The city that awaited them did not look real. Every glimmering line and angle seemed to bite Brayderal’s eyes—she could barely look in that direction, so powerful was her sense of wrongness. Was it in ruin? It did not seem so. Was it lifeless? It must be. There were no farms, no trees, no rivers. The sky above it was clear, dustless, smokeless. Why then this horror and dread?

The humans did not feel as she did. Instead, they eyed the distant towers and open faces of buildings as they would the arrival of a new torment—diamonds and rubies, gems and shards—and she could see the gauging regard in their eyes, as if they silently asked: Will this attack us? Can we eat it? Is its need greater than ours? Is any need greater than ours?

Sickened, Brayderal watched Rutt walk ever closer to the faintly raised track encircling the unwalled city.

He has decided. We are going in. And I can do nothing to stop it.

‘In knowing,’ Badalle whispered, ‘I am in knowing, always. See her, Saddic? She hates this. She fears this. We are not as weak as she hopes. Saddic, listen, we have a prisoner in the ribby snake. She is chained to us, even as she pretends her freedom under those rags. See how she holds herself. Her control is failing. The Quitter awakens.’

Kill her then, Saddic pleaded with his eyes.

But Badalle shook her head. ‘She would take too many of us down. And the others would help her. Remember how the Quitters command? The voice that can drive a man to his knees? No, leave her to the desert—and the city, yes, the city.’ But is this even true? I could—I could . . . She had fled the Quitters, made them a thing of her past, and the past was ever dead. It had no hold, no claim upon her. Yet, none of this had proved true. The past stalked them. The past was fast closing in.

Torn fragments floated through her mind, island memories surrounded in the depthless seas of fear. Tall gaunt figures, words of slaying, the screams of slaughter. Quitters.

She caught a fly, crunched it down. ‘The secret is in his arms,’ she said. ‘Held. Held is the secret. One day, everyone will understand. Do you think it matters, Saddic? Things will be born, life will catch fire.’

Badalle could see that he did not understand, not yet. But he was like all the others. Their time was coming. The city called to us. Only those it chooses can find it. Once, giants walked the world. The sun’s rays were snared in their eyes. They found this city and made it a temple. Not a place in which to live. It was made to exist for itself.