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Reeve came again. High this time. Kit caught the blade on his own and they locked, edge against edge, their faces close.

"She'll die anyway," Reeve said through gritted teeth. "After I kill you."

"You won't have a chance."

"You think this ends with me? I owned you. I'll own the next one too. And the one after that. And eventually one of them will finish what you couldn't." His breath was hot and stale.

Kit shoved him back. Reeve stumbled. Caught himself against the mantelpiece.

Boots on the stairs. Several pairs. Heavy and fast. Kit's stomach dropped — the captain's men were not in position, which meant these were not the captain's men.

Three figures came through the drawing room door. Reeve's crew. Armed. The first one saw Kit and drew a blade and the second was already moving toward the platform.

Then boots from below. Different rhythm. Faster. A shout from the passage — the captain's voice, hoarse with effort: "Go! Go! Move, damn you!"

The captain's men poured through the kitchen and hit Reeve's crew from behind and the drawing room erupted. Blades on blades. Bodies slamming against walls. A chair splintered. The platform rocked and Audrey gripped the sides and the coffin scraped sideways and she climbed out, half-falling, catching herself on the cracked trestle, and got her feet on the steps.

Kit could see her. He could not reach her. Reeve was between them, blade up, circling, and behind Reeve the room was a tangle of fighting men. A body hit the floor. Someone shouted. Steel rang on steel and the sound bounced off the boarded windows.

Spit let the boy go.

Kit saw it happen. The Irishman's arms opened and the boy stumbled forward, gasping, and Spit turned and looked at the room and did what the thinker always did. He found the gap. The captain's men were engaged. Kit was locked with Reeve. The platform was tilted, the steps half-broken, and Audrey was standing on them with a cane and nothing else.

Spit drew his knife and crossed the room.

Reeve lunged. Kit blocked. He tried to disengage, tried to get past, and Reeve pressed him harder, driving him back toward the hearth.

"Eyes on me, boy," Reeve said. "Always on me."

Kit heard Spit's boots on the broken steps. Heard the wood groan.

The boy was on the floor where Spit had dropped him. He was shaking, on his hands and knees, his breath coming in hitches. His pistol lay three feet away where it had fallen from his grip when Spit pinned him.

The boy looked at the pistol. Looked at Spit, climbing toward Audrey. Looked at Audrey.

He crawled. Picked it up. Rose to his knees and raised it with both hands and aimed at the centre of Spit's back.

"No."

Audrey's voice. From the steps. Clear as the first morning he had heard her shout through this house.

The boy froze, the pistol shaking. His face was a wreck of terror and want and indecision. His finger was on the trigger. He looked at her.

"Put it down, Jem," she said. "Not today."

Spit reached the second step. His knife was in his right hand, held low. He looked up at her and his lip curled.

Audrey shifted her weight to her good leg. She gripped her cane at the midpoint, the brass tip forward, and she watched him climb and she waited.

He took the third step. His face tilted up.

She drove the cane down like a spear.

The brass tip caught Spit across the cheekbone. She heard the crack — the same wet, hard sound it had made on Reeve's nose, bone giving way beneath metal. Spit's head snapped sideways. His knife clattered down the steps. He dropped to his knees on the broken timber, his hand going to his face, and then he fell sideways and did not get up.

Audrey stood on the steps with her cane raised and her chest heaving and looked down at the man at her feet. Her arms were shaking. Her hip was screaming. She did not lower the cane until she was certain he would not rise.

Kit saw it. He saw all of it. And the sight of her — upright, trembling, victorious, a woman who had been given a gun and chosen a walking stick — broke something loose in his chest that had been locked there for thirty years.