I’ll just fix Artemis quickly. Maybe lie down for a minute, then get back to work.

No1 was a good soul, and it never for a moment occurred to him to probe Holly a little to make sure she was fully herself. It never crossed his mind that one of his closest friends could be leading him into a life of servitude.

Turnball sat by Leonor’s bed in the stolen shuttle ambulance, holding her hand while she slept. He felt a little giddy about changing his plan at the last minute. It was quite the cavalier move, and the rush of adrenaline reminded him of his younger days.

“It was all seat-of-the-pants stuff before I went to prison,” he confided to the sleeping Leonor. “I was a captain in the LEP and running the underworld at the same time. To be honest, there wasn’t much of an underworld before I came along. In the morning I would chair a meeting of the task force that was trying to apprehend me, and in the evening I would be doing black-market deals with the goblin gangs.” Turnball smiled and shook his head. “Good days.”

Leonor did not react, as Turnball had thought it best to give her just a drop of sedative until the warlock had restored her youth. He knew from her talk of death that he was losing his grip on his wife, and she was not strong enough to survive another thrall rune.

So sleep, my darling. Sleep. Soon, all will be as it was.

As soon as Captain Short returned with the demon. And if she did not? Then he would board the Nostremius and take the warlock by force. Perhaps he would lose a crew member or two, but they should be glad to die for their captain’s wife.

One level down, in the brig, Bobb Ragby was on guard duty, a duty that he was enjoying immensely, as he considered it payback for all the years he himself had been lorded over by guards. It didn’t matter to Bobb that his gel-bound prisoners weren’t actually the people who’d watched over him: that was just their bad luck. He was taking special pleasure in teasing Mulch Diggums, whom he had long considered a competitor in the top criminal dwarf competition that he’d played in his head during the long hours spent on the toilet, thanks to a diet of processed food.

Turnball had ordered him to split the amorphobots for safety, and now one hung in each corner of the cell like a giant wobbling egg sac.

If any of them act up, then use the shocker feature at your own discretion, Turnball had said. And if they try to shoot their way out, make sure we get that on video so we can have a good laugh later.

Ragby had decided he would definitely use the shocker at the first provocation, maybe before the first provocation.

“Hey, Diggums, why don’t you try to eat some of the gel so I have an excuse to electrocute you?”

Mulch did not waste his energy talking: he simply bared his enormous teeth.

“Yeah?” said Ragby. “They ain’t so big. The more I look at you, Diggums, the less I believe all that junk your little groupies spew back at The Sozzled Parrot. You don’t look like much of a burglar to me, Diggums. I think you’re a phoney. A fraud, a tale-spinning liar.”

Mulch brought a hand up to his face. Yawn.

Artemis had been returned to the grip of his amorphobot once the branding had been completed, and with nothing to do but think in its clammy folds, he could feel whatever was left of his battered personality slipping away. The rune on his neck had taken hold of his willpower in a vicelike grip, and while he could think and speak at the moment, it took a lot of effort, and he guessed that he only had those rudimentary functions because Turnball hadn’t given him any specific instructions yet. Once he had his orders, then he would be powerless to resist.

Turnball will be able to order me to do anything, he realized.

Through the distorting field of gel, Artemis could see Ragby taunting Mulch, and thought that perhaps it would be a good idea if he joined the argument.

Speaking through the gel was a tricky affair that involved forming the words through clenched teeth, which kept the gel out but allowed it to pick up vibration in the throat.

“Hello, Mr. Ragby,” he said. The amorphobot sprouted a gel speaker and translated the vibrations into words.

“Hey, look,” said Ragby. “The thrall speaks. What do you want, Mud Boy? A little shock, is that what you want?”

Artemis decided that highbrow intellectual argument was not the way to go with this person, and chose to go straight for the personal insult.

“I want you to have a bath, dwarf. You stink.”

Ragby was delighted to have a little diversion. “Wow. That’s like actual grown-up fighting talk. You do know that your bodyguard is out of action?”