“It was fucking horrible,” he said, his voice hollow. “There was nothing I could do . . . Yag, listen. The Weaver was in there and it told me to get the godsdamn out because the moths can smell the trouble . . . Shit, listen. We burnt its eggs.” He spat the words with hard satisfaction. “The fucking thing had laid and we got past it and burnt the damn things, but the other moths could sense it and they’re heading back here right now . . . We’ve got to get out.”

Yagharek was still for a moment, thinking quickly. He looked at Isaac and nodded.

They retraced their steps quickly down the dark stairs. They slowed as they approached the first floor, remembering the couple talking quietly on their mattresses, but they saw in the flickering light through the open door that the room was deserted. All the cactacae who had been sleeping were up and out, in the streets.

“Godsdamn!” swore Isaac. “We’ll be seen, we’ll be fucking seen. The dome must be fucking crawling. We’re losing our shadows.”

They hovered at the front door. Yagharek and Isaac peered around the corner into the street. There was a crackling susurrus from the raised torches on all sides. Across the street was the little alley, its torches still doused, in which their companions lurked. Yagharek strained to see into its dark, but could not.

At the end of the street by the dome wall, under the stubby, boarded-up remnants of the house in which, Isaac realized, was the slake-moths’ nest, stood a gang of cactacae. Opposite them, where the road joined others and moved towards the temple at the dome’s centre, little groups of cactus warriors rushed by in either direction.

“Godspit, they must’ve heard all that ruckus,” hissed Isaac. “We have to damn well move, or we’re dead. One at a time.” He grabbed Yagharek and braced his arms behind the garuda’s back. “You first, Yag. You’re quicker and harder to see. Go. Go.” He pushed Yagharek out into the street.

Yagharek was not wrong-footed. He sprinted lightly, increasing speed. It was not panicked flight which might attract attention. He kept his pace just low enough that if one of the cactus people glimpsed motion, they might think it one of their own people. The shadows and stillness still varnished his fleeting figure.

It was forty feet to the darkness. Isaac held his breath, watching the muscles move beneath Yagharek’s scarred back.

The cactus people were jabbering in their harsh pidgin, arguing over who was to go in. Two swung huge hammers, taking turns to batter the bricked-up entrance to the last low house where, for all Isaac knew, the slake-moths and the Weaver still danced lethally together.

The darkness of the alley accepted Yagharek.

Isaac breathed deep, then stepped out into the alley himself.