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way... lost her. Lost her.’
    Arrahaquen sat back. She heard heavy boots clomping up the stairs: Citadel Guard.
    At her door she waited, a damp mask over her face to avoid the effects of the now rising fog of gas. Two suited figures emerged from the white, billowing clouds, spectral and weird with their black visors and creaking suits.
    ‘What’s going on?’ came a pyuter voice.
    Arrahaquen showed them her card. ‘Intruder. She got away down Rosinante Street. I don’t know who it was.’
    ‘All right, we’ll clear up. Close your door. We’ll have the maintenance crowd up here to replace that smashed exit.’
    Arrahaquen did as she was bid. Inside, she noticed the dead body of the scorpion. It had discharged its venom like a bee, dying with fangs loose on twists of skin hanging out from its jaws. She threw it away.
    So far she had been attacked by a snake, a scorpion, endured two attempted poisonings and a deliberate water infection. Who was it?
    She knew of no enemies. Her mother had enemies – all members of the Red Brigade did – but why kill Ammyvryn’s daughter? She knew too few secrets to be valuable. And this had to be an inside attack. Nobody from outside the Citadel could make five such attempts. One, maybe, but not five.
    Her pyuter screen was still flickering, pulling her thoughts back to the woman who had bought a ficus seed. She sat at the rig and requested lists and portraits of known jannitta defenders. Hundreds passed by, none the woman portrayed in her picture. She called up lists of jannitta priestesses, these rather meagre because only defenders were accurately logged, but again did not locate the woman. She sat back, flummoxed.
    She lay back and tried to relax. It was impossible. She locked the door and every window, then checked each room again for assailants. Nothing. She took a green glass bottle of dooch and drank. Now she relaxed.
    Her mind wandered. She wondered what her mother was doing up at the Observatory. She wondered about the end of Kray. She navigated the streets of the Citadel with her mind’s eye, forcing nothing. The Westerly gate. Zinina.
    Zinina was the name. How it came to her, she did not know. Hadn’t there been a defender Zinina in the Citadel Guard? The pyuters said no. But Arrahaquen was certain there had been, though the insistent denials dented her belief.
    One last deed she performed before making for her bed. Emptying the bag of earth into the flowerpot, she planted the ficus seed, watering the soil well, then placing the pot on the south-facing window sill.
    ~
    A storm woke her at dawn next morning, but the brief meteorological tantrum brushed over Kray to leave rain set in, and a gloom so deep people were still using torches as night became day. As Arrahaquen prepared her breakfast – roast cashews, toast, minted honey and blackberry tea set on a silver salver – she made a decision. For now, she would forget the elusive jannitta and concentrate on her attacker. A pyuton replica would be made by Majaq-Aqhaj, the sentient mechanician used by the Red Brigade to devise their agents and technological sundries, and this double Arrahaquen would use to cover her necessary absences from the Citadel. But the whole affair would need to be kept secret. Only her mother and a handful of close friends knew of the four previous attempts.
    Locking her door, she called Ammyvryn. ‘It’s happened again,’ she said.
    ‘Number five. Mmmm. Somebody doesn’t want you around. All right, I’ll make enquiries.’
    Thanks, mother. ‘If you like.’
    ‘I hope you’re safe in there. Invite a friend around to keep you company. Oh – you are all right?’
    Arrahaquen smiled wanly. ‘Yes. A little shaken.’
    ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’
    A tear escaped Arrahaquen’s eye as she closed the link. No sympathy there. But for the moment she did not want to speak with her friends. All she wanted to do was escape her lot in the Citadel. She thumped her chair in frustration. She