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queues, and sharp eyes swept over us as vultures survey carrion for the most vulnerable flesh.
    One dropped his eyes down to the scroll Kamish had given the guard. “From Boaz, no less,” he muttered, then grimaced and rolled his eyes as he read what followed. “Elemental? The man has been reading legends. But he sends three glassworkers, and that is good.” He raised his eyes. “Druse, Mayim and Tirzah. You will accompany me. My name is Ta’uz, and I am Master of this site. Do you understand?”
    “We understand, Excellency.”
    “Good. The other four,” he read out their names, “will accompany Edohm. Come.”
    Rolling up the scroll with a snap he waved at my father, Mayim and myself. We scrambled to our feet and hurried after him.
    I only ever caught glimpses of the other four slaves again, rare flashes of friendly faces within the walls of Threshold, and what happened to them in the end I know not.
    Ta’uz led us back through the gate of the Magi’s compound, then turned sharp left, hurrying us towards a quarter in the northern part of Gesholme. Eventually he stopped outside one of the tenement buildings, and spoke to us. “Mayim, you will work in Izzali’s workshop. Druse, you and Tirzah will work in Isphet’s workshop. You may well see each other during the day, but at night men and women are quartered separately. Do you understand?”
    “We understand, Excellency.”
    “Good. This is Yaqob’s tenement, and this is where Druse and Mayim will live. You,” he waved at one of the guards, “wait here with the girl.”
    The door of the tenement opened at a sharp knock from a guard, then Ta’uz, my father and Mayim, accompanied by five guards, disappeared inside. I wanted to wish my father goodnight – this was the first time we’d been separated in weeks – but I knew enough now to keep silent. I was content that we’d work together in the same workshop.
    I glanced at the stars. By the gods! That would be in only a few short hours! I felt desperately tired, and wished more than anything else I could have a long night’s sleep in a bed that was anywhere but here.
    The guard stood wary and silent, his eyes not leaving me for a moment, and I stared at the ground, shufflinguncomfortably from foot to foot. I remembered Hadone, and shivered.
    Ta’uz abruptly reappeared, guards in attendance, and the door of the tenement slammed shut behind him.
    “Now you,” he said, and marched off ahead.
    Surrounded by guards, I felt more alone than I ever had in my life.
    He led me to another tenement, almost identical to the one where he’d left my father and Mayim, and ordered the guard to knock at the door.
    There was no answer, save a soft scuffling inside, and Ta’uz stepped to the door himself, and delivered it a hard blow and a shouted command.
    Steps sounded and the door opened a crack, then was flung wide as the person saw who waited outside.
    I gasped. Even in this flickering torchlight, the one who opened the door was the most exquisite woman I’d ever seen. She was perhaps thirty or thirty-one, with shining black hair and almond-shaped dark eyes that were intelligent and all-knowing. Her face was as astounding in its strength as it was in its beauty.
    “Yes?” she said.
    Ta’uz held her stare, then cursed. “Did you think I would not know, Isphet?” he asked as he shouldered past her.
    She turned to follow him, but at that moment one of the guards seized my arm, intending to drag me through as well. I cried out as his fingers bit into the bruises Kamish had given me, and Isphet turned back in my direction.
    “Oh gods,” she whispered, “you have the most exquisitely bad timing, girl.”
    We hurried into a room filled with blood and screams, and with birth and death. A woman lay on a pallet against a wall, her face drawn and damp, her robe patched with sweat and the fluids of birth. A tiny baby sprawled acrossher belly, her stump of umbilical cord wobbling pathetically in the uncertain