The star rose into the night sky, green as a the eye of a strangle snake. She had been ready for a countless time, crouched beside her open window, watching the Snake Star emerge from the sea.

Nearly time. Storm rubbed her nose. So much could go wrong. She shook her head. She had decided: she would meet with Mer. She strapped on her knife, slung the flute around her neck.

Storm pushed open the casement, slipped over the sill and dropped lightly to the ground. It was safer to leave by the window: less risk of waking another guest. And, although she didn’t think there were guest-house officials about, she could be wrong. Keeping low, she darted from shadow to shadow, keeping trees and shrubs between her and the gatehouse.

Too dangerous to try to sneak into Talon’s garden to use the route out of the garden Mer had shown her. But there was another way she could escape. The whirlwind that had carried off the Fire-witch had destroyed part of the wall around the central garden. She had scouted it out after lunch, while pretending to stroll around the garden. A rough wooden fence had been erected until repairs were made, but for someone used to scaling sea cliffs to collect gulls’ eggs, it would be an easy climb. As long as the guards posted in the guardhouse didn’t spot her.

Storm crouched in the shadow beneath an old spreading tree for a long time, watching the stretch of the broken wall and listening to her heart pounding in her ears. No sign of a watcher. She took a deep breath, gathered herself and sprinted forward, feeling as though the rising moon was aiming its light directly at her. She leapt for the first plank, pulled herself up and was at the top and over before she could breathe twice.

She was in an alley so narrow it was nearly a gutter. The land to her left fell away towards the sea, and in the moonlight she could clearly see the opening cut through the scrubby hillside, which ended a few paces away in a sheer cliff. Storm walked to the edge; peered down. Far below was a rocky spit, and then the sea. She heard the waves pounding the shingle spit. Surely no one could have survived that fall … unless the tornado had carried the Fire-witch all the way to the water before releasing its victim. Storm shivered, and began the journey to the Merry Whale.

It was fast approaching high moon. The Snake Star was nearly overhead. On Yanlin, the town would be deserted, the townsfolk asleep in their houses, but the streets near the main square were half full of loiterers and drunks going in and out of the many taverns lining the streets, signed by the yellow glow of lanterns hung above their doors.