“Fledge, young one, stranger, a bit of fledge with my legs around your face, you’ve never eaten so well!” She thrust her groin forward and displayed the hairless crack there, like a jagged slit in the earth.

Rafe could not help looking down. There were speckles of fledge across her pale yellow thighs, a mustardy trace that hinted at more drug within.

“I won’t warn you again,” Hope said. Something in her voice brought a moment of silence, a period of nervous calm. But there were others watching now—fledgers, coal miners, people who simply had nothing else to do—and the fledger did not wish to lose face.

“Screw you, witch!” she said.

Hope brought her hand out from her pocket. Even before she opened her fist Rafe saw the fledger’s eyes widen with fear. The others backed away as well, suddenly having more urgent things to attend to. There was real terror here, Rafe saw, a rich reverence the fledger must have held for Hope from the first moment. But the confrontation was all about face and respect, and once begun, her pitch had to be carried through, one way or another.

Hope held a handful of spiders. One was green, another bright orange, the third black. All of them were fat and fast. She lobbed them at the fledger and muttered something under her breath, and then she walked quickly away.

The fledger leapt onto the uneven wall and pulled herself up, grasping at uncertain handholds and rusted projections before she disappeared up and over onto the rooftop, moving like the spiders she fled. The orange arachnid followed her up, while the other two went in opposite directions along the base of the building as if to outflank her.

The fledger screamed all the way.

“What was that?” Rafe asked quietly. They were walking quickly now, the screams of the fleeing fledger echoing from above. A small smile perked the corners of Hope’s mouth. “Those spiders, Hope. What were they? They were following her.”

“Of course they weren’t,” Hope said. “They were only wood spiders. I colored them myself. I always carry a couple in a skin-sac in my pocket, just in case. Often come in handy.”

“But why . . . ? What do they know? The fledgers, the people?”

“They know that I’m a witch. That’s enough. I’m a witch, I throw spiders at them, they’re going to run.”

“No spells? No magic?”

Hope paused and glanced back along the street. Like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples of their passing had already settled back to nothing. The street’s life had returned to normal, and if she was still screaming, the fledger was now far too distant to hear.

“No spells,” Hope said. “No magic. Because magic has gone. You know that as much as anyone.” She stared into his eyes. “Maybe more.”

“But . . . I thought witches . . .”