“A Fire-witch! This should be good.” Cloud pushed eagerly through the crowd, towards the column of orange fire reaching towards the canvas rooftop. He didn’t hear her shout of protest. The rest of the crowd seemed to want to see the Fire-witch too. Storm found herself carried forward after Cloud as inexorably as a swimmer caught in a riptide. She clapped her left hand over the gold cuff hiding the scar on her right wrist. Surely it was all right. It wouldn’t be the Salamander’s assassin, just a witch come to make some money, like all the others in town.

Walled by human bodies, Storm was pushed forward step by step. Cloud glanced back, grabbed her hand. “Careful we don’t get separated in this crush!” he shouted over the tumult of voices. In the distance, the Fire-witch’s audience cheered. The flow of bodies slowed. Cloud still held on to her as he pushed and shoved, dragging her with him.

“Stop! This is close enough!”

But he kept tugging. Only when they popped out into a small circle of space at the very front of the crowd did Cloud let go. He shouted in her ear: “We’re lucky to get this close!”

In front of them was a chest-high platform constructed of bricks and stone. Children perched on their parents’ shoulders. Men, women and children munched street food and swayed and rocked in place to the sound of the drum beaten rhythmically by a man seated below the platform.

The Fire-witch stood on the platform of bricks, a large open iron pot full of glowing, flickering coals on a stand beside her. She was thin and bony, long-faced with a wide mouth. She wore a long red silk tunic that reached nearly to her ankles. It was embroidered in gold with images of a salamander. Seeing it, Storm instinctively tried again to shrink away, but the crowd held her firm. She watched, mesmerised, as the Fire-witch fed the fire with a bundle of dried twigs, then dipped an iron flagon into the flames that shot up from the brazier.

The witch lifted the flagon to her lips and drank fire, and the crowd screamed in delight and horror. Nauseated, Storm watched a red glow illuminate the skin and bone covering the woman’s mouth. The fire-gleam flowed down the witch’s throat and into her chest.