He would just have to come up with a logical explanation for this eerie light. He was still not quite used to it himself. The notion that this island’s former dwellers had possessed the power to capture light, fascinated and terrified him in equal measure. The vaikunshard on the bridge seemed to read his mind, for it gleamed with a cerulean ferocity, reminding him that he had work to do and could not waste time in idle thought.

‘Don’t tell them this used to be the City of Daevas,’ Satyabhama called over her shoulder as she donned her own inscrutable silver mesh mask and strolled down the bridge to meet the others on the pleasure barge below.

Well, that much was obvious. The Daevas were the haunted slave masters of legend, driven back to their world by Mortals, hundreds of millennia ago. If the Senators even suspected they were in a long-lost Daeva city, they would jump into the sea and take their chances with the sharks rather than remain here a moment longer. Ancient prejudices were hard to break. Prejudices reminds me I still have to come up with a new name for this place. The Daevan name Alantris would never do.

Krishna took in the ethereal island as he followed Satyabhama to the barge. A network of canals split Alantris into an archipelago of island-esque segments, where the Mathuran nobility were now enjoying the Armistice on their pleasure barges. Around the revellers, guards-for-hire commanded sleek brown cutters, keeping the Republic’s peace. Each cutter was rowed by raw recruits from the Mathuran army, using long poles to maintain direction through the drifting chaos of boats. If Roshnar bothered them, they did not show it.

The barge Krishna stepped onto was a double-hulled wooden rectangle named Nymph’s Daughter. It looked regal as it floated like a small villa on the clay-coloured waters of the canal. The barge could carry a hundred souls with ease, but today it held half that number – only the most powerful men and women of Mathura – its Senators. The earthy aroma from the flowing casks of Vidharbhan wine filled the air. The sound of cups being touched in toast, ebbed sweetly around him. Satyabhama emerged from a throng of Senators and handed him a cup, emblazoned with the Mathuran sigil, before disappearing again. The stuff in it was silvery and viscous, showing him a wobbly reflection of his own face. He savoured the scent of anise for a brief moment before taking a sip. Warmth trickled down his throat in a tingling stream.

‘Lord Krishna!’ Akrur called out drunkenly, greeting him with both hands raised. He pulled off his half-mask of stylized bronze, a rising sun with carved rays spreading from the brow. ‘Did the Yaksha kill us? Are we already in heaven?’ He pointed up at the bridge, where the vaikunshard glimmered like a ceiling of blue fireflies.