Skulum Gate proper was immediately to her right. It was a small, rather unimpressive archway, cleverly hidden from view until she’d been right upon it. The archway was free-standing, and looked to lead into an open courtyard, and yet the light through the gap was darker in some way. Was it like a shadow? No, it seemed to be more like a barrier was around the area that kept most of the light out, or most of the darkness in.

She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to find some strength in the dark behind her eyelids.

›››A mill yeah. A mill yeah

Amelia’s eyes sprang open. The voice, much clearer this time, had cut through the gabble in her head, and this time she had no doubt at all. It was Stelka.

With one last fluttery breath, she stepped forward through the arch.

The dark was cold on her skin, like a heavy fog. The small courtyard was empty, apart from a broken earthenware water pitcher half-leaning against the far wall. To her left was a narrow flight of stairs, which led into another alleyway, as dark down there as the night before a winter dawn.

Pulling her cloak closer about her, Amelia headed down the steps and along the dim alley with the dark, enchanted sky a strip of blackness overhead. Stopping and squinting, she tried to see the end of the lane. She couldn’t. Either it was too dark to see that far, or there was no end to it. Endlessly long, and deserted.

Unless… unless something was watching her from the doorways, stoops and windows that glared empty, like the eye sockets in a skull. Somewhere quite nearby, something fiendish let out a long, caterwauling cry, and further away came the sound of a scream. Then a laugh, long and insane, followed by some kind of moan.

She jumped at the sound of the sudden words. ‘Ye look lost, wee’un,’ a wheedling, rust-edged female voice said, from very close by. ‘Are ye sure ye’re no lost?’

Amelia tried to calm her breathing and her pounding heart. She felt sure that she must have screamed, just a little, but she couldn’t remember doing it. ‘I’m not lost,’ she said, her voice weak. ‘Thank you.’

‘Well ye look lost. Are ye sure ye’re no meant to be going home for ye supper? Ye ma would be waiting. Be a dreadful shame to keep ye ma waiting.’

‘I don’t have a ma,’ Amelia replied.

The voice tutted. ‘Shouldnae have told me that, wee’un. I might’ve taken pity, had I thought ye had a ma waiting at home wi’ supper on the table for ye. But since ye donnae…’

‘I don’t want trouble,’ Amelia said, as strongly as her breathless state would allow. She peered into the blackness of the shadows, trying to see the face that belonged to the voice. ‘I just need to see someone.’

‘Is that right? Well, out with it, wee’un – who is it ye need to see so badly? I cannae make no promises, mind.’

‘I’ve come to see Dorissa.’

There was a pause. When it next spoke, all the twisted playfulness had gone from the voice. It was now deadly serious. ‘What do ye want with Dorissa, wee’un?’

‘It’s between her and me.’

The voice was stern. ‘No yet.’

‘Are you able to take me to her?’

‘Give me three reasons why I shouldnae turn ye back.’

Amelia thought. ‘I’ll give you four. One, Dorissa and I are old friends. Two, Stelka is in danger. I’m sure you remember Stelka, who used to be Chief Navigator before everything changed. Dorissa is the only person I know who can help me find her. Three, if I find Stelka, I think I might be able to find my other friends, Tab and Torby. And four, I think Florian is behind all these disappearances.’

‘Why didnae ye start wi’ that one?’ the voice said. ‘Since ye make such a strong case, I figure I can take ye to see Dorissa. But be warned – ye’d best no be jesting me, wee’un.’

‘I’m not, I promise,’ Amelia said.

‘Very well.’ From the darkness of a stoop to Amelia’s left, a figure began to emerge. Amelia found herself gasping, then trying to cover it. It appeared that the voice of the old woman belonged to a child. Its grimy face was covered with sores, and large patches of its thin hair had fallen out.

‘What’s the matter, wee’un? Have ye no seen a Fallowclann before?’

Dumbly, Amelia shook her head.

‘And ye call yerself a magician!’

‘I haven’t been a practising mag… Hang on, how did you know I was a -?’

‘Well ye’re either a magician, or ye really are lost! And ye seem to know what it is ye’re here for.’

The Fallowclann turned, raised both her stubby little hands as high as she could and snapped her fingers. In an instant the lane was lined on both sides with the sickly glow of lamps on tall poles. Amelia gasped. The two rows converged far off in the distance. It seemed that the laneway really was endless.

‘How does that work?’ she said. ‘The edge of Quentaris is less than a hundred feet in that direction, but this street is… is forever long.’

‘Ye’re a slow learner, and that’s for true,’ the Fallowclann said. ‘These days there’s more magic in this wee lane than in all of Quentaris. Florian and his soldiers wouldnae dare come down here. I’ll bet they wish they’d thrown us all over the side when they had the chance. Come on, wee’un, best ye hurry along wi’ me, before someone less friendly spies ye and figures ye’d be good eating. Och, donnae look so terrified – I’m jesting wi’ ye!’

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Amelia said as the child with the old woman’s voice began to lead the way between the endless lines of wan lamplight.

They travelled for what felt to Amelia like an awfully long time. In the lamp-lit street, the sounds of cruel, raucous laughter drifted about, mixed in with cries and calls. As they walked, Amelia noticed that most of the windows they walked past were completely dark, like almost everything else in Skulum Gate. But once in a while they would pass a window with some light behind it. Unlike the pale light from the lamps overhead, the light within these windows was weak, but warm, like a small flame. A candle, perhaps, or an oil-burning lamp.

‘Someone’s home,’ she said as they passed one of these, but the Fallowclann didn’t respond.

Still they continued on. The buildings were so similar – made more so by the darkness – that after a while Amelia began to wonder if they were walking in a huge circle, and passing the same windows all over again.

‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked the Fallowclann eventually.

‘Aye, best ye donnae ask me that again, wee’un,’ the old child-woman said.

‘Sorry. It’s just…’

‘We’re here.’ The Fallowclann stopped before a small doorway, which was shrouded in shadow. Through the window beside the door Amelia saw some of the weak but warm light she’d seen earlier.

‘This is where I’ll find Dorissa?’

The Fallowclann nodded, and pointed. ‘In ye go, then.’

‘You’re not coming in with me?’

‘Nae, I’ll no come in. Me and Dorissa are no the best of friends.’

‘Really? But she’s… well?’

‘In ye go,’ the Fallowclann said again, nodding towards the door. ‘It’ll no be locked. Not for yeself.’

‘Will you wait out here for me?’

‘So I can walk ye back? Are ye daft in some way? It’s no hard to find ye way out!’

‘I see. Well, thanks for bringing me down.’

The Fallowclann gave a half-hearted shrug, turned and headed back the way she’d come.

Taking a deep breath, Amelia put her hand on the door handle. It was so cold against her palm, and it tingled with frustrated, fermenting magic. ‘Courage, Amelia,’ she whispered. She twisted the handle, and with a clunk, the door swung open on creaky hinges.

The room was almost completely bare. The walls were white, but grimy and empty. The light within the room came from a single candle burning low in a large rack-like candelabrum in the corner. The candelabrum had once contained row upon row of candles – hundreds of them – but now there were barely a dozen or so left unburnt. The hundreds that had burnt out were now nothing but deformed globs of melted wax in their holders. Apart from the candelabrum, the room contained nothing but a bed, with a chest at its foot.