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flickering, air-licking, light-living thing I’ve seen on news-streams but never for real? And I hope I never do. I’d rather be cold than go near flames. Fire looks dangerous. Just pictures of it make my scalp prickle. I’d rather wrap myself in a wolf to keep me warm.
    With Steen stumbling along in front we follow a road of sorts. It winds through the trees with deep ruts where wheels once rolled. Signs of civilisation!
    Don’t go  .  . .  whisper frost-crisp leaves in a light winter breeze.
    Don’t go  .  . .  caw the corvils, swooping low to the snow.
    Don’t go  . . . howl wolves deep in the darker wilds.
    Do I imagine the sorrowful sigh of someone unbearably old? Someone who murmurs my name before surrendering to silence?
    I can’t wait to get back to normal again, to see Zoya and know she’s all right. Mama and Papi will be going crazy, not knowing what’s happened to me. Pedla Rue will be camped out at our apartment waiting for news, the worse the better . . .
    We speed up, all three of us scrunching closer together as shadows deepen. Soon I hear the welcome hum of technology – heat machines that burn off ice and snow, lamps that defy the darkness, saws that slice through silence and wood. There’s something else – a spray, a spatter, a rain of black – ugh! I hide my face as a foul stickiness spurts towards us all.
    ‘It’s all right,’ shouts Reef, neatly stepping away from the spray. ‘It’s Slick, a new normalisation compound. Your uncle had a part in creating the formula.’
    Through red-watery eyes I watch as sexless, faceless figures in hooded white move past us, spraying great swathes of thick, dripping chemicals that leave Morass plants wilting into a bad-smelling mush.
    ‘Is it poisonous?’
    ‘Only for the forest,’ Reef replies, and just for a moment I can’t tell if it’s the smell that’s making his lip curl or the sight of so much destruction. ‘Once perfected, Slick will kill anything abnormal, leaving room for new towns and foodlands . . .’
    I miss the rest of what he’s saying. To my utter, total embarrassment I’m on my knees being sick.
    ‘Go away,’ are the first words I manage, though I accept a flask of something hot.
    Reef takes to his keypad instead. Eventually he halts and gets that faraway look on his face that shows he’s connected. I’ve never told anyone, but I sometimes wonder if that expression is what sex looks like. Or would he keep his eyes open and gaze into mine as we . . .
    Enough!
    I shut my eyes. When I open them Reef is looking straight at me. Into me. A Scrutiner.
    ‘Better now? Did you get your updates OK?’
    Na – I didn’t even think of connecting myself! Where’s the keypad gone? Here it is . . . Connection again! Hello, Aura . . . where were you when I needed you?
    welcome rain aranoza – updating – location: sorrowdale district, lim lands grid ref. 23:4072 – you have 15 messages – keep alert for action-requirements – please wait for action-requirements – updating – please wait please wait please wait please wait
    ‘Don’t worry,’ says Reef. ‘Connection strength improves the further we go from the forest.’
    I glance back at the wasteland of Slick-ridden trees. No wonder Aura’s ordered normalisation. The forest swallows the safe rules of science.
    Steen doesn’t have a keypad to get connected. I wonder who he’d message if he could? He hasn’t said a word through all our march, though his lips are moving – some kind of prayer, I suppose. Is there a kind of Slick that would cure him of faith? He catches me looking at him.
    ‘Gloating?’ he asks.
    I want to ask – why did you attack us? I can’t believe it was only this morning that I flew with Zoya and we got shot. We took off at dawn, as Planet Umbra sank and the sun rose. Now I’m escaping from a story-like land with the guy who shot me as prisoner.
    We burst out into open sky and gulp in great lungfuls of fresh air.