Now she sat on her straw-sack mattress, closed her eyes and went reaching for one of her usual animal friends. She’d become a lot more practised at mind-melding, and in addition to the animals at the farm, with whom she would sometimes meld just to pass the time, there were a number of other, more important creatures she used for far nobler purposes.

As she focused her mind, a number of voices and awarenesses flickered through her consciousness. It was a little like walking past a busy schoolyard, and hearing different shouts, cries and conversations drift in and out, at times coming to the foreground, then drifting away to be background hubbub while other voices pushed forward.

But it wasn’t just voices in her mind’s ear. It was also a series of shadows and flickers of light in her mind’s eye, as if she were trying to see a wild creature behind a shrub, just tiny movements through gaps between leaves, never the whole, but definitely parts.

She shuddered, and pushed past the dog nosing about in a pile of rancid food scraps. It wasn’t a dog she needed. The cat she sometimes used to spy on Bendo threatened to distract her, but she squeezed her eyes closed a little more tightly and carried on.

Then it was there. She felt her nose twitch, and pushed down the desire to scratch at imaginary whiskers. In her mind she saw darkness, and a gap of light, in the shape of a rough triangle. She’d found Rat.

›››Rat, it’s just me››Thanks for letting me in again

Rat replied, in a very clumsy way.›››Did I even have a choice?

›››I need to talk to Stelka››Please go forward

Rat did as she’d asked, scurrying towards the gap of light. As it got closer it stopped, and poked its nose out. Through its eyes, Tab looked around.

Over on the far side of the cell, sitting at a rather ramshackle table, was Stelka. All her jewels and various decorations were now gone, taken by Florian, or someone answering to him. Her hair, once her pride, now hung in long, lank tresses, and her silk gown was soiled, scuffed and stained, and coming apart at some of the seams.

›››Speak››Please

From partly within her own throat, and partly within the rat’s, Tab heard a shrill screech. Stelka looked up from her writing, stared at the wall before her, then turned to look directly at Rat. ‘Oh, is it her?’ she asked. ‘Just a moment.’

Tab saw her close her eyes, while a look of enormous concentration tightened her face. Then, a moment or two later, she heard Stelka’s voice, stilted and uncertain, contained within the mind of Rat.

›››Good you come

›››I need to talk to you››I need to know what I should do

There was a pause. Stelka was new to mind-melding. Everything she knew, Tab had taught her within the confines of the tiny mind of this most accommodating rodent. So it was quite normal for the replies to come back rather twisted and dificult to understand, and slowly.

›››What you need know?

›››Fontagu has been asked to perform a play for Florian

The answer was almost instant.›››No, bad idea

›››I know – that’s what I told him

›››When he do play?

›››He’s going to the palace tomorrow. I’m worried that he’s going to say or do something stupid

›››Like going to palace?

›››What should I do?

›››Go with

›››Go with him? What good would that do?

›››Find out him’s plan. Then can fix

›››Keep an eye on him, you mean

›››Yes. Stelka must go now

Like a tiny pull on the hair at the side of her head, Tab felt Stelka’s mind-meld separate from hers. Through the eyes of Rat she saw that one of the troll jailers had entered the corridor that ran beside the cells, and was talking to her friend.

›››Thank you, Rat››That’s all for today

She stood then, and shook her head, trying to clear the fine cobwebs of mind-meld that always hung around after these ‘conversations’ with Stelka. Then, pulling her cloak around her shoulders, she slipped under her curtain, trotted silently to the end of the annex and, with practised movements, climbed the rough brick wall like a spider, using small jutting ledges for foot- and handholds. She reached the narrow gap in the corner where the two walls and the roof converged, and then, with no more sound than a quick exhale, she had squeezed through the gap and was dropping silently down into a Quentaran back alley.

She had a message to convey.

Tab slipped through the backstreets, taking care to stick to the shadows. Even someone like her, with better than average magic skills, wasn’t completely safe at night – not since everything had changed. She didn’t wish to be spotted by anyone who wanted to try to rob her, even with nothing to steal, and she didn’t fancy being taken by the ear and dragged back to face Bendo.

So she slunk around the ends of buildings, ducked into culverts and behind barrels, hid under the cover of shadows while late-night drunks staggered by, or guards laughed and swore on street corners. And she certainly made a point of giving Skulum Gate a wide berth. There might have been old friends in there, but she still had little desire to run into any of them. Not now.

One of Philmon’s fellow sky-sailors opened the little flap in the middle of the door of their quarters. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, Tab.’

‘It’s very late.’

‘I need to see Philmon.’

‘It’s very late.’

‘So you said. Can I see him? Please? I won’t take very long.’

‘Wait there.’

The little flap slapped shut, and Tab stood just a little closer to the door while she waited.

Finally the door rattled, and opened slightly. ‘Tab! What are you doing here?’ Philmon asked, holding the door open.

‘I had to see you. I had to tell you – I’m going to go up to the palace with Fontagu tomorrow.’

‘What?’ Philmon glanced over his shoulder into the warm light of the crew’s quarters. ‘Are you completely crazy?’

‘I have to go with him. Stelka said -’

‘ Stelka? It’s all very well for her, Tab – she’s already locked up!’

‘I know. But I have to do this. He needs me. After all, he’s a friend.’

Philmon rolled his eyes. ‘Some friend. Have you forgotten that it was Fontagu who got Quentaris into this whole city-in-the-sky mess to begin with? Are you sure this is wise?’

‘Not so loud! And no, I’m not sure at all,’ Tab admitted. ‘But I’m going to do it anyway. Fontagu needs my support. Anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?’

‘I don’t want to think too hard about that,’ Philmon sighed.

‘We don’t have to say anything. We’ll just hover in the background -’

Philmon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Hold on, Tab, what did you just say? We’ll just hover in the background? We? As in, you and me?’

Tab swallowed hard, and gave him a quick, nervous smile. ‘I could go on my own. Or I could go with a friend.’

‘I thought Fontagu was your friend.’

‘ Another friend?’ she suggested. ‘Come on, Philmon, if Florian planned to do anything to us, he’d have done it long before now. He doesn’t see us as any kind of threat. If he did, he’d have locked up me and Amelia along with Stelka. Or even worse, we’d be in Skulum Gate.’

‘I guess…’ Philmon said.

‘So, will we meet near Fontagu’s place just before noon tomorrow?’

Philmon shook his head slightly and heaved a sigh. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this… Sure, why not?’

Tab grinned, and squeezed his arm. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Well, I’d better get back. If I’m caught out of my chamber, Bendo won’t be happy.’

‘Bendo’s going to be the least of your problems after tomorrow,’ Philmon muttered.

The following morning Tab awoke early and quickly got to work. Then, when she’d finished her chores, she did some more, simply so Bendo wouldn’t be able to shout at her for being lazy. At about mid-morning, she found Bendo and told him that she had to go out for a while.