‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, yes. Worse still, if he believes you’re something you’re not, he could chase you unto the last of his energy and be prepared to die for what his imagination makes you into. He’d love to marry the heir to Peregrine.’

I glanced over to the bar but fortunately Rawney was taking a long time. He was chatting with a skinny, wasted-looking guy. I took a sip of Cyan’s ‘wallop’-ginger beer that was more beer than it was ginger-and went on; ‘You’ll never understand what Hacilith is like under the surface. It’s impossible, but try to grasp that I’m telling you this from my own experience. My image isn’t just an image, Cyan; I witnessed the last days of the East Bank gangs.’ I pushed my coat off my shoulder so she could see the circle with six spokes that our gang leader had carved there. ‘The other gang, the Bowyers, had arrowheads scarred on their forearms. We used to flay them off and stick them to the door of our warehouse.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yes. Well, I suppose I should never have tried to encroach on their patch. When they caught any of us, they dumped us in the canal lock. When we caught any of them, we nailed them to the struts of a waterwheel. Hence the Wheel.’ I took her hand and traced the furrows of my scar with her finger.

‘I can feel it.’

‘That’s right.’

She didn’t know whether to believe me or not. ‘Didn’t the constables do anything?’

‘Oh, I always tipped off the constables. But they left them revolving round and round for a few hours before they took them down…The Bowyers eventually traced where I lived. I came home one night and found my shop on fire. I ran in, trying to find my master…’ I continued sadly as I put my coat back on. ‘He was called Dotterel. I tried to run upstairs but the steps were burning through. I expect-I hope-he died of smoke suffocation long before the flames reached the second floor…’

Cyan said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I couldn’t feel grief back then, only despair. It was the next inevitable avalanche to happen to me. What sort of life was Hacilith, anyway? My girlfriend pulled me out of the shop as it rose in flames about me and, right then, we determined to leave Galt. We took the road that went left over Pityme Bridge and we realised that even the Castle was possible.’

I never tell Zascai that I used to be a drug dealer, but I let them know my unfortunate adventures. It makes me seem so much more talented for having escaped them.

Cyan said, ‘Hacilith must have changed.’

‘Yes, it’s different now. The underworld is more inconspicuous and a damn sight more complicated, but it hasn’t gone away.’

She took a sip of her drink and rolled her eyes. ‘Oh god. If that’s your advice, I don’t need it. I don’t want Daddy’s advice either, and I certainly don’t want Swallow the mad diva’s homespun instruction. I thought better of you. Let me make my own mistakes!’

‘You don’t want Lightning’s advice? Fourteen hundred years of it?’

‘Fourteen hundred years of boredom, more like!’

‘You’ll inherit Peregrine when you’re twenty-one,’ I said.

‘That’s what I’m running away from! My true place in life, huh. How can I be an Awian lady when I don’t feel Awian at all? Not that being wingless matters; Awians will accept me and anyway, they don’t have a choice. But I don’t feel I belong anywhere. Daddy gave me this-’ She hooked her fingers under the chain of her ruby pendant as if she was about to rip it off and throw it away. ‘He says it’s an heirloom. But I don’t belong in Micawater either. “Come home,” you tell me, but just where home is, I can’t say. Morenzia is the only country that’s free.’

‘Don’t say that in front of Lightning.’

‘Just five families in Awia own eighty per cent of the land. Morenzians don’t have such a silly aristocracy. They don’t have to bow and scrape. You don’t know what it’s like to be a girl stuck in Awndyn.’

I nodded. That much was true.

‘Hacilith is so big! There are so many people my age! I never had friends in Awndyn. But, god, Jant, what does that mean to you? You’re bloody ancient. The Castle protects you, just like Daddy.’

‘You should have seen me at Slake Cross trying to hold my guts in with one hand.’

‘Oh, yeah. Sorry.’ She pinched her cheek and wiggled it. ‘You think you see a girl but looking out of these eyes is a very experienced woman, in experience terms at least as old as you are. Well, nearly. I’ve travelled all over the place.’

‘Did you go or were you taken?’

Her eyebrows drew together. I continued, ‘You haven’t been south of Awndyn before and you haven’t been north of Micawater.’

‘I’m here of my own accord now. So don’t misunderestimate me. Take Rawney, I only met him four days ago and he says he will do anything for me. He can get anything for me, even jook. He helped me move onto the Tumblehome.’

‘Is that where you’re staying?’

‘Oh…Yeah, it is, actually. So let me express myself. I’m not going to be cooped up in Awndyn with the mad diva.’

Rawney returned with the drinks but without any food. He didn’t give Cyan her change either but she didn’t notice. He put a whole bottle of cheap whisky down in front of me. ‘There! Get your talons round that!’

‘I don’t have talons,’ I said indignantly, but he continued to stare rudely while I poured a glass. I stared back, and he looked away.

People naturally resent anybody who gives them orders and Zascai are especially resentful of good-looking immortals who can fly. Rawney was trying to find something to feel superior about and, as usual for such people, he was concentrating on my Rhydanne heritage. There is not much in my appearance and bearing for Morenzians to identify with; all that is human in me, I have learnt. They characterise Rhydanne as a bunch of hopeless drunks; the fact that one might flap down from the mountains and start giving them commands is a further affront to their dignity. Also, if he is like most Zascai, he will think of me as the voice of the Emperor and be doubly afraid. Mortals often assume that because I have the Emperor’s ear I am somehow closer to him than other immortals. That isn’t true, and anyway why would San send me to spy on someone like Rawney?

Cyan gave an embarrassed giggle. ‘It’s so strange to be talking to one of Daddy’s workmates.’

I said, ‘As the future Governor of Peregrine, you’ll get used to it.’

‘How many times have I got to tell you? I don’t want to be governor! I hate feeling the weight of Daddy’s expectations on me all the time! It’s all right for you, flying around and never counting the cost. I’m not impressed with his plans for me. I have different plans. How dare he assume my tastes are the same as his? He doesn’t even know me!’

‘But you used to love hunting in Peregrine,’ I said.

‘Yes, I know. Weird, isn’t it? It became overfamiliar, I suppose. It disappointed me. I don’t want to see all those same faces again.’ She turned to Rawney. ‘Jant used to frustrate the fuck out of me with all his exciting plans I wasn’t allowed to realise. I loved his tales of faraway places. Now I’m in one!’

That made me smile. ‘Lightning would be furious if he knew you were sitting in a bar.’

‘Huh. Him. He doesn’t understand what’s real in life. He’s stuck with his sense of honour. I think we should feel first and act on our feelings instead. I wanted someone to know my mind, Jant. No one in Awndyn could, so it’s me who has to change. I thought: if I don’t change, I’ll die. But now the future has opened up wide!’

I poured more whisky. Every spoilt teenager talks like this, and Cyan was in full flow. ‘I’ve got my enthusiasm back. I used to feel dormant, as if I was waiting to start my own life. I was breathless and apprehensive, but I was ready and now things are starting to happen! My hatred of Awndyn wound me up like a spring and shot me out to Hacilith. I’m not stopping now.’