Enveloping him was an indistinct aura of darkness, the same one that had covered him as he stood in the deep shade. Isaac stared at him, saw the patch of deep black in Shadrach’s eyes and below his chin. Shadrach stepped slowly forward, and into the light shed by torches in the junction a little way off.

The shadows on his face and body did not alter. They remained fixed in the conjuncture they had assumed as he crouched in the coal darkness, exactly as if he stood still hidden from the flickering glow, beside the wall. The shadows that clung to him extended perhaps an inch from his skin, discolouring the air that surrounded him like a caliginous halo.

There was something else, an untimely stillness that crept with him even as Shadrach moved. It was as if the frozen furtiveness of his concealment in the bricks suffused the shadows that coated him. He stalked forward, yet the sense of it was that he was still. He confused the eye. You could follow his progress if you knew he was there and were determined to watch, but it was easier not to notice him.

Shadrach motioned Isaac and Yagharek to join him.

Am I like him? thought Isaac as he crept out into the lighter darkness. Do I slip around the corners of your eye? Am I half invisible, bringing my shadow-cover with me?

He looked over at Derkhan, and saw by her wide-mouthed stare that he was. To his left, Yagharek too was an indistinct figure.

“First sign of sun-up, go,” whispered Shadrach to his companions. Tansell and Pengefinchess nodded. They had disengaged, and shook their heads in exhaustion. Tansell raised his hand in a gesture of good luck.

Shadrach beckoned Isaac and Yagharek, and stepped out of the darkened alley into the sputtering firelight in front of the houses. After them came the monkeys, moving slowly, as silently as they could. They stood beside the two humans and the garuda, and the red light glinted violently from their battered metal shells. The same light slipped off the three hexed intruders like thin oil off a blade. It could find no purchase. The three unclear figures stood before the five quietly clattering constructs, and moved across the deserted street towards the house.

The cactacae did not lock their doors. It was easy enough to gain entrance to the house. Shadrach began to creep up the stairs.

As Isaac followed him, he sniffed at the exotic, unfamiliar smell of cactacae sap and strange food. Pots of sandy soil were placed all around the entrance hall, sporting a variety of desert plants, mostly unhealthy and dwindling in the interior of the house.

Shadrach turned and took in Isaac and Yagharek with a look. Very slowly, he put his finger to his lips. Then he continued to climb.