossing the courtyard and mounting the stairs to their attic flat.

She unlocked the door and turned on the hall light, her parents still hadn't come home from work, which was rare. She looked at the clock on the wall, they should have been here by now, but sometimes there were urgent documents that had to be written, sometimes there were administrative meeting in the Hand office that ran late into the night. She hung her keys on the key-rack by the door and her purse on the coatrack and made for her room, not bothering to turn on the living room light.

Her shoe crunched on something on the floor. She looked down at pieces of broken porcelain, even in the poor light she recognised that gold rim and rose pattern — Mam's fancy tea-set.

"Mam? Da?" Alleria cried.

It was foolish, she knew they weren't home.

She knew they weren't home, but there were other people in the flat with her.

Someone turned off the light in the hall, just as someone else came into the living room from the kitchen. The living room window overlooking the courtyard was open. Alleria ran to it, "HELP!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, bracing herself against the window-frame. "SOMEONE! HELP ME!"

She was pulled back by her throat with such force that she was halfway across the room and on her knees in less than a second. She struggled to get to her feet when the invisible attacker let go of her throat only to clutch her wrists and pull her arms back. "Tie it tightly," said a man's high, yet calm voice in the darkness. "It's no matter if you damage its skin."

"No!" Alleria cried, she could barely move against the man's grip as he wound a stiff corn round her wrists. She had no strength of her own. "Don't do this! Please! I'm only a girl, I've done nothing wrong."

"Don't listen to it," the owner of the voice was so calm, speaking as if it were instructing on how to fix an ant problem. "Demons always lie."

"I'm not a demon."

"Lies," said the man. He strolled into her line of sight, a tall, lean figure in the darkness. He walked closer, and then crouched down so that his face was level with hers. He wasn't old, or ugly, or even vicious looking. He was the sort of man you'd find working as a clerk in the bank, or perhaps an advocate or an accountant. He had a professional air about him, and examined her like an architect examines cracks in an old building.

The exorcist.

"Gag her," he commanded.

A crash and a bang coming from the hallway made the exorcist look up in annoyance. The man tying her bonds stiffened. People were shouting — how many of them were in the flat? With the sound of splinting furniture, something came careening into the living room that was suddenly bathed in warm, flickering, yellow candlelight.

The exorcist clicked his tongue and rose.

"Alleria!" Cassel called from a distance. She looked left and right, but couldn't see the source of the light or the voice. The man holding her grunted and released her, she could feel Cassel's hands helping her to her feet.

"Cassel —?"

"Hurry! I can't hold... I'm too weak." Cassel's invisible hand gave her a shove towards the door.

A flash of silver, the exorcist pulled out a small knife. He passed the blade along the centre of his palm, his brows knit with concentration. Then he made a fist out of his cut palm and allowed his blood to drip down toward the floor. But the droplets of blood never reached the floor, they each began to glow, a pinpoint of reddish light, and hovered in the air. Then, one after the other, they gathered forming a circle of red light that opened wider and wider until it encompassed the whole room.

"Destroy," commanded the exorcist. The circle began closing in, like a tightening noose and wherever it passed, the candlelight vanished.

Cassel screamed.

And screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

Alleria felt as if her heart would burst out of her throat, all the blood in her body seemed to stop at her stomach as her bones shook to the tune of Cassel's pain.

Then, it stopped.

On the floor beside her, in the wreckage that had once been her family's living room, the prone and crumpled body of a boy blinked into existence.

Now, Alleria screamed.

But hers was a short-lived scream, for her downed attacker had risen again. He choked at her throat from behind.

And all became dark.