The two deputies turned at the sound of her voice, their weapons raised. They lowered them as soon as they saw Macks and Jaff, and came hurrying along the gantry towards them.

‘Thank the Throne!’ gasped Edde. She was clearly shaken, her mind unable to cope. There was shock in Garofar’s eyes too, but he was holding it together.

‘This is the shade hall, isn’t it?’ he said to Jaff.

‘It seems there was some basis to the myth, deputy,’ she replied.

‘Did we open a door?’ he asked. ‘How could this place be in the woods and we not see a trace of it?’

‘I want to go now,’ said Edde. ‘I want to go away from here, right now.’

‘We are still in the Karanine woods,’ Jaff said to Garofar, ‘and yet we are simultaneously not.’

‘What does that even mean?’ he spat back.

‘I could explain at great length about simultaneous reality overlays,’ said Jaff. ‘About areas of binary dimension. I imagine I would be wasting my time. Put simply, this is an extremely rare cosmic phenomenon. An extimate location. Two places occupying the same point of space at the same time, one overlaid on the other and only one of them ever visible at a time, depending on the position of the observer. This is the woodland ruins and it is this structure. We were in one, now we are in the other. Our location hasn’t changed. Our position of observation has. Does that help?’

‘No,’ said Garofar.

‘Then we have been taken through a faerie ring into your shade hall, deputy,’ Jaff said with contempt.

‘What do we do?’ Garofar asked Macks.

‘We get out of here,’ Edde replied, her voice rising in panic. ‘We get the hell out–’

‘Rein it in, Edde,’ said Macks. She got hold of the trembling deputy and almost shook her by the shoulders. ‘Edde? Edde! Look at me. Look at me now. I’m going to sort this out. I need you to keep a lid on, all right? Edde? Can you do that?’

Edde nodded, swallowing hard.

‘Y-es. Yes, mam.’

‘We need to find the others,’ said Jaff. ‘Eisenhorn, Nayl, Voriet, Magos Drusher and your other deputy. They may be nearby.’

‘We haven’t seen anybody except you,’ said Garofar.

Macks adjusted her collar vox.

‘Nayl, this is Macks? Do you copy? Cronyl? Are you reading me? This is Macks.’

She looked at Jaff.

‘The vox is dead,’ she said.

‘The frequency spectrum may be different here,’ said Jaff.

‘How do you know that?’ asked Garofar.

‘I don’t,’ said Jaff. ‘It’s just an educated guess.’

She turned and looked down the next set of metal steps. It descended to another platform. Other walkways branched off it. Steps led up to higher platforms, obscured by the humming machinery.

She looked at Macks.

‘Stay here,’ she said. ‘I’ll scout along here.’

‘We should stay together,’ said Macks.