“Do you remember a town called Bozoburg?” the Kid said. “A small town on the Fratellini plains. I doubt you even remember. There was girl who worked there once, in a bar. Her name was Ethel.” His right hand was very still on the butt of his pistol. “She was my mother.”

The Conjurer stared at the Kid, but for a long moment he didn’t say anything. He remembered a one-clown town and dun-coloured plains that stretched in all directions, somewhere on the edge of the Doinklands. He remembered a young woman who laughed at all his jokes, who had eyes that shone with the light of the sun, he remembered long afternoons stolen out of time, and a sense of completeness. A rare time of peace, and all the more valued for that . . .

“You’re Ethel’s son?”

“Yes. Dad.”

“But I didn’t . . . I can’t . . . How is she?”

“She’s dead, Dad.”

“Stop calling me Dad!” The Conjurer stared at the Kid, and he seemed oblivious to the gun pointed at him. “Wait, dead? How did she die?”

“How do you think she died? She was murdered.”

The Kid remembered again when the Rasmussen Gang, mean and hungry, more wolves then men, with faces painted white and noses painted red, had come riding into town.

We’re looking for the Conjurer, they kept saying. We’re looking for that bastard, he owes us a life, we know he’s been through here, there was a woman, they said.

Then one of the townsfolk, he must have said something to them, and the biggest of the brothers smiled. A terrible dread filled the kid’s heart then, worse than the fear of dying.

They’d strung him up and he swore he’d get them and they laughed. Then they left him to die, but the rotten old beam collapsed under the kid’s weight and he lived, still. But when he ran after them it was too late.

He reached his home only to see it on fire.

He ran inside. . . .

“It was you,” he said now. “They were looking for you.”

“The Rasmussens . . . ,” the Conjurer said. “Ethel’s dead? I never meant . . . When we parted . . . it was only meant to be for a few months, but time flows differently in the Thinning, and when I returned she wasn’t there, the whole town was gone. But that was years ago, and as for a kid, I never . . . she never said . . .”

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” the Kid said. He aimed the gun very steadily. “I’ve waited for this moment.”

“I didn’t kill your mother!” He stared at the Kid. “And I don’t want to have to kill you. Put down your gun.”

“You think you can take me?” the Kid said, and the Conjurer laughed.

“I know I fucking can,” he said.