‘You two,’ Hood said, turning away, ‘are worse than advocates. And you don’t want to know what I do with the souls of advocates.’ A heartbeat later and the Lord of Death was gone. Menandore frowned. ‘Shadowthrone, what are advocates?’ ‘A profession devoted to the subversion of laws for profit,’ he replied, his cane inexplicably tapping as he shuffled back into the woods. ‘When I was Emperor, I considered butchering them all.’ ‘So why didn’t you?’ she asked as he began to fade into a miasma of gloom beneath the trees. Faintly came the reply, ‘The Royal Advocate said it’d be a terrible mistake.’
