His forearms were freckled, a detail that fascinated her, and they moved as if to hold up the words he spoke. ‘Too many questions. I wear my mother’s grief, for a sister she lost. A twin. I follow to take care of her on this journey. Mother’s dead twin speaks to her – even I have heard her, shouting in my ear, waking me in the night.’

‘The dead woman talks, does she? Well, what does she have to say?’

‘The Jaghut and his vow. They must be heeded.’

‘It’s not enough that the living want their dead back – now the dead want to come back, too. How is it souls can get lonely, when their entire existence is alone? Is mortal flesh so precious? Wouldn’t you rather fly free of it, sail off into the sky? Dance around stars, feeling no cold, no pain – is that not a perfect freedom? Who would want to return from that?’

‘Now I have made you angry.’

‘It’s not you. Well, it is, but don’t take it personally. I just can’t make sense of any of you.’

‘You are Tiste.’

Korya nodded. They’d walked to the camp’s very edge, and before them was a plain of scattered stones, shaped but broken or eroded, the city’s dwindling demise. ‘A hostage to the Jaghut, Haut. The Captain. The Old Misery. The Lord of Riddles. Crier of Aches and Imagined Illnesses. He has made me a Mahybe – knock me and I’ll ring hollow.’

The youth’s eyes were wide now, studying her avidly. ‘Lie with me,’ he said.

‘What? No. I didn’t mean – what is your name, by the way?’

‘Ifayle. In our language, it means “falling sky”.’

She frowned at him. ‘Something falling from the sky?’

He nodded. ‘Like that, yes.’

‘On the night you were born, something fell from the sky.’

‘No. I fell from the sky.’

‘No you didn’t. You fell out between your mother’s legs.’

‘Yes, that too.’

She pulled her eyes away from his intense, unambiguous gaze, and studied the plain. Silvered by frost and starlight, it stretched away into the southeast for as far as she could see. ‘You shouldn’t follow the Jaghut,’ she said. ‘They’re not gods. They’re not even wise.’

‘We do not worship Hood,’ Ifayle said. ‘But we kneel to his promise.’

‘He can’t fulfil it,’ Korya said harshly. ‘Death is not something you can close hands around. You can’t… strangle it, much as you’d like to. Hood’s promise was… well, it was metaphorical. Not meant to be taken literally. Oh, listen to me, trying to explain poetic nuances to a Dog-Runner. How long were you following me, anyway?’

He smiled. ‘I did not follow you, Korya.’

‘So, you just popped up from the ground?’

‘No, I fell from the sky.’