It was a blue-and-white tent, squeezed between two built-up shopfronts. There was no writing or sign on the front, and only an open gash in the fabric serving as an entrance.

Adrana pushed me through, glancing over her shoulder as she did so.

‘Someone on your trail?’ asked a woman seated at the back of the tent.

‘Just a robot,’ I said.

Adrana lingered outside, then came through herself, drawing the gash tighter.

‘Oh, the pretty dark-haired one,’ the woman said. ‘The girl from the nice end of town. Thought you’d be back, sooner or later. And who’ve you brought with you?’

‘What?’ I asked, frowning.

The woman rose from her desk at the back of the tent, scuffing her chair back over the flagstones. All her shop contained were plain wooden shelves that had been pushed against the fabric and draped in the bright glow of healthy lightvine. The shelves were all full of bits of bone, all the bony colours you could think of – some bits as small as fingernails, others big enough to use as clubs.

Next to each bit of bone was a small card tag with a description and a price.

‘Your sister didn’t clue you in, then,’ said the woman. ‘Seeing as you clearly is sisters.’

‘How do you know each other?’

‘Because she’s been here before,’ said the woman. ‘Haven’t you, Adrana? A few weeks back, wasn’t it? And what’s your sister’s name, while we’re at it?’

‘This is Arafura,’ Adrana said levelly. ‘Fura. You should test her as well, Madame Granity.’

‘Test what?’ I asked.

‘Aptitudes,’ the woman said, sidling up and putting a finger under my chin. She elevated my face, peering into my eyes and frowning slightly as she did so. She had spectacles pinched onto her nose, huge circular ones with heavy brass frames, the lenses making her eyes swell up like a pair of worlds. She had a pinafore on over a gown, pockets stuffed with a glittery assortment of metallic devices. She had thimbles on all her fingers and thumbs, with fine wires running back up her sleeves. ‘The sort of aptitudes that interest the ships.’

Adrana risked a glance through the opening of the tent. ‘Paladin’s nearly here,’ she called. ‘It’s scanning the other booths.’

Madame Granity still had her finger under my chin. She stroked the other hand against the side of my face, up to the cheekbone, onto the temple. It wasn’t just the coldness of her thimbles I felt, or the sharpness of their tips.

Something else was coming through: a shivery tingle just beneath the skin.

‘If it’s loitering, it knows you’re near,’ Madame Granity said. ‘Do you want it to find you? Both of you?’

‘No, we don’t,’ Adrana said.

‘I’d like a say.’