Without their focus to direct them onwards, the tendrils of power from the eight warp eyes met and gathered for a moment into a single point, invisible to human eyes but brighter in Chetta’s warp-sight than any of Evelyn’s flames.

Then it exploded.

The backwash of power, accompanied by a gale-force howl of wind, knocked Chetta off her feet. As she landed she saw Evelyn crashing backwards onto the ground, and then dust and gravel and rocks were raining down out of the sky. Above her, Chetta caught a momentary glimpse of triple pupils narrowing in rage before the rent in the sky ravelled up to reveal not the inky blackness of half-mile-thick smog, but the light-studded flanks of Ascension City’s titanic hab blocks and, far above even them, the faintly twinkling points of the stars.

They’d done it.

‘Chetta!’

Hastily stumbling feet, a hand threaded beneath her armpit. Chetta groaned as Alyssana Nero helped her up off the ground.

‘You did it,’ Nero said, her voice awed. ‘You… you actually did it? It’s over?’

‘It’s over,’ Chetta confirmed, planting her cane wearily. Her warp-sight could see no remnants of power, save for the faintest of sparks that was Nero’s gift. ‘But I didn’t do it.’ She nodded at Evelyn. ‘She did. I just told her what to do.’

Nero made a noise in her throat that Chetta didn’t like the sound of. She liked it even less when her former aide unslung the hellgun from across her good shoulder and took a step towards Evelyn with the weapon’s stock tucked between her unbroken arm and her ribs.

‘Witch!’

Evelyn scrambled up to her knees and raised her palms outwards. Chetta flinched, expecting to be caught in the flames that the fire-witch would surely hurl at Alyssana Nero.

Nothing happened. Evelyn stared at her hands in disbelief.

Nero’s first shot flew wide. She grunted with effort, trying to steady the bulky hellgun with one hand.

Chetta activated the power switch on her cane and struck Nero in the ribs with it. The shock setting on the weapon sent the Inquisitorial agent slumping to the ground, temporarily unconscious. Chetta followed her a moment later as her balance failed. She felt something in her chest snap as she hit the ground, probably a collarbone.

More pain. Nothing unusual there.

Grimacing with the effort, she managed to look up at where Evelyn was getting to her feet, still staring shakily at her hands.

‘I’m empty,’ the witch stammered. ‘I’m empty!’

‘Run,’ Chetta croaked at her. Evelyn’s eyes met hers.

‘Why?’

Chetta knew that the other woman wasn’t asking why she should run.

‘The Inquisition are single-minded and inflexible,’ Chetta managed. ‘I am capable of slightly more nuance. You saved this planet. They won’t care about that, I do. Run, before someone who isn’t me arrives.’

Evelyn gave her one brief nod, then turned and ran. It was a limping, staggering run, but it served to get her out of sight before Alyssana Nero came around with a jerk, and a moan of pain as reality asserted itself in her consciousness once more.