“I’ll take you!” she screams. “I know people there.”

I calm my breathing and contain the anger spiking in me. I try to read her thoughts and get nothing, no sign of any internal conflict or misdirection. If she is lying, it’s a perfect lie.

“I should kill you!” I shout.

“You could. But then Malik dies!”

Fighting the compulsion to kick her over the edge, I hold out my left hand. She looks at me. She looks at the sword in my right hand. Then she slaps hold of my left wrist and I draw her swiftly back.

A mistake.

In a bright blur, she snatches something from behind her back—Vidhan’s short-blade—and slashes at me.

But I’m not here. I’m a shadow. A glimmer. Somehow, just by thinking myself out the way, I’ve ghosted to the side. As elusive as light. A blur.

One split-second in front of her, the next out of reach.

The move catches us both by surprise.

Mara’s pale eyes flash wide. “Superposition,” she murmurs.

I don’t bother answering. Malik said I’d improve—get faster.

He was right.

I grab Mara’s shoulder and, using her own momentum, I swing her around in a one-eighty-degree arc, ripping the Wraith off her neck. Then I heave her away from the edge as hard as I can. When I release her, I whip down with the flat side of the sword’s blade, smashing her over the head. Mara makes a yipping sound and goes down. Then the ship jolts to the side and she slides the wrong way.

She’s gone—sucked out the door.

I watch her drop into a bank of fog in dismay. She disappears.

With a sick jolt in my gut, I realise I’m next. I’m on a ship with no pilot and we’re going down. Fast. I stabilise myself, stuff the Wraith into my back pocket, drive Ra home into its scabbard and fasten the ties to my belt. I step back further from the edge, scanning the sky for a pathway. Waiting.

Here. A shimmering? No time to be certain. I run. And, when I hit the edge…

I leap.

Venetia

The sixth is a realm divided. Blighted below; ugly to the bone. Exalted above; or so believed.

Shrouded in cloud. Air, thick and heavy. Forest, far as the eye can see. Cities grow intertwined with trees. Normals here eke out a brute existence. Pathfinders are treated as gods, and monsters. Tread carefully in this world of shadows. The Order—under the elder master, Kei Shinigami—reigns in VENETIA.

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