Tab thought back to her introduction to the Hub, that part of Quentaris that housed an icefire gem that powered the ire ore.

‘And there,’ said Quartermaster Dorissa, pointing, ‘is the fabled bloodfire beetle. See how the Seeker hums and strokes the creature?’

The initiates stared open-mouthed.

‘Note that its carapace is like a ruby version of icefire, hence its name. It feeds on icefire and so incorporates particles of the gem into itself. Look, it sparkles and glows like a ruby reflecting the flames of a fire,’ Dorissa went on. ‘When it's spinning in perfect harmony with our city and that of another plane, it sets up a harmonic humming that is integral to the process of sensing out the pathways to an alternative rift plane – looking for and predicting weaknesses, flaws, sensing where the next vortex will form, and when. It feels the raw fabric of space-time.’

‘It's disappearing!’ an initiate cried.

‘No, child,’ Dorissa said. ‘Bloodfire beetles exist mostly in and marginally outside this plane, hence their flickering. It's a form of concealment and escape for them. They shift into alternate rift planes for short periods of time.’

Without thinking Tab tried to mind-meld with the bloodfire beetle. An unimaginable harmony came over her and, sensing the risk of being consumed, she immediately withdrew. ‘Until a predator has passed or given up searching for it?’ Tab said, slightly disoriented.

‘Well done,’ the quartermaster said. ‘The morphing is a camouflage.’ The magician frowned. ‘Are you all right, child?’

Tab felt her face drain of colour. ‘I'm fine,’ she said. ‘A momentary turn, that's all.’

Dorissa continued with the lesson.

Without realising it at the time, that first, albeit brief, mind-meld with the bloodfire beetle had been Tab's first real inkling of the part she might one day play in the Navigators’ Guild.

Tab held up her head. Although she was currently a minor cog in the Navigators’ Guild, she was still part of an essential organisation. Being able to move Quentaris from place to place was one thing. Knowing where to move her to was quite another. And hence the need for navigators. It fell to the Navigators’ Guild to find the way back to where Quentaris belonged. And for this they needed to navigate the rift planes and pathways. Once again, the icefire gem, coupled with ire ore, was the key – the catalyst. It could enhance the natural abilities of the magicians to ‘sense’ and ‘see’ these pathways. It even enabled some very powerful magicians to open vortices, rather than just to locate them by how they made the rift planes tremble.

Under the leadership of Chief Navigator Stelka a black-eyed, raven-haired magician and clever court politician – all the key positions in the Navigators’ Guild belonged to magicians.

Dwelling on the magnificence of the Hub, Tab fell asleep in her new room which she shared with Amelia. Later that night she suddenly sat bolt upright. She knew what had been needling her.

She felt – important. Bleary-eyed, she glanced down at the seed-gem that all initiates were given. Its lambent glow made her smile. How protective the magicians were of their little brood.

That first week flew past in a blur. Tab was dazed much of the time and had to keep pinching herself, half afraid she would wake back in Mrs Figgin's orphanage. Oddly enough, there were some similarities to her first home. The rooms, for instance, were very small and had to be kept sparkling clean. And there were rules. Lots of them.

Tab didn't mind really. She was living her dream.

They had classes in just about everything, though it would be months before the apprentices even began to think of specialising. Tab's favourite lessons were in levitation, foretelling, spells and charms, wind-working and storm-bringing, magical defence and attack, and most of all in rifting – that rarest of all gifts, the ability to hear the deep whispering of the rift currents, to locate the vortexes … and find the way home for Quentaris…

Most of her fellow students were ahead of Tab, having started their apprenticeships nearly two months earlier. Amelia was actually two years in front. The guild believed in pairing younger and older students, and the arrangement seemed to work out well for both.

Tab didn't see much of Philmon at first. Shortly after her arrival he had accused her of acting first and thinking later, which had stung her, for he had gained a promotion due to her. And Fontagu failed to turn up. Verris visited her a few times but he had no news of the ex-actor, and Tab slowly came to the belief that Fontagu had perished in the battle with Tolrush.

She went one day to the Hall of the Fallen, had Fontagu's name added to the Quentaran casualty list and paid to have a candle lit on the anniversary of the battle.

Here, in the echoing silences of the Hall, she whispered goodbye to Fontagu and wished him well.

And after that, life continued.

Tab's only real complaint in this whole period was that they never got to do serious magic. She mentioned it late one evening to Amelia, who was sitting on her bed, yawning, trying to read a thick volume called Levitating in Emergencies, which was one of Amelia's specialities.

Amelia groaned and closed the book with a snap.

‘I am so tired,’ she said. ‘I think my eyes are about to fall out of my head.’

Tab had to ask her question a second time. Amelia just shook her head.

‘You need to walk before you can fly. I know it all seems a bit of a mish-mash at first, but trust me, all those little bits build up into bigger bits. And suddenly they all come together. Like, a brick is nothing, yes? But thousands of them built this school. Millions of them built Quentaris. Once you can make a brick, you can make anything.’

‘I know all that,’ said Tab, ‘it's just that I'd like to -’

‘Be a natural, like Nisha or Stanas,’ Amelia interrupted. ‘Wouldn't we all, Tab? But they had to learn how to control their raw power. Nothing's ever easy, even though we'd like it to be.’

‘But I feel as though I have something in me, Amelia. I -’

But Amelia was already snoring softly.

Tab scowled with frustration. Here she was, the girl who had saved Quentaris almost single-handedly, and she was learning how to levitate pins, or remove warts. She wanted to do something big, really big. Something that would make people sit up and take notice of her, that would make the magicians take notice of her.

Tab slumped back on to her bed.

She was tired, too, but her growing frustration stopped her from sleeping. Even her visions – her mind-melding with animals – seemed to have faded away, though that might be in part because the magicians’ school was warded by strong magic, which perhaps suppressed her abilities.

Desperate to sleep, Tab wove a relaxation diagram in the air. She had learnt the rudimentary spell during an enlightening lesson that day. Being the first layer of a set of ten, it was a minor spell.

Apart from a tingling sensation, Tab felt nothing. Perhaps she hadn't drawn the diagram particularly well. She tried again, this time adding a few curlicues. A fluorescent sheen morphed in the air then dissipated. ‘Oh!’ Tab gasped, sitting back. She watched the miniscule specks of twinkling magic fall like a shower.

Tab was tempted to try the spell one more time. But Dorissa had warned her students that magic didn't like being messed with. If it wasn't working, then leave well enough alone. There might be a reason why it wasn't forming.

However, Tab eventually drifted off to sleep.

Around midnight she woke suddenly. She was ‘in’ a dingy room lit by a single shaft of daylight. Three Tolrushians slept on the bare ground. Another stood watch by a broken window. A cloth was draped across the gaping hole. A burly Tolrushian grunted, climbed to his feet, and peered out the window. Tab started. Before the Tolrushian dropped the cloth back into place she had glimpsed the mainmast off in the distance.