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cell in my body burns, strained tight enough to explode. My lungs throb from a lack of breath, but there’s no helping it. Not when I’m staring down the barrel of a pistol. The gun winks at me, a sly little gleam in the dappled light.
    â€˜Who’s there?’
    The man’s accent is strange, like Tindra’s. But his voice is deep and husky; strained by a childhood illness, perhaps, or by screams and shouts long forgotten. His finger curls upon the trigger. One little squeeze, and the alchemy will blast that bullet through my skull …
    Lukas draws a sharp breath.
    The foxhawk jerks backwards. Its wings flap open as a shriek escapes its mouth, and claws slice at the air in a sudden moment of panic. The gunman stumbles sideways, knocked aside by the blast of the creature’s wings.
    We run.
    The prickles snare my clothes, tear at the fabric. They scratch stinging welts into my flesh, but all I can think about is the man with the gun, stumbling in the shock of his foxhawk’s panic, and this precious chance to save ourselves …
    Lukas looks dizzy, tripping a little as he runs. I yank his sleeve to jerk him back into reality. I wantto thank him – to tell him that it worked, that his magic saved my life – but part of his mind is still locked into the foxhawk’s, and his legs move like they’re made of porridge.
    â€˜Come on!’
    I yank Lukas forward again, and this time he snaps to attention. He blinks, glances around, and pales. And then we’re all running, throwing ourselves down the edge of the ditch and up the other side – back up into rambling forest and sparse trees and chinks of broken light.
    We lurch and dart, huff and gasp. Our bodies stream with sweat, even in the chill of the air. Our feet crunch, shattering twigs and husks of leaves. The whole world jerks, like a broken recording of a picture spell, as my strides grow longer and my gaze jolts up and down. A flash of sky, a flash of brown. Leaves, branches, the whiplash of air. A whirl of staccato leaps and breaths and panic until –
    A flurry of wings. A crash of rumpled feathers and the furious shout of a man up ahead. We barrel into the next clearing, carried by our own momentum.
    Bang!
    Lukas throws out his arm to hold me back, and Clementine lets out a sharp cry at the sight of the foxhawk. The rider is puffing slightly, his eyes wide and the pistol smoking in his hands.
    â€˜All right, folks – that was a warning shot! If you run again, I’ll put the next one through one of your throats. Got it?’
    It takes me a long moment to collect myself, but I manage to give a shaky nod.
    â€˜Good.’ The man steps forward, the pistol roaming between us. His muscles are strung as tightly as the anxious knot in my stomach. He finally settles on Teddy as a target. ‘Where are you from?’
    Teddy hesitates. ‘Well …’
    â€˜Don’t lie to me, son. You’re not from Víndurn.’
    Víndurn ? Is that what this land is called? I roll the word in my mind, trying to fit its shape to the gnarled landscape.
    Teddy looks at me, the question clear in his eyes. I meet his gaze for a moment, then nod. He can’t bluff our way out of this one – not even the great Teddy Nort, pickpocket and conman extraordinaire. We have no knowledge of Víndurn. We have the wrong accents, the wrong dialect, the wrong clothes.
    We have to tell the truth.
    â€˜We’re from Taladia,’ Teddy says. ‘Other side of the Magnetic Valley.’
    The man raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t pull the trigger. I decide to count that as a hopeful sign.
    â€˜We nicked off, you see,’ Teddy says. ‘Wanted a better life, away from the king and that, so –’
    â€˜Our king wanted to invade your land,’ Clementine says. The words tumble out of her in a panic, fast and breathless. ‘We saved you. We blew up his airbase, and we flooded the catacombs, and we