At the outbound customs the officials were suddenly awake enough to take notice of this skinny, cadaverous man and the young woman he had with him. I don’t suppose my scowling, pouting demeanour helped very much. But Quindar had complete faith in his documentation, and no amount of protestation from me was going to put him off his patter.

‘It’s all there, boys, all regular and proper-like,’ he said, beaming at his questioners, thumbs hooked into his belt, allowing his coat to billow open in the cocky certainty that no one would find the slug-gun. ‘Girlie don’t like it much, that’s a fact, but if she were prone to coming peaceably, her mummy and daddy wouldn’t’ve needed to involve these fine legal people. Anyway, don’t you worry yourselves. It’s a straight sail back to Maz, the accommodation’s respectable, and then she’ll be back in the loving bosom of her family. None too soon, either, judging by that piss-coloured shine coming off her!’

Don’t think for a second I’d given in. What he’d done to Prozor had taken the photons out of my sails, true, but that was only right and proper given the harm he could have done to both of us if pushed to it. And I jammed my fingers into that bracelet until my nails were bleeding, trying to get it off me. I couldn’t budge it, though, and with it stuck on my arm like that, running away wasn’t much of an option. I could probably have lost him in Trevenza Reach, for the time being anyway, but cowering here wasn’t going to help me get to Bosa. Besides, the dim outline of a new and better plan had started forming in my noggin, getting slowly sharper like the return on a sweeper screen. I didn’t have the whole of it yet, just bits and pieces. But I knew part of it was going to involve biding my time. There was something else, too. Here it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew what had happened to Prozor and me, and right now I didn’t want coves thinking of Bosa Sennen the minute they saw my face. It wasn’t just the way I looked. Having the glowy wasn’t so rare as to be unheard of, especially among sailing folk, but then you wouldn’t exactly call it common either. If I went to another world – which I’d been planning anyway – I’d have a chance of breaking that connection.

It occurred to me that world might as well be Mazarile.

‘Don’t fret, girlie,’ Quindar said, as he had to drag me along. ‘That fine print’s got both of us in a bind. I harm a hair on your head, I’ll be looking for a new line of work.’