He flopped back down next to her. ‘Before she came, there was peace here. People mostly got on, grew food, kept animals, cut wood, drew water, brewed beer, baked bread, hunted and fished, and there were enough of us to scare away the beasts.’

‘Beasts?’

‘Perhaps there is something in the way that this world is made, that if there is magic, there have to be beasts, too. Beasts are mostly just animals, but they don’t come from where we live. They come from our imaginations.’

‘Like the sea monster, you mean? It nearly ate Dalip.’

Crows nodded. ‘Yes, like that. So then she came, she and her men. She had discovered a new portal, and her devices told her that people would pass through it soon. She wanted the farmers and the trappers and the woodcutters out of the way, so that those who came through came to her, not them.’

‘But why didn’t she just camp out on the beach, rather than setting up shop miles away?’

‘When I say she had discovered a new portal, no one had yet come through it. She knew it was between her and the sea, but no idea where. The land was almost empty; it became so when she took the people and made them work for her. They cannot leave, because they believe there is nowhere to leave for.’ He smiled sadly, and hugged his knees. ‘They try. Even if they manage to get out of the castle, they are hunted down and brought back by the wolfman.’

‘That’s why you stick around. And you thought I was one of them. That’s why you helped me.’

‘I would have helped you anyway, Mary. Slavery is not our natural state. We were born free, and we are no one’s when we die. Why should we live in bondage between times?’ He shrugged shoulders that were like bony wings. ‘This is not your fight. You should go – no, I should take you to the edge of this land and see you safely away – and look for somewhere where you can settle, and prosper.’

He was right, she should. She didn’t owe Mama, or any of the others, anything at all. They were accidental acquaintances, people who’d washed up on the same beach as her. She had no ties of family or friendship to them.

So why did she feel the need to rush in and save them from the geomancer and her wolfman? It wasn’t like she’d ever felt that way about anyone at all ever. Where she lived, it was every man, woman and child for themselves. Everyone knew that.

‘You said you’d show me how to do that magic trick,’ she said. She saw that he was watching her, and she didn’t look away.