Cyan screamed, ‘Take me home! Take me home now! Now! Now! Now!’ I could hear her thrashing and kicking at the flaccid worms.

‘Think of it as a shadow world,’ I told her.

‘You goatfucking son of a bastard’s bastard’s bastard!’

We waited for a long time. The Vermiform eventually said, ‘I think we’ve thrown off the Gabbleratchet. Let’s go.’

It gave us a small jolt and our worm-bonds dropped to the floor. Off balance I stumbled forward-into Rayne’s bedroom.

Rayne was staring at me, still holding the coal shovel, standing beside the bed where Cyan lay unconscious. I turned to see the cluster of worms behind me, like a tall mould-the back of my head and my folded wings were imprinted in it.

They tumbled to the floor in an inert, exhausted mass; then began to ebb away, slowly and fitfully. Their pool diminished in size as they invisibly poured back into the Shift. When it was about the size of my palm it split into three and dribbled away to the coal scuttle, under the door and between my feet under the rocking chair. I tilted the chair back, but they had gone.

Rayne, with a speed that belied her years, headed off the worms crawling towards the coal scuttle and shovelled them up. She took an empty jar from the shelf and tipped them into it. Then she pressed on the metal lid, held the jar to the light and shook it experimentally. The dollop of worms remained inert at the base.

‘T’ Vermiform, you say?’ she asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘This is a priceless sample. Are t’ worms still sentien’ when they’re separa’ed?’

‘I think so. At least, they act independently. I think they’re just exhausted.’

She put the jar on the mantelpiece. The worms inside rose up in a wave and pushed against the glass. The jar tipped up, teetered on its edge and clattered back down. The worms collected themselves for another push, so Rayne picked up the jar and wedged it safely between the cushions on the rocking chair.

Cyan jolted awake with a gasp-fell back on the bed. Her eyes were glazed and confused, socketed with deep purple shadows. Her pale lips were set in a grimace, far from her nonchalant expression of earlier. She was still breathing more shallowly than a fish in the Shift and her limbs were enervated, motionless. She turned her head to one side and vomited over the pillow.

‘Cat is addictive!’ I shouted at her. ‘Don’t do it again!’

‘Quie’, Jant,’ said Rayne.

‘How could you have even wanted to try it? It’s a cure-all for slum kids not stupid rich girls!’

‘Quie’! Look, Jant, you can help me. Gelsemium and salicin for her aches. Henbane for her tremors. Hamamelis for her bruising. Go and fetch me all these, and some cotton t’ dab in the ointmen’.’

I did, and when Rayne was concentrating on Cyan, I also slipped the jar of worms into the pocket of my new coat.

At length Rayne said, ‘I think she will take days t’ recover.’

‘She can’t stay here for days.’

‘No.’ Rayne glanced at a casement clock, then at the piles of packed equipment. ‘Especially no’ as my coach will be here within t’ hour, and I mus’ go t’ Slake Cross.’

‘Lightning did say to bring her to the front.’

‘Wha’, like tha’?’ We looked at Cyan dubiously. She lay quite still, slowly testing her relaxed body, trying to wake up without throwing up. ‘I wouldn’ wan’ t’ move her…’

‘Think of it as another leg of the Grand Tour.’

‘I’ll “Grand Tour” you! Bloody Awians.’

If we left Cyan, she would go straight back to Galt with a story in her repertoire to add to her growing collection of cool credentials. Rayne seemed to realise this. ‘All righ’. I’ll take her.’

‘Thanks.’

‘She migh’ benefi’ from some advice on t’ journey. I’ll make sure she’s well by t’ time she meets Ligh’ning.’

‘Don’t tell him,’ I said.

Rayne pursed her smooth lips. ‘I can’ promise tha’.’

A faint voice whispered from the direction of the box-bed. ‘Help…’

‘Oh, so you’ve found your voice. You are by far the most stupid girl who ever crossed paths with mine. Jook! Is that what you call it? What did you do it for? Did you think it was a laugh?’

With her eyes shut, she asked quietly, ‘Is Sharny dead?’

‘Maybe,’ I said angrily.

‘He is,’ she said, resigned. ‘He’s dead.’

She turned over and slipped out of the bed onto weak legs, staggered, and I caught her. I knew she would be seeing the room as a single flat picture and the objects as shapes. She wouldn’t be able to distinguish their depths and the light would create confusing patches of bright and shade that would seem more real and significant than the objects themselves. I delineated a chair for her from the other shapes and made her sit down.

Cyan slurred, ‘That trip…’

‘It’s over now.’ I spoke slowly and calmly to reassure her, although I knew she’d hear a scrambled version of my words, if she could hear me at all over the roar of her own pulse and breathing.

‘Pu’ her back in t’ bed,’ Rayne said.

Cyan’s eyes cleared briefly to an avid violent look. ‘I had visions.’

‘It was real,’ I said.

‘Now is no’ t’ time,’ Rayne told me warningly.

‘I dreamed about you.’

‘I was there,’ I found myself saying. ‘I saw it too. Trust me; I used to live with this.’

‘No!’ She grabbed the nearest object on the dresser-a bamboo birdcage. Her thin fingers sank between the bars. She hefted the cage at an angle, spilling seed and water all over the floor, and the finches inside fluttered madly. She was about to throw it at me, but she gave a little sigh, her eyes rolled up and she toppled out of the chair in a faint, the birdcage still grasped in one hand.

Rayne looked at me with a horrified expression.

‘I’ll put her in the coach,’ I said.

I watched Rayne leave at full speed in a smart coach-and-four. She would change horses at Wichert in Shivel, Shivel town, Slaughterbridge in Eske, Eske town, Carse, Clobest in Micawater, the Rachis valley coaching inns at Merebrigg village, Oscen town, Spraint, Floret and Plow.

I flew.

On the second day I headed towards Awia, passing over the bleak hills of upper Fescue, where the Brome stream meets the Rill and the Foss and becomes the Moren River. Rayne should have reached the Shivel coach stop by now. I hoped Cyan still didn’t look two days dead when she arrives at Slake Cross or Rayne is going to have a hard time explaining it to Lightning. I just hope he doesn’t connect me with Cyan’s condition.

The air was sluggish so I concentrated on its changing shapes as I flew past the quarries at Heshcam and Garron on the Brome stream. The Brome’s peaty water, the colour of beer, tumbled out of ghylls between rounded hills topped with millstone grit crags like pie crusts.

Cyan needs to learn who she is. She’s as confusing as a shot of pure cat in fourth-day withdrawal. I just hope her experience has taught her not to take the stuff again.

Tapering black chimneys poked up from a cleft between two hills. That’s my next landmark-Marram mining town. I flapped towards it tiredly, noticing my shadow on the hillside far to my right.

Marram was tucked in a valley and the roofs and chimneys of the lead and stannary furnaces seemed to take up most of it. I came in very low over the surrounding grey-purple slag heaps. A massive lead crushing wheel turned slowly in an overshot sluice, around which spots of red and yellow were the woollen shawls, head scarves and wide trousers of women picking ore fragments from the machine’s trays.

I flapped overhead and they all looked up, began shoving each other and pointing me out. The women seemed glad of a break; they started leering and catcalling. One or two had wings but most were human and they were all very raucous.