‘They’d kill me before I got through the door.’

‘There are other ways in. There are always people who will help, for a price.’

‘How do you know?’ The General’s eyes are red.

‘Because I’ve done it before.’

She stares at me. ‘If you were FL, why were you anywhere near an Accord hospital?’ Her eyes go to my temples, to the scars there, hiding what had once been inked into flesh. Slowly, her expression drops into realisation.

‘You were a spy? You were a goddam rat?’ I say nothing, and she swears. ‘I should have let you drown in that cesspit. How many of my comrades did you betray? How many died thanks to you? Do you even know?’

The tally waits, vast and bloodied. ‘Yes. I know.’

Her face twists in rage but before she can speak a ship’s engine roars outside, followed by another and another. Our eyes meet.

‘We have to get out of here,’ I mutter, looking about for an exit. Whoever is outside, if we go through the store, we’ll be seen immediately. But there’s a back door, half-obscured by empty crates. I shove them aside.

‘You think I’ll go with you?’ the General spits.

‘Do you have a choice?’ I kick the door open.

Too late. A figure stands in our path, a shadow against the blinding desert light. I reach for my knife.

‘Ten!’ It’s Silas, his face tense.

Trembling with relief, I let go of the weapon. ‘I heard ships. What’s going on?’

‘Dunno.’ He looks anxious. ‘Sure it’s nothing. Other travellers. Just need to pay up, and then we can go.’

He’s cut off by the sound of a gun being armed.

‘No one’s going nowhere.’

A man stands in the doorway behind the General. Short and stocky, his face has been whipped to leather by the winds, his eyes blue and too bright. He smiles and grasps the General’s shoulder.

She twists. ‘Who the hell—’

He pistol-whips her across the face. ‘That’s for my ship,’ he says.

Silas takes a half-step forwards as she curses, blood running from her cheek. I meet the man’s eyes, fear making my hands shake. ‘Moloney,’ I say. Longrider. Hell.

He turns his smile on me. His teeth are brand-new fibreglass and shimmer, like oil on water.

‘You must be Low.’

‘Now look, man,’ Silas starts.

‘Stow it, Silage.’ With his free hand, Moloney digs into the pocket of his long leather coat and produces a thin wallet, tossing it down at Silas’s feet. ‘There’s your fee, as agreed. We’ll take it from here.’

* * *

Gilli cowers behind the bar, her pistol gone. Eight Rooks, all in greasy black leathers, are busy looting anything of use and smashing what isn’t. The place stinks of unwashed bodies and spilled liquor and engine oil.