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daybreak, a party of Sky Wardens had arrived. The pyrotechnics of the previous night had not gone unnoticed by those of the Haunted City. Crossing the choppy waves on Os, the mighty ship of bone, the party included Alcaide Braham — the Strand’s highest authority — and many other senior Wardens. Tom was among them.

    By then, Highson Sparre’s absence had been noted and every available Warden summoned to help shed light on a very mysterious situation. Sal’s father had left the island with a large number of arcane artefacts, formerly housed in the depths of the Novitiate’s storerooms. Many of them had no known use, although their potency was undoubted. They fairly crackled with the Change and had been interred more for safekeeping rather than because of any sense of value. That Highson had apparently made off with specific items and not a random swagful suggested that he had something in mind for them.

    ‘Highson was a lot of things,’ agreed Sal, ‘but he wasn’t a thief.’

    After a deep draught of water, Tom’s story continued.

    The search party followed Highson’s trail to Gunida. They listened to the testimonies of town residents and put together their own expeditionary party. Before the eighth hour, this new force journeyed on foot from the harbour town, following the fading spoor of the event that had shaken the world that morning. They found the source before long: a clearing set in a hollow between three low hills with a ring of flattened trees surrounding a scorch mark blacker than anything Tom had seen before. The crater at the centre of the clearing was a metre deep.

    They approached it cautiously.

    ‘People perceive the Change in different ways,’ Tom said. ‘Some smell it or see it, or even taste it. I hear it, like a ringing in my ears. Highson’s work had a distinct sound to it, a mix of harmonics unique to him. His signature was so powerful in that place that I could hear it hours later, still vibrating in the soil and the trees — and the body.’

    There went Sal’s last hope that Tom and the Wardens might have been mistaken, that his father’s connection to the death of Larson Maiz was tenuous, perhaps even completely circumstantial.

    ‘How did Maiz die?’ asked Shilly, taking Sal’s hand in hers. He was grateful for the gesture.

    ‘Maiz’s heart failed,’ Tom said. ‘Some say he died of fright.’

    ‘He saw something? Was attacked by something?’

    ‘We don’t know. There were several tracks in and around the scorched area. Maiz made some of them before and after the burning took place; the patterns of the prints match the soles of his boots, so we have no doubts there. There was a second set of tracks that we presume belonged to Highson, as they too preceded and post-dated the thing he came there to make. The procedure involved a lot of unpacking and preparation; various empty crates and containers scattered around the clearing testified to that.’

    ‘What about the thing itself?’ Sal asked. ‘Did you find it?’

    ‘Not in the clearing. Not exactly.’

    ‘What do you mean by “not exactly”?’

    ‘We found a third set of footprints.’ Tom drained the last of the water from the bottle and put it on the ground beside him with a hollow thud. ‘I’m not a tracker; I’m an Engineer. But even I could tell that something walked out of that clearing that didn’t walk into it, and it didn’t walk on legs as we know them.’

    Sal didn’t want to know what sort of legs they were. Not yet. Strange screams and holes in the world were enough for now. ‘Where did it go?’

    ‘It tore a path through the scrub wider than a person. There are signs that Maiz tried to stop it, but obviously wasn’t successful. Markings suggest that Highson himself was knocked unconscious for a time, at least several hours after Maiz’s death. We do know that shortly after awakening, not long after dawn that terrible night, he set off in pursuit.’

    Chasing the thing he