Here is the Eiffel Tower, intertwined with trees, one-third its normal height and in the process of being built. Here, the cathedral of Notre-Dame, on Ile de la Cité. And, all about the cathedral, in the rubble of old edifices, thousands of lean-to tents and rough-made buildings with chimney stacks sending black smoke pumping into the air. Everywhere, the trees muscle through the buildings, like the forest is trying to reclaim the city. But it isn’t the city that holds my attention. It’s the gargantuan pyramid hovering in the sky, over the Seine. The surface gleams in the dim sunlight, as if the entire structure is made from golden solar panels. It looks like the Great Pyramid of Giza, but floating in the air. And from the pyramid, they soar.

Reapers.

I watch them circle. One of them dives now towards a bird, a dove maybe, white against a bruised and stormy-looking sky. The Reaper snatches the bird out the air, devours it midflight, and then wheels back high, rejoining its pod over the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris—Montmartre, Sacré-Coeur.

I turn and look at Duval. “Can you see them?”

“I see them.”

My hand falls instinctively to the Wraith on my neck and I watch the Reapers drift in the sky. None come to investigate. The Wraith is working, it seems.

Whirring turbines chop the air. A chugging sound.

“What’s that noise?” I ask.

“Anti-gravitation engines.” He points at the pyramid. “For that god up there.” He says this half in awe and half with what seems like distaste.

“You think Shinigami’s a god?” I say.

The highwayman spits and throws open his arms. “I do not care one way or the other. But the River Camps here are full of worshippers. They crawl out from all corners of the world.”

“Why?”

“To be led to the seventh. Why else?”

“But not you.”

“Not me. They are, how you say, tilting at windmills.”

“You don’t think it exists?”

“I did not say that. I know there are worlds beyond this one. I have seen enough Pathfinders come and go. But me, I have a simple credo.”

“What’s that?”

“The grass is not greener.” He lifts his hat, flicks it clean with the back of his fingers and replaces it. “Look, are we finished here? You and me?”

My hand falls on the sword. “Not yet. Tell me about the Fight Arenas and the Skin Traders.”

Duval sucks his teeth. “Skin Traders are merchants. They look for prize fighters. The best of these are like you, Pathfinders. They sell them here at market and the camp masters who buy them force them to fight in the Arenas.”

“Down there in the River Camps?”

He nods and draws out from his pocket a lump of what looks like brown sugar for the horse.

“You’re afraid,” I tell him, watching the grey snaffle it from his hand.