I turn. I’m back in the crowd before I know it, pushing and flashing apologetic smiles even though my heart feels ready to burst. How can he be here? Did he see me? Did he recognise my auburn hair, the shape of my face beneath the mask?

Quirin was the only smuggler from his clan to have crossed the Valley. The only one to have visited Víndurn.

Has he been spying for Lord Farran the entire time? When he sang of the prisoner, that night on the lagoon, did he know the man of whom he sang?

The last time I saw him, Quirin crushed our boat with a squeeze of his proclivity. His smuggling crew pursued us into the wilderness. He killed Silver. He almost killed us too. And that chain of alchemy charms around his neck … I know where he found them.

They belonged to Silver.

Quirin must have found her body in the undergrowth – in that ditch where we left her to rot. He took the chain from her body: a bloody token of the woman he murdered. He must have seen the broken dam, the flooded Valley. And then he set out towards Víndurn to sell his new information to Lord Farran …

It was him. The lone figure behind us in the Valley. The lone figure descending the cliff, crossing those barren plains. Too distant to see his face, or even the colour of his hair.

It was never a hunter. It was a smuggler.

And my mind thumps with those words again: that rhythm that I first heard in Quirin’s voice, on the banks of a night-brushed lagoon.

 

Oh Valley’s vein,

How we swim through your pain,

From the prisoner’s pit to the sky …

 

I hear it now. The rasp of Quirin’s voice. The sound of a flute. A quiet breeze, the slosh of water, a child splashing in the dark …

And around me, the Ball of No Faces. The two images mash together, jolted a little by the wine in my stomach, and the close-pressed limbs of the crowd. For a moment I can’t breathe. There’s just the rush of gloved hands and elbows and masks – so many masks, shining and feathered – and the rush of song and water.

And the night. All around me, the night. I feel a sudden rush from my proclivity and I close my eyes, scrunching back that power, pushing my awareness down into the darkest depths of my belly. I can’t deal with this now. I have to get back to my friends and warn them that Quirin’s here and we’re all in terrible danger.

The music cuts out.

A hush falls over the ball. People turn, all at once, as though a magnet has pulled their attention across the room. But it’s just a man descending the stairs. His mask is white. He wears a richie’s top hat and a silver cloak, shining like starlight beneath the lanterns.

Lord Farran.

This has to be him. The prisoner. The Eternal Lord. The man with the Silver proclivity, dressed in a cloak of shining silver. Not exactly subtle. Although if you’re ruling a country through the threat of your magic, I guess it pays to keep the threat visible. The silence is so thick I can taste it.

Lord Farran raises his hands in a gesture of welcome. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he says. ‘Welcome to the Ball of No Faces.’

His voice echoes around the hall. It’s deep and strong: a tone of natural command. I wonder if it carries to the upper levels of partygoers. I wonder if they’re all silent too, straining their ears, or whether they listen to the speech through alchemy charms and radios.

I’m mildly surprised that Farran hasn’t adopted a Víndurnic accent. But then again, isn’t his Taladian origin part of his legend? Perhaps he likes to remind people that he came to them from the Valley. To emphasise that he’s truly the prisoner – the most famous enemy of the Morrigan family.

‘Our nation faces a difficult time,’ he says. ‘A time of great strength, and great courage. King Morrigan of Taladia has been plotting against us. He has attempted to invade – both above the earth, and below it.’

Whispers hiss across the hall.

Lord Farran holds up his hands and the muttering dies. ‘I know these facts,’ he says, ‘because my spies have carried the news straight into my ears. I am not such a fool as to leave Taladia unsupervised. I have eyes and ears in every pocket of their society, and I have waited for the right time to strike. That time is tomorrow.’

Silence.

I risk a glimpse sideways, at the faces of the Víndurnics around me. The scene is almost eerie: hundreds of blank masks staring up at their beloved lord. With the sheen of their dresses and the gleam of their masks, they resemble statues: inhuman in the dappled light.

‘We shall not wait for King Morrigan to invade!’ Lord Farran’s shout slaps off the marble staircase, off the glistening walls – as loud as a gunshot in the silence of the hall. ‘It was a Morrigan who locked me in a prison of ice. It was a Morrigan who sent his hunters to pursue me across Taladia. It was a Morrigan who bound me in the Pit of the catacombs, and left me to drown when the water rushed through. But did the Morrigans defeat me?’

‘No!’ a woman cries, before a hundred others take up the shout. ‘No!’

Lord Farran raises a fist. ‘The Morrigans tried to kill me, and now their descendants try to take our land. They are cruel tyrants to their people, and enemies to all who love prosperity and freedom. But this is the time to fight back. This is the time to show the Morrigans what it feels like to be victims!’

People cheer. A few punch their fists into the air. I scan the crowd anxiously for my friends, for Lukas. If Lord Farran had any idea that a Morrigan – the son of the king himself – stood in this very room …

‘King Morrigan is growing desperate,’ Lord Farran says, when the cheers have died away. His voice is quiet now. Sinister. A few people lean closer, straining to pick up the nuances in his tone. ‘His schemes have failed, and he’s due to begin his plan of last resort. He shall bring his army to the Valley – to traverse the slopes above that treacherous sea. And in the Valley, that army shall fall.’

As he speaks, Lord Farran crooks a finger, as though to coax a disobedient child into movement. The silver banister ripples, before tendrils of it melt up into the air, slowly spinning ribbons of silver. My breath catches in my throat. It’s true. This man’s proclivity is really Silver.

‘When dawn comes tomorrow,’ says Lord Farran, ‘our army shall march towards the Valley. And when dusk falls tomorrow, the soldiers of Taladia shall burn!’

His final words echo across the marble and the crowd erupts into applause. He waves a hand and the banister crashes back down into place – a perfect arch of solid silver. I hastily clap my own hands, scanning the crowd. I can’t see my friends. I can’t see Quirin.

Quirin. He must be one of Farran’s spies. What did Farran just say? I have eyes and ears in every pocket of their society. And Quirin’s a smuggler captain – the perfect position to sneak around Taladia, to weed out news and sneak it back into Víndurn. No wonder Lord Farran is so well informed! Quirin could sell secrets of the Taladian monarchy, of King Morrigan’s expanding empire, of his plans to invade Víndurn. Hell, he might even have smuggled in Taladian foxary pups, inspiring Lord Farran to create the first sólfoxes.

Quirin must know what happened in the catacombs. He must have seen the dam’s collapse, the water flooding into the Valley. He must have spoken to the fleeing soldiers, figured out their plan to dig beneath the magnetic seams.

And so Quirin fled eastwards to report to Farran. If he recognised our crew in the Valley, of course he’d have pursued us for a while. After all, we broke our word – and I bet he still wants us to pay for it. But the smugglers’ creed is sense, not sentimentality. When we gained the protection of Bastian’s clan, it must have become too risky to hunt us further.

We have to move.

I find Lukas on the edge of the crowd, his arm wrapped protectively around Maisy’s shoulder. Now that the speech is over, the crowd is spilling back through the ballroom. Maisy’s face twists with anxiety; she keeps glancing around at the jostling crowd, the strangers brushing against her as they pass. I feel a twinge of sympathy. Maisy was once stalked by a twisted old man – a man to whom her father planned to sell her hand in marriage. She isn’t comfortable with this brushing of flesh against her bare arms.

When she spots me, her expression lifts a little. ‘Danika, did you see him?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s Quirin.’

‘Are you sure? Under the mask, it’s hard to –’

I nod. ‘It’s him.’

‘Who?’ Lukas says.

‘A smuggler captain,’ I say. ‘We travelled with him for a bit, after you ran off to the catacombs. I told you about him – the one with the Metal proclivity. But Lukas, I don’t think your father sent any hunters into Víndurn. I think it was Quirin who followed us out of the Valley.’

I don’t mention that Quirin’s proclivity killed Lukas’s grandmother. It doesn’t seem important right now, and I need Lukas to stay alert. If we hope to escape this mess alive, there isn’t time for a fresh bout of mourning.

‘But what’s a Taladian smuggler doing –’

‘He’s a spy,’ I say. ‘He has to be. One of those spies Lord Farran was banging on about.’

Teddy and Clementine push through the crowd towards us. Clementine rushes straight for her sister and wraps her arms around Maisy’s shoulders. ‘Are you all right?’

Maisy is a little pale, but she nods. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘We have bigger things to worry about.’

‘Like the fact that Lord Fancypants is about to drag an army into the Valley?’ Teddy says.

‘Like the fact that Quirin’s here,’ I say.

They stare at me.

‘What?’ Clementine says. ‘That’s impossible. Don’t be silly.’

I scowl at her. Does she think I’d make up stories when the situation is already so fraught?

‘It’s true,’ Maisy says quietly. ‘I saw him too. Danika thinks he’s the man who followed us out of the Valley.’

Teddy shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Just when things couldn’t get any messier.’

Across the hall, Lord Farran has descended the staircase. The crowd parts to let him through. Those closest to him seem unable to breathe, star-struck by the presence of their Eternal Lord.

Lord Farran reaches the front of the hall and gives one final wave, before slipping away into the night.

Suddenly, there’s an explosion of voices – whispering, muttering, calling for friends. An outburst of chatter bounces off the walls, and the musicians begin to play once more.

‘We’ve got to hurry,’ I say.

‘Hang on, people don’t unmask until midnight,’ Teddy says. ‘We’ve still got time to talk to someone, fish for more infor–’

I shake my head. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Why, then?’

‘Because at midnight,’ I say, ‘Lord Farran’s going to set the sky on fire – just like every night. But I don’t think he’s doing it to stop the earth from boiling. Remember Tindra’s diary? He’s up to something else. Something secret.’

I take a deep breath. ‘And we’re going to be there to see it.’