I’m on my hands and knees in a dark-red muck, coughing and spitting. The sick explodes out of me, until all that’s left is bile. When it’s finally done, I hold my head in my hands and groan. It feels like my head is about to split open. There’s a loud buzzing and crackling in my ears and my teeth feel loose. One more vomit and I’ll be picking molars out of the mud. I try to organise my thoughts.

How did I get here? Where is here?

My body knows the truth. It remembers. Aching teeth. A persistent, locustlike noise. A feeling of wrongness. It can only mean one thing.

My brain churns. My body locks up in fear.

I’ve Fallen.

And that means I’m no longer in Lūna.

I turn around, pushing down the panic, and get my bearings. It’s colder. Much colder. Like a fridge. My breath fogs. Here in front of me is the tent—dismal, crooked and thin—nothing like the vast bedouin marquee I’d lost myself in, moments ago. The alley is different too. Darker. Rust-coloured. Huge flakes sift lazily down through the air, caught in strobes of crimson light. A thick carpet of red dust coats everything.

No footprints anywhere.

I’m alone.

No Mother. No Vidhan. No Akuji. No Malik.

And no Bea.

I lift the tent flap and this simple action brings the whole structure tumbling down. I leap back in disbelief.

It’s a ruin—shattered, reduced to sticks and cloth.

I try to picture Vidhan’s sketch in the salt. Seven rings, interlinked. Seven worlds. First Sol. Then Lūna. And the next ring along? I’m about to dig out Vidhan’s pamphlet—The Book of Seven—when I remember.

Ares. Violent, war-torn, and dangerous.

That’s just great.

I traipse around the fallen tent, kicking up ash, and I squint into the maroon shadow. I listen. Nothing. A ghostly stillness. The ash falls.

Then my skin prickles. I get a sense of eyes on me and I turn.

In a pool of gaudy light cast by a neon sign, a figure leans against the wall, watching me. All I can see is a smoky outline and the glint of eyes catching a strobe of light. I back up, slowly, hand on the wall, heart walloping.

The figure doesn’t move. The eyes hold me.

I stumble over something hard. The sword! I bend and lift it, scabbard and blade, and keep my eyes on the silent figure all the while. My breath smokes.

Pathfinder? Normal?

Something else?

The figure detaches itself from the shadows and strides towards me. A man in a dark jacket, moving fast.