An independent bookshop exclusive edition of The Betrayals by Bridget Collins.

1: the Rat Tonight the moonlight makes the floor of the Great Hall into a game board. Every high window casts a bright lattice, dividing the hall into black and white, squares and margins.

The ranks of wooden benches face one another on three sides; in the space between them there is nothing but straight shadows on stone, an abstract in pen and ink. It is as still as a held breath. For once not even an eddy of wind rattles the windows or hums in the great hearth. No dust dances over the dark-barred floor. The empty benches wait. If ever the hall was ready for the first move of a grand jeu, it’s now: midnight, silence, this geometry of light. Someone else would know how to play, how to begin.

But tonight there is only the Rat, shivering a little in her threadbare shirt, her arms tight around her ribcage. She stretches one scrawny foot in and out of the light, thinking dark, pale, dark, pale. She narrows her eyes at the sheen on her toenails. She is listening for footsteps; but then, she is always listening for footsteps. She is hungry; but then, she’s always hungry. She has forgotten to notice those things. She scrunches her toes. The stone is cold. The stone is always cold; even in summer the thin-aired nights are chilly, and