‘You’re awake.’ Her father was smiling but there was a wariness to him, as if he was expecting her to burst into flames and he was ready to grab for a bucket. Maybe she would burst into flames. She would not have been surprised. Or particularly sorry, right then. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Well.’ Hands closed around her throat and she plucked at them with her nails, ears throbbing with her own heartbeat. ‘I killed a man yesterday.’

He stood, put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It may feel that way, but—’

‘It certainly does feel that way. I stabbed him, with a short steel I stole from an officer. I pushed the blade into his face. Into his face. So. I got one, I suppose.’

‘Finree—’

‘Am I going mad?’ She snorted up a laugh, it sounded so stupid. ‘Things could be so much worse. I should be glad. There was nothing I could do. What can anyone do? What should I have done?’

‘After what you have been through, only a madman could feel normal. Try to act as though … it is just another day, like any other.’

She took a long breath. ‘Of course.’ She gave him a smile which she hoped projected reassurance rather than insanity. ‘It is just another day.’

There was a wooden bowl, on a table, with fruit in it. She took an apple. Half-green, half-blood-coloured. She should eat while she could. Keep her strength up. It was just another day, after all.

Still dark outside. Guards stood by torchlight. They fell silent as she passed, watching while pretending not to watch. She wanted to spew all over them, but she tried to smile as if it was just another day, and they did not look exactly like the men who had strained desperately to hold the gates of the inn closed, splinters bursting around them as the savages hacked down the doors.

She stepped from the path and out across the hillside, pulling her coat tight around her. Wind-lashed grass sloped away into the darkness. Patches of sedge tangled at her boots. A bald man stood, coat-tails flapping, looking out across the darkened valley. He had one fist clenched behind him, thumb rubbing constantly, worriedly at forefinger. The other daintily held a cup. Above him, in the eastern sky, the first faint smudges of dawn were showing.

Perhaps it was the after-effects of the husk, or the sleeplessness, but after what she had seen yesterday the First of the Magi did not seem so terrible. ‘Another day!’ she called, feeling as if she might take off from the hillside and float into the dark sky. ‘Another day’s fighting. You must be pleased, Lord Bayaz!’

He gave her a curt bow. I—’

‘Is it “Lord Bayaz” or is there a better term of address for the First of the Magi?’ She pushed some hair out of her face but the wind soon whipped it back. ‘Your Grace, or your Wizardship, or ‘your Magicosity?’