The Tolrushians were right here in Quentaris!

Tab studied the room. A wolfhound stirred, got to its feet, and came towards her, nuzzling her. So she must be seeing through the eyes of a second wolfhound.

The other wolfhound stepped back and growled at her, as though it could sense her presence.

‘Settle,’ the Tolrushian at the window whispered. The wolfhound padded across to a bundle on the ground. ‘Leave it,’ said the man gruffly. He knelt and stroked the wolfhound's wiry coat. ‘You'll have more food than you can eat soon, Slezzer.’

The mound of rags stirred. Tab made the animal move closer. Someone or something was tied up there, but the hessian wrapped about the body made it impossible for Tab to tell who or what it might be.

‘All right you lazy lot, get up. It's time.’ The two Tolrushians still stretched out on the floor groaned, blinking. ‘Bruta, Carris, you mind that bag of slag. Once we get what we've come for we're off this pile of rock.’

The meld faded.

Tab sat up. Across the room, Amelia slept peacefully, still clasping the thick tome on levitation. Tab felt a chill. What did the Tolrushians want? And how had they managed to sneak on board Quentaris? She had sensed their tension, had smelt their nervous sweat.

Something bad was about to happen, Tab knew.

‘Amelia,’ Tab hissed. She reached over and shook the girl, but Amelia didn't stir. Tab was about to shake her again but stopped.

Maybe this was her chance to do something that even the magicians would have to acknowledge. If she foiled the spies’ plans they would see she had true power after all, not just beginner's luck. Maybe she'd even get put up a class or two.

There was another reason too. Florian Eftangeny. She had run into him a week after the battle and was stunned to see him wearing the scarlet robes of the Magicians’ Guild. Somehow – probably by bribery, she thought – he had become a personal apprentice to a magician. She herself was wearing the black and silver tunic and cloak of an apprentice in the Guild itself.

Florian sneered. ‘Well, if it isn't the little rift girl, made good.’

‘You can talk,’ she retorted.

‘Oh, I earned this – saved a magician, I did, just as a Tolrushian was about to cut off his head.’

‘They don't give you an apprenticeship for that!’

‘Quite right,’ said Florian, ‘they don't. So it must be the magic spell I used to stop the brute. I must say, it surprised me nearly as much as the Tolrushian. Blasted him over the battlement, it did. The magician was so appreciative. Said I had real talent, unlike the kind of dumb luck certain others seem to have… ’

Tab said hotly, ‘It wasn't dumb luck. I can see things!’

‘Yes, but it's not really magic, is it? I mean, it doesn't do anything.’

‘It does!’

‘Is that a challenge, then?’

‘Yes!’

They stood near the edge of the harbour on Spray Lane. All around them stood stalls selling fish. ‘Let's see what you've got then,’ said Florian. He removed a magic wand from under his robes and brandished it. Accomplished magicians didn't use wands; they preferred words, and hands, to weave spells.

But Tab didn't know many spells yet, not real ones. And levitating pins wasn't going to impress Florian. He was already conjuring something. A basket of fish guts and scales trembled. Tab realised that he was trying to fling it at her, but was having some trouble.

Angry, Tab grabbed the basket. Before Florian knew what was happening, she had dumped it over his head, plastering him with stinking fish innards.

‘I'll get you!’ Florian screamed.

Tab didn't wait around to find out what he would do in retaliation. She fled. Two streets away, she could still hear his howls of rage, and couldn't stop grinning. A little later she wondered if she had gone too far. It served him right, though. He had only got what he had meant for her.

But the incident left her feeling moody.

Florian could do genuine magic, and she couldn't. It wasn't fair. What use was mind-melding with animals? It hardly seemed like magic at all.

She wanted to make things happen. She wanted to control water like old Stanas once did, she wanted to cast fire, like Nisha Fairsight. She wanted…

More than anything right now, she wanted to beat Florian.

She made up her mind. She would capture the Tolrushians by herself. Even Florian couldn't do that.

She got up, dressed quickly, and tip-toed down the long corridor outside her room. Moments later she was outside in the street. High above, two moons peeked through the upside rigging. In the distance a city watchman strode across a square and disappeared into a shadowy street.

She would have to be careful. First, she must find the spies. Only then could she rouse the City Watch: if the spies hid or escaped without being seen, nobody would believe her and then she would truly be in trouble. The magicians might even kick her out of school.

For a second she hesitated. Maybe she should wake somebody…

She had just convinced herself that this was the right thing to do when Florian's words came back to haunt her. She flushed again. No. She would do this herself. She could handle it. After all, she was the girl who had already saved Quentaris once. She would do it again.

The streets were reasonably quiet. With fewer people since the Rupture, Quentaris had changed: life had become more peaceful – or it had been till Tolrush attacked. Tab passed a few night watchmen. They glanced at her as she hurried past but her initiate's clothing saved her from closer inspection. No one really wanted to get on the wrong side of the magician-dominated Navigators’ Guild.

Tab skirted Idler's Gardens. Like the Thieves’ Quarter, it was one of those places where shady characters plied their trade. Tab stopped in the shadows beneath a monument to some long dead magician, and opened her mind. She was a little nervous. She had never deliberately tried to re-establish contact with an animal she had already been linked to. Tab sat at the foot of the monument and concentrated. She wasn't entirely sure she could make it happen; usually, the mind-melds just sprang upon her, often when she slept or dozed.

She tried to remember what it felt like to be the wolfhound: the sense of sinew and strength in its long-limbed body; the panting need for breath; its beating heart… and the excitement, the anticipation, that soon there would be action, fighting, blood… She felt a sudden swooping urge to howl at the sky and with an audible click she was back inside the hound…

She frowned. ‘Where are you?’ she whispered, then all at once she recognised the Square of Dreams. Two Tolrushians moved with stealthy purpose through the shadows, pausing and listening. The other two, plus one wolfhound, were missing.

As a wolfhound began to growl, she broke contact and ran out of the park to find the raiding party.

Tab arrived at the square out of breath. With her heart hammering against her ribs, she slid into the nearest shadow. She tried to meld again, reaching out with her mind…then something hit her from behind and she crashed forward into darkness.

Tab woke several times. A buzzing sounded close by, and wind buffeted her. When she tried to move her hands she discovered she was gripped by claw-like pincers. A herb-soaked cloth was strapped around her mouth – that accounted for her drowsiness. Her head nodded and she lost consciousness again. In that brief moment of wakefulness Tab had seen she was hanging from a flying machine. And though she couldn't see the land below, she knew it was a very long way down.

The next time she woke, she wished she hadn't. The hard bunk beneath her, the harsh lighting, and the metal bars told her all she needed to know. She tried to sit up again, but her head felt as if it had been split with an axe. Her vision swam, and she slumped back on her bunk. She must have fallen asleep because she woke several more times in the night, but each time she heard horrible noises and screams from somewhere nearby. She stuffed her fingers in her ears and curled up tightly, more frightened than she had ever been in her whole life.