Tanalvah slipped from her hiding place and dashed to her friend. She found her smiling.

‘Come on! We have to get away!’

Vacantly, Serrah stared at her.

Tanalvah grabbed her wrist. ‘We can’t stay here.

Come on!

’

Smile fading, Serrah focused. She glanced down at Tanalvah’s hand. ‘You’re shaking.’

‘You’re the one who should be.’ She squeezed Serrah’s arm and implored, ‘This is crazy. They’ll be others here soon. We’ve got to

go

.’

The small crowd watched them silently.

Serrah looked about, as though seeing her surroundings for the first time. Something of her old self emerged. ‘Yes. Yes, you’re right.’ She nodded at the main thoroughfare. ‘That way.’

They ran.

A smattering of cheers rose from the crowd, and several people shouted encouragement. Others began yelling abuse. As the women jogged away, a shoving, ill-tempered commotion broke out; a scaled-down version of the divisions that plagued Bhealfa as a whole. But Serrah and Tanalvah weren’t pursued. Not by anything human.

They’d covered a block when Tanalvah tugged at Serrah’s sleeve. ‘Look!’ She pointed back the way they’d come, and up.

Serrah turned without breaking step. She saw something above, flying at rooftop height and closing in on them. Its vast wings flapped in a slow, leisurely rhythm. Though everyone knew it didn’t really need wings at all.

A shadow fell across the fleeing women. The creature circled overhead, and they could see it more clearly. It was some sort of hybrid, mostly bat with insect traits, the latter providing it with three sets of spindly legs. The effect was not unlike a housefly, albeit one the size of a hay cart and sporting coal-red eyes.

‘I don’t think it’s a hunter-killer,’ Serrah judged, scowling irritably, ‘just a damn snoop.’

‘Then any minute it’s going to start shouting about where we are.’

They were trotting now, with the tracer glamour hanging over them, keeping pace. There weren’t many people on the streets this early, but those that were began taking an interest.

‘Alert! Alert!’

the glamour screeched.

‘Felons sighted! Summon the watch!’

Tanalvah mouthed, ‘Oh, no.’

People were stopping to look.

‘Fuck this.’ Serrah’s hand went to her belt.

Wheeling, the glamour continued its hue and cry.

‘Fugitives! Insurgents! Here! Here! Here!’

Serrah tugged out a short-bladed throwing knife.

‘Alert! Alert! Anti-social elements at large! Summon your…’

Arm drawn well back, she lobbed it with all her strength.

‘…

local militia or-’

The blade struck the creature’s fuzzy underside, and seemed to be absorbed into it. At once the glamour froze. Its serrated wings stilled. Yet still it hung in the air, impossibly.

What looked like a circular red stain appeared at the spot where the knife had entered. It began to expand. Resembling fire spreading across paper, it started to turn the creature’s apparently solid flesh not to ash, but countless silver motes. Racing faster, the corruption riddled the glamour’s body, veined its wings and stripped its bristly legs. The illusion of ebony tissue dissolved into a mass of tiny radiant pellets.

They fell as silvery hail, gently popping on the pavement below. What was left drifted down as a soft rain of shimmering pewter, dusting the streets and early risers before vanishing.

Serrah’s knife clattered to earth somewhere, heard but unseen.

‘Good shot,’ Tanalvah whispered, plainly fearful.

‘A good knife lost,’ Serrah complained.

They took to running again.

Their flight was more artful this time. They used alleys and back ways, narrow lanes and covered passages. When they caught sight of the main thoroughfares they saw mounted militia heading in the direction they’d come from.

‘Slow down,’ Serrah panted. ‘Running attracts attention.’

‘And killing people doesn’t?’ Tanalvah retorted.

Serrah shrugged.

‘Are you

trying

to get yourself caught?’

‘No.’

Serrah regarded her with hard eyes. ‘That’s never going to happen again. I’d rather die.’

‘Ah, so that’s it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have to

ask

? You’re too volatile, Serrah. What you did back there was…insane.’

‘I won’t be treated like shit.’

‘It was all unnecessary. You should have just shown them your identity documents. The forgeries are good enough to pass.’

‘You’re missing the point, Tan. They disrespected me. I’m not a piece of meat to be abused.’

‘What price respect if they’d killed you? Or captured us both? And who knows what would’ve happened to us then.’

It wasn’t only Tanalvah’s agitation that had passersby staring. Her jet hair, light tan complexion and slightly angular features attracted glances too. She had enough experience of casual prejudice towards Qalochians to ignore them.

‘As I said,’ Serrah replied coldly, ‘I won’t be taken.’

‘What about me?’

‘I wouldn’t let it happen to you either.’

‘Really? How?’

‘If there was a chance of you being captured I’d cut your throat.’

‘That’s a comfort,’ Tanalvah returned sarcastically. ‘Your actions have consequences, Serrah, and not just for yourself.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

‘You act as though you don’t.’

‘I do what I have to do.’

‘And relish it, if that fight you just started was anything to go by.’

‘In a way, yes. There’s nothing like being near death to give life some kind of meaning.’

‘I suppose that’s an improvement. Not that long ago it was only death you wanted.’

‘Keep moving,’ Serrah urged, blanking her.

As they hurried on, Tanalvah muttered, ‘Gods, you frighten me sometimes.’

They were nearing the city centre, where the streets were much more crowded. It was a crisp morning, and weak, autumnal sunshine burnt off the last of the night’s haze.

The fog had cleared but the magic was thick.

Wherever people congregated in numbers, the magic naturally tended to be more abundant. In the plazas, markets and boulevards of Valdarr’s hub, it was already dense, despite the hour. And its variety was as diverse as the populace.

For the rich, magic was the agency for parading their wealth. They strolled in the company of glamoured escorts, exquisitely beautiful and uncommonly repulsive. They summoned flocks of living doves made of ice, which melted as they flew or shattered into a thousand fragments on touching the ground. They conjured herds of pink fawns, and fireflies the size of pigeons that throbbed with blinding light. They caused talking bears to roam abroad, and produced cockerels that sang rather than crowed the hour.

For the poor, magic was the balm that soothed their misery. In side streets and dingy turnings, unwashed children made do with cheap clown glamours that flickered and slurred

through their performances. Or tumbling acrobats in washed-out colours that faded in and out of focus. The youngsters’ gaunt elders, dressed in rags, wrung subsistence out of begging. They used rudimentary spells, counterfeit or stolen, to materialise basic musical instruments. Glamoured pipes and fiddles, suspended in empty air, tooted and scraped simple melodies. Passersby flung the odd coin into the paupers’ upturned caps.

There were glamour beggars too, collecting for benevolent leagues that eased poverty, or affected to. These glamours, in clean rags and with scrubbed, smiling faces, were idealised versions of their human counterparts. Consequently their caps overflowed while the real poor were ignored.

Everywhere there were glittering illusions and cunning phantasms to deceive the senses. New glamours were constantly appearing, while others, expired or dismissed, were snuffed out.

Another day of infinitely malleable reality, and it wasn’t mid-morning yet.

Serrah and Tanalvah took it all for granted. They were much more concerned with the level of security on the streets. Watch patrols and militia mingled with the crowds, as was to be expected, but in recent days their numbers had greatly increased. And now there were army regulars at every corner too, and the distinctive scarlet tunics of the paladin clans could be seen on all sides.