Shivers’ smile was stillborn. He remembered sitting in that orchard, frowning across the table, trying to look dangerous. Then he’d felt twitchy, then dizzy. He’d tried to lift his hand to his head, found he couldn’t. He’d tried to say something about it, found he couldn’t. Then the world tipped over. He didn’t remember much else.

“What did you do to me?” He lowered his voice. “Sorcery?”

Day sprayed bits of apple as she burst out laughing. “Oh, this just gets better.”

“And I said he would be an uninspiring travelling companion.” Morveer chuckled. “Sorcery. I swear. It’s like one of those stories.”

“Those big, thick, stupid books! Magi and devils and all the rest!” Day was having herself quite the snigger. “Stupid stories for children!”

“Alright,” said Shivers. “I think I get it. I’m slow as a fucking trout in treacle. Not sorcery. What, then?”

Day smirked. “Science.”

Shivers didn’t much care for the sound of it. “What’s that? Some other kind of magic?”

“No, it most decidedly is not,” sneered Morveer. “Science is a system of rational thought devised to investigate the world and establish the laws by which it operates. The scientist uses those laws to achieve an effect. One which might easily appear magical in the eyes of the primitive.” Shivers struggled with all the long Styrian words. For a man who reckoned himself clever, Morveer had a fool’s way of talking, seemed meant to make the simple difficult. “Magic, conversely, is a system of lies and nonsense devised to fool idiots.”

“Right y’are. I must be the stupidest bastard in the Circle of the World, eh? It’s a wonder I can hold my own shit in without paying mind to my arse every minute.”

“The thought had occurred.”

“There is magic,” grumbled Shivers. “I’ve seen a woman call up a mist.”

“Really? And how did it differ from ordinary mist? Magic coloured? Green? Orange?”

Shivers frowned. “The usual colour.”

“So a woman called, and there was mist.” Morveer raised one eyebrow at his apprentice. “A wonder indeed.” She grinned, teeth crunching into her apple.

“I’ve seen a man marked with letters, made one half of him proof against any blade. Stabbed him myself, with a spear. Should’ve been a killing blow, but didn’t leave a mark.”

“Ooooooh!” Morveer held both hands up and wiggled his fingers like a child playing ghost. “Magic letters! First, there was no wound, and then… there was no wound? I recant! The world is stuffed with miracles.” More tittering from Day.

“I know what I’ve seen.”

“No, my mystified friend, you think you know. There is no such thing as magic. Certainly not here in Styria.”

“Just treachery,” sang Day, “and war, and plague, and money to be made.”

“Why did you favour Styria with your presence, anyway?” asked Morveer. “Why not stay in the North, swaddled in the magic mists?”

Shivers rubbed slowly at the side of his neck. Seemed a strange reason, now, and he felt even more of a fool saying it. “I came here to be a better man.”