Eighth Circle

'I trust Bryn, Professor.'

'Then everything rests on that.'

'Bryn is very sensible.'

'Is that your only reason for trusting him?'

'His family are senior members of Plaid Koerno and have suffered terribly but that hasn't made them fanatics. His father was killed by the trolls and his sister was taken away by them. It's what they do to the daughters of resistance fighters. They take them away and turn them into sirens.'

Tom's face tensed. 'They do what?'

'Turn them into sirens. I never knew what sirens were before. It's just horrible. They are innocent girls whose bodies are used by ancient nymphomaniacs whose own bodies are past it ... that's how Bryn describes it.'

Tom felt a pang of remorse.

'What is Bryn's family name?'

'Entwhistle.'

'She is up there, Crispin.'

Tom jabbed his baton towards the palace.

'She was one of those sirens who greeted me when I arrived. I had no idea they were surrogates. We're going to find her if it's the last thing we do. We are going to save her and all the other girls from those obscenities in jars and we are going to get them back to their families.'