I crumple, slipping down into a blur of shoes and dirt and cobblestones. I see feet. Legs. Startled cries echo above my head, as muted as if I were underwater.

And then it hits me: not just the pain, but the shock. Someone attacked me. Someone in this crush of flickering bodies tried to kill me. If I hadn’t turned aside to sniff the air …

It wasn’t supposed to be my shoulder. It was supposed to be my throat.

Pain flares in my shoulder, hot and white. I lurch to the side, half-expecting another blow. Nothing. My would-be killer has vanished into the crowd, or dissolved into shadow.

I stagger to my feet; the last thing I need is to be crushed in the throng. A moment later, someone grabs my uninjured arm and yanks me sideways.

‘What happened?’ Lukas’s breath is sharp in my ear. ‘Danika, you’re bleeding! What –?’

‘We’ve got to get out of here!’

The mass of bodies surges around me. My pulse quickens. Any of these people could be my attacker. He could be here right now, just waiting to move in for the kill …

Lukas presses closer and I realise he’s trying to shield me. He hasn’t put it all together yet – not the fact that someone slashed me – but he knows that I’m bleeding. Danger. And yet his first reaction is to put his own body between me and the crowd.

A flash of emotion runs down my spine. I’m not sure whether it’s fear or gratitude or something deeper. All I know is that I can’t let him do this. If someone plans another attack, I can’t let Lukas take the blow.

I jerk aside through the crush of bodies. Lukas shouts, but I’ve already slipped away. I bluster along towards the rest of our crew, but they’ve dispersed in the crowd. ‘Teddy? Clementine?’

I fight towards the market exit. The locals use their proclivities to ease through the crowd, and elbows and dissolving limbs shift like wind around me. Blood trickles down my shoulder, but I’ve suffered much worse. My mind still seems clear, so I don’t think the blood loss is too –

Someone shoves me aside, and for a terrible second I think their fingers are a blade. Their hand digs right into my wounded shoulder, causing a fresh burst of pain, and I can’t hold back a cry of alarm. But it’s just another stranger surging through the crowd.

As I shove forward, the world begins to blur. A familiar rhythm echoes through my mind, spurring my footfalls. The rhythm of the smugglers’ song, rising and falling with every heave of my lungs.

 

Oh mighty yo,

How the star-shine must go,

Chasing those distant deserts of green …

 

The first verse blurs into the second, then the third, until the words ‘the prisoner’s pit, the prisoner’s pit, the prisoner’s pit’ ricochet like a bullet in my skull. The crowd seems less and less like a horde of humans, and more like … a sea. A sea of limbs, of rushing water.

 

With mine hand on the left,

I shall not spill my breath

From desert to tomb, I shall die …

 

Are those the right words? The end of the song? Yes. No. I don’t think so. My brain is a jumble, my body a throb. Everyone pushes so tight, so close. My chest feels crushed. Surely the last line of the song is different. Not ‘to’ my tomb, but ‘from’ it. Isn’t that right? I was supposed to be running towards a new life, away from death. Not the other way around.

And now I hear the entire song as a mess of staccato phrases. How the star-shine must go … when the glasses of hours hold on …

And suddenly, I’m free.

I stagger with a hacking breath onto a patch of open cobblestones. I gasp, coughing up panic and spittle, then slap a hand across my shoulder to slow the bleeding. Someone grabs me – Clementine, I think – and we’re tripping over our feet in an effort to reach the others.

Slowly my senses return. I inhale several deep breaths and keep my hand pressed to my wound. Clementine waves her arm frantically. Teddy finds us, then Lukas and Maisy.

Bastian is the last to join us, his face twisted with concern. ‘What happened?’ he says, grabbing me.

I wince at the jerk to my shoulder. ‘I don’t … I …’

Bastian pulls back and examines his bloody palm with a look of horror. ‘Who did this?’

‘I don’t know! I was walking in the crowd, and suddenly –’

Lukas yanks down my collar, staring at my bloody shoulder. ‘Who’s got a bandage?’

Bastian fishes a scrap of fabric from his pocket: the material he used to carry the firestone. He gives it to Lukas, who presses it tightly to my wound. Bastian digs through his cloak and produces a pouch of crushed herbs. ‘Here, try this.’

Lukas lifts the bandage for a moment and applies the herbs. I hiss at the sting but, a moment later, the pain begins to dull and my dizziness fades.

‘Better get out of here, I reckon,’ Teddy says, face pale. ‘Whoever did it, I bet they’re still lurking around. Going for another shot. And if they’ve got Air for their proclivity …’

He’s right. My attacker could reappear at any moment, melting out of the air itself. I take the scrap of fabric from Lukas and school my face into the most determined expression I can muster.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

We pour down the street in a flurry of footsteps. I’m a little disturbed to find myself distrusting the shadows, the darkness, the patches of air where a body might hide. I keep to the light, avoiding the shadows cast by the spires. They don’t look so beautiful any more, those spires. They’re enormous blades of stone, casting darkness onto the streets. Places for assassins to hide.

It’s a ridiculous fear, of course, because an Air proclivity allows a person to hide anywhere. But still, the shadows open up the risk to people with other ethereal powers too, and I’d rather not take any chances. Not here. Not now.

‘Lucky they missed your throat,’ Teddy says, beside me. I notice that he’s stepping a lot closer than normal, in time with my footsteps. His eyes scan the street around us, as alert as a burglar on the prowl. ‘If you’re gonna have a hitman after you, better to pick one with lousy aim.’

‘I looked away,’ I say, still a little stunned. ‘I smelled something nice at the food stall, and I turned – just for a second. That’s why he missed, I think.’

Teddy forces a laugh. ‘Told you those potatoes could work miracles.’

No one else laughs. I blink hard, and press the fabric tight against my wound.

‘But why would someone attack Danika?’ Clementine says. She sounds rather put-upon, as though this attack is a personal insult. ‘I mean, we’ve just arrived here.’

‘Mistaken identity?’ Lukas sounds hopeful. ‘There were so many people in the crowd, and Danika wasn’t the only one in a black cloak. Perhaps someone mistook her for –’

‘Nah.’ Teddy shakes his head. ‘I don’t reckon it was a mistake. That close, it’d be hard to get a face wrong.’

‘The hunter,’ I say. ‘King Morrigan’s hunter – the one who followed us from the Valley. We thought he died at midnight, but …’

‘But maybe he’s still out there?’ Teddy shakes his head. ‘I don’t reckon it was him. Even if he’s alive – and that’s a big “if” – there’d be way easier spots to attack us. On the road to get here, for instance. Hunters work best in the wild, not in cities.’

‘But –’

‘Anyway,’ Teddy adds, ‘we’re not in Taladia. That means King Morrigan’s got no – what d’you call it?’

‘Jurisdiction,’ says Maisy.

‘Yeah, exactly. The king’s got no jurisdiction here, right? So it’d be a stupid risk for his hunter to attack us in the market. Too many local guards around. If he got caught, I bet he’d get shot as a foreign spy or something.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I reckon it was someone from the city. Someone who saw you there today, and decided to get rid of you.’ Teddy glances at me. ‘Reckon it was Hinrik?’

In front of us, Bastian stiffens. He whirls around to grab Teddy by the shoulders. ‘Never say such things,’ he hisses. ‘Not here. It isn’t safe.’

‘All right, all right!’ Teddy says. ‘Sorry.’

But as we set off again down the street, Teddy’s words churn through my mind. Hinrik. The idea makes just enough sense to set my stomach squirming. I didn’t break any explicit laws by rejecting Hinrik’s offer … but in doing so, I insulted an entire class of people.

Worse, I insulted the entire structure of Víndurnic society. If other people hear of my actions, it could cause whispering. Gossip. Rumours. Maybe even inspire others to do the same – to live with their solid friends and family, despite having proclivities of Air or Wind or Darkness.

Hinrik can’t afford for that to happen. His job as magistrate is to uphold the social structure, and to keep everyone in their rightful place. Solid souls live down in the villages; ethereal souls live up in the spires. And if I won’t take my rightful place above the ground …

He’ll find me a rightful place beneath it.