I open my eyes, looking down to my chest. Which version of me was dragged out of the Suplicio?

When I look up I see a figure standing, staring at me from where the firelight fails. I see grey hair thick with ash and dust, wrinkled skin like the desert from above, eyes that are dark holes. I blink. The figure sways with the wind, always an inch beyond where the light falls.

‘Esterházy?’ I murmur. The fire flares, getting smoke into my eyes. By the time I open them again, the wavering figure is gone, replaced by someone else.

Night-vision goggles glow red, scarred hands grip a belt hung with weapons, reddish hair blows in the wind. As I watch, the darkness gives up other figures. Four, then six, ten. All masked, all staring.

A wave of fear courses through me. Picking up the scalpel, I push myself to my feet.

‘She left me this,’ I call, holding it out. ‘She told me about you.’

They have come on the Seekers’ heels; so silently, so softly, that I had not noticed. They take up space between atoms. One of the Seekers steps towards me.

‘What does it mean?’ I ask, the scalpel trembling in my hand.

The figure stops, six feet away. I can’t see much of the face, only weathered brown skin. Among the hundreds of lines that score their arms, is a fresh one, just below the elbow. A new mark to the tally. An addition, not a subtraction.

Slowly, they hold out a hand in invitation.

‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I have to find Gabi. I want her to live. They do too.’

The figure takes another pace forwards, until they are within arm’s reach. I smell them; the faint sweetness of old blood, the chemical sharpness of disinfectant, the iron tang of clean metal, and something distant, like lightning-burned sand. The smell of the Suplicio.

‘I need your help, one more time,’ I murmur.

The figure inclines their head. When they speak, their voice is soft.

‘There is a price.’

‘I know.’ My head swims as I look into the dark glass of the goggles. ‘I will pay it.’

The Seeker nods, reaching for one of their knives. Fire flashes on the blade.

I open my eyes. I am sitting beside the fire, the dirt all around me undisturbed. There is no one, only the faint rustle of Esterházy’s clothes stirring in the wind.

And yet when I look down I see the Augur’s dice lying on the sand before me, resting on the number two.

* * *