‘Don’t be a fool,’ I growled. ‘We can’t beat this many guards. And we can’t charge in like drunk Humdrums, either. Wethers has Paragon training. She’ll see us from a mile away.’ I knew I would. ‘You really want to die at seventeen?’

  ‘Better me than him,’ she said.

  I grabbed Gage’s shoulder, and she wrenched out of my grip. Then she sped off.

  Stop her, said the Samuel in my head. She’s going to get you both killed.

  ‘Gage!’ I said. ‘Gage!’ Prophets damn you. Why was that random boy so important to her? She was going to get turned into a drooling thrall. Then she would give me up to Wethers.

  My options were to run in after her, or cut myself loose.

  The choice took me less than a second.

  No reward was worth a death trap like this. Neither was Gage. If my companion was doomed, I would simply find another path to the Black Wraith.

  My eyes skimmed over the deck, looking for an exit. The yacht had sailed ten miles from the capital, too far to swim or Water Walk back. And I didn’t have my wings. I spotted a small dinghy, used to ferry people to and from the ship. That was my exit.

  Thick Voidsteel chains held the boat to the deck. I cursed under my breath. Even my sword couldn’t break those, and I’d never learned how to pick locks.

  To escape, I needed a key. And I knew just where to find one: on Gabriel Heywood, the owner of this yacht.

  I found him in the second-floor lounge, leaning against a bar counter next to a window. Drunken partygoers surrounded him, but his guards had left. I sidled towards him, keeping an eye on the door.

  Then I leaned on the bar. ‘Evening.’

  His eyes looked unfocused. ‘Evening.’ He leaned close. ‘Have you met her yet?’

  I played along. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘I’ve met some incredible people in my life,’ he said. ‘Mages. Businessmen. Visionaries. But she—’ He laughed. ‘Well, she’s just radiant, isn’t she?’

  Prophets. Wethers had already got to him. The poor man’s brain was poached like an egg.

  I extended my Pith towards Gabriel Heywood, feeling round his body with metal magic. My outstretched soul felt a silver ring, a steel watch. And a key. There it is.

  But it hung round his neck, touching his skin. If I went for it now, he’d notice.

  ‘Brandy sour,’ I said to the bartender. I watched him as he mixed my drink, making sure he didn’t slip anything in.

  I needed something to distract Heywood. Something to keep his head in the clouds while I stole the key to his lifeboats.

  And then it came to me. ‘Tell me more about Lyna,’ I said. ‘I’m dying to know her better.’

  Heywood took my hand. ‘You know her name. She must trust you a great deal.’

  The bartender handed me my drink, then resumed shucking oysters with a thin knife.

  ‘Well,’ said Heywood. ‘She’s a former member of the Eldritch Guard, a Whisper Specialist. A week after we met, she used her Codex on me.’

  I choked on my drink. ‘A Whisper Codex?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I loved her already.’

  ‘Why?’

  Heywood leaned forward. ‘Because she’s innocent. The mental hijacking charges – utter nonsense.’

  I faked a sigh of relief. ‘That makes perfect sense. Such terrible injustice.’ I extended my Pith into the string round his key, unravelling the threads one by one. A simple Physical spell, but a tricky application.

  ‘Truly. She used her Codex on people, yes, but Paragon ordered her to.’

  The bartender rammed his knife into an oyster, forcing it open.

  ‘What?’ Paragon had ordered her to hijack people?

  ‘She was a tool for the gentry to use – to warp the affections of not just their enemies, but others.’

  ‘Others?’

  ‘Yes, it was quite the little game among the wealthier students, sneaking “love potions” to each other. Or to Humdrums. And how do you think those noble marriages stayed together? Lyna was paid to use it on Danae Corbiere, Jonathan Nevitt, Rowyna []—’

  A dull buzz screeched in my ears, replacing the family name. I swallowed. My mother. ‘The admiral of the Home Fleet used her?’

  Heywood laughed. ‘Of course! When little Rowyna was in school, she had a secret romance with another Paragon student. Florence Tuft. A love for the ages, sweeter than sugar. And neither of them cared a bit for the honeyed smiles of boys.’

  My breath caught in my throat. That was impossible. I’d never heard anything of the sort, from my mother or otherwise.

  ‘Their fling was hardly illegal, but Rowyna’s parents had other plans. They had arranged for her to marry a boy, you see. Lord Tybalt Ebbridge. The son of a powerful family. So, on her nineteenth birthday, Rowyna agreed to a Honeypot treatment.’

  My mother was a monster, but she had loved my father. They had loved each other more than anything. This hijacked thrall had to be lying.

  The man smiled. ‘Beware of beauty, my friend. It is a savage poison that puts you to sleep while it empties your pockets and cuts your throat. A weapon that Paragon has mastered.’

  I shrugged, hiding the icy knife that had plunged into my heart. ‘If Lyna knew it was wrong, why didn’t she stop?’

  ‘She didn’t have a choice. One word from her masters, and she would lose everything.’

  I kept unravelling the string, preparing to slide the key from his neck.

  ‘One day, Lyna received an impossible order. Her masters commanded her to use Honeypot on the love of her life. Another family wanted his hand, you see, to hell with his wishes.’ His voice went quiet. ‘Lyna complied. While her lover slept, she ripped out his passion and drilled a new one into his skull. Not just infatuation, mind you, not just attraction. Something deeper. The comfort of your mother tucking you into bed. The trust of confiding in your best friend. The joy of waking up with your wife of ten years. Honeypot creates true love. Or destroys it.’

  I swallowed.

  ‘The next morning, Lyna couldn’t believe what she’d done. She resigned. And then Paragon sent her to jail.’ He smiled, whispering. ‘But someone burned open the lock. A very special someone.’

  Khaiovhe, I thought. She’d been busy in the years after burning my father.

  ‘Now Lyna can complete her quest.’

  ‘A quest? Does she want her old love back?’

  ‘No. Honeypot only works once on a target, and even she can’t undo it.’ His voice grew soft. ‘Lyna is going to find the people who hurt her. Find their families, their friends and everyone who loves them. One by one, she’ll use her Codex to take them all away.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I said. The string was almost broken, the key to the lifeboats within reach.

  ‘Because,’ said Heywood, leaning in, ‘I needed to distract you for a few minutes. While I alerted my guards.’

  The bustling lounge went silent. A hundred guests stared at me in unison, unblinking.

  For a moment, time seemed to freeze, as every eye in the room locked on me.

  Then three things happened in the span of a second. Heywood snatched the key from his neck, wrenching it out of my control. The guard beside me ripped my wallet out of my pocket, holding it shut. And a muscular man grabbed me from behind, yanking me back and pinning my arms.

  My sword was stuck in my wallet, and I couldn’t even reach for it. A trap.

  Heywood tutted. ‘So predictable.’

  Wethers had hijacked half the boat already. More than half, maybe. I was surrounded by enemies, hundreds of them.

  A blonde woman in a green dress strode into the lounge. She slid off her dark blue mask, and every eye turned to her.

  Lyna Wethers looked decades older than everyone else here. Her blonde hair was cut short, ragged, even clumsier than Gage’s. She gazed over me with narrow eyes, then bowed to Gabriel Heywood. ‘Excellent work, ma’am.’

  The realisation jolted into me, a burning shock as the threads wove together in my mind. That woman in front of me wasn’t the real Lyna Wethers. Wethers knew she was wanted by the Eldritch Guard. She knew there could be enemies at this party.

  So, she’d transferred a thrall into her chassis, to act as a decoy. Then she’d hidden her real Pith in someone else’s body. A body she could use to get close to people.

  A body like, say, the host of a yacht party.

  I looked towards Gabriel Heywood – no, not Heywood.

  ‘Lyna Wethers,’ I choked.

  The real Wethers smiled at me, with Gabriel Heywood’s face. ‘Took you long enough.’

  ‘Where’s the real Heywood?’

  ‘At home,’ she said. ‘He kindly lent me this body, in the meantime.’

  Bile rose in my throat. The lounge wobbled back and forth, and my vision blurred at the edges. The bartender set down his knife, staring at me. ‘You,’ I growled.

  The bottle. I’d been watching him while he made my drink, so he must have poured from a bottle that had already been spiked. He’d drugged me, right in front of my eyes.

  Lyna rolled up her suit sleeves. Blue light swirled up and down her arms, the cobalt soul of a Whisper Specialist. ‘I thought I recognised your Pith.’

  My heart thumped. Adrenaline surged in my mind, cutting through the fog with a note of vicious pleasure.

  There was nothing quite so delightful as a battle to the death.

  I struggled in the muscular guard’s grip, but his hands didn’t budge. He snorted. I glanced round the blurry lounge and felt something sharp jabbing the back of my waist. Something familiar.

  A plan started to gather in the thick haze of my mind.

  ‘Did they tell you?’ said Wethers. ‘If I use Honeypot long enough on someone, it begins to reshape their entire Pith. You won’t desire anything but devotion to me, and nothing else will ever make you happy. At higher levels, it’s like having a stroke. You forget how to think, how to talk. How to feel anything that I didn’t worm into your skull.’ She gazed out of the window next to her. ‘Tell me who you’re working for, and I won’t break your mind like a stale cracker.’

  The guard was pinning my upper arms, leaving my elbows free to rotate. Sloppy technique, said Samuel in my head. Show them how a real mage fights.

  I stuffed my right hand into my waistband and grabbed the sales tag tucked into my trousers. I used Folding Edge on it, making it sharp in my hands.

  The first cut severed the string attaching it to my waist. The second cut dug into the guard’s fingers. His grip loosened, and my arm whipped up as I twisted round.

  The third cut went straight across his face.

  The guard let go of me, crying out in pain.

  I clenched the tag, darted towards the real Lyna Wethers, and sliced her neck artery. She dropped to the floor, and I ripped the boat key from her hand.

  The whole room charged at me, a furious mob in party outfits.

  I sprinted for the window, inches out of their grasp. Their fingers grazed my coat, and I leapt forward, crashing through the glass.

  I dropped through the air, my arms flailing. The wooden deck rushed towards me like a freight train. I slammed into it feet first, rolling to soften the impact. Shards of glass dug into my back, cracking beneath me, and I stumbled to my feet.

  The main deck fell silent. The band stopped playing. Half the partygoers backed away from me. The other half stepped closer, eyes unblinking. Hijacked. A dozen armed guards swarmed round the chained dinghy, far more than I could ever fight in this state.

  I wobbled, staggering back and forth as the sedative flooded my mind. No wings. No boats. No time to swim away. My only escapes had been cut off.

  The guards aimed their pistols at me.

  I sprinted to the edge of the yacht and dived over the railing.

  The ocean rushed towards me, and I stretched my Pith beneath me, hardening the surface with a Water Walk. I rolled over the liquid, then sprinted towards the ruined Star Prophet tower, half a cricket field away from the boat. Gunshots rang behind me, and bullets whizzed past my ear.

  The steel tower jutted out of the waves. When I reached it, I stumbled round the edge. On the far side, I clambered through a hole in the wall, up a rusted staircase and deep into the structure. My body grew heavier with every step.

  The gunshots stopped. The ruined tower fell quiet. The only sounds were the soft lapping of the waves, and the creaking stairs under my waterlogged dress shoes.

  I staggered into a vast, empty room. Three walls towered storeys above me, missing huge chunks. A faded mural was etched on to one of them, depicting four figures in separate beds, their jaws slack, their eyes wide with horror. They were all staring up at something, but whatever it was had faded over the millennia. Below them, the image of a black scroll had been printed on to the steel.

  Even in ruins, the craft of the Star Prophets was awe-inspiring. The scale, the metalwork. They had built structures like this, with nothing but primitive technology and the sheer force of their magic. This tower must have been stunning before the oceans had risen.

  Something jabbed me from behind, and burning shocks ran through my body. I fell to the ground, writhing.

  Then a boot kicked me, rolling me on to my back, and I looked up.

  A guard stood over me, hefting a cattle prod. He stabbed it into my stomach, and fire blazed through my veins, sending me into convulsions.

  Lyna Wethers descended from the sky, her green dress billowing behind her, blue light swirling around her wrists. Cold eyes stared at me from behind her party mask. She must have survived my initial attack, long enough to swap back into her normal body. A second guard landed next to her, lifted by his clothes.

  She could fly. Of course she could. And slicing her throat had barely slowed her down.

  The cattle prod stabbed me again, and I writhed. Samuel. The lake flashed into my mind, the pistachio cake and the picnics, his face. But the fire burned everything away. All I saw was the pain.

  ‘Evening,’ said Wethers. ‘Enjoying the party?’

  kaplen was in danger, and Weston Brown was nowhere to be seen.

  Selfish prat. Of course he’d abandon me when the heat turned up. The boy had a singular talent with his sword, and had shown an odd kindness to me earlier, toppling those mages off the dock. Even so, his character left much to be desired. Though I was hardly a good partner, either. Lyna Wethers was on the move, and I was chasing her like a rat sprinting into a cage.

  She strode down the central staircase of the yacht. I followed her, hiding myself with Rainbow Veil. I had to move quickly. If she got to Kaplen, she would—

  No, I couldn’t think about that. I needed all my focus to save him. If I lost focus, if I panicked, Wethers would hijack us both. My hand tightened round the Kraken’s Bone in my pocket.

  I descended the spiral staircase, keeping close so she didn’t walk out of range. We passed through a hallway and came face to face with a thick metal door, like one you’d find on a bank vault. Two guards stood out front, hefting rifles, and I used Rainbow Veil on both, hiding myself from them.

  The door creaked, and another woman strode out. In a flash, I added the illusions to her mind as well. As she stepped into the hallway, I froze.

  The second woman was another Lyna Wethers. Another blonde woman with the same gaunt face, wearing an identical green gown and blue party mask.

  Lyna Wethers didn’t have any siblings, much less a twin. Was one of them a fake?

  ‘What news?’ said the second Lyna.

  ‘Lyna is on the intruder upstairs. The boy.’

  My finger stump throbbed. The intruder. The boy. Wes, I thought. And the way she’d said ‘Lyna’ in the third person. Both of them are impostors. Meaning the real one was upstairs, with Wes.

  ‘The boy is a distraction,’ said the first doppelgänger. ‘Lyna has more important matters. She called earlier. And she’s not the kind of person you leave hanging.’

  She. My fists clenched. That could only mean Khaiovhe.

  ‘She had a message: Lyna Wethers must deal with Korin Nameless. Swiftly.’

  ‘The bombmaker? What’s so important about him?’

  ‘He found something for her.’ The first Lyna’s voice lowered to a whisper. A frigid sensation crawled down my back, like I was swimming through ice water. ‘He found something, and now he wishes he hadn’t.’

  The second Lyna swallowed. ‘What did he find?’

  ‘No idea. But now he’s escaped from Commonplace. He’s a concern.’

  The first Lyna snorted. ‘In Lyna’s presence, concerns tend to melt away.’

  Without another word, the second Lyna strode up the stairs. The first one went forward through the thick metal door.

  Wes was in danger. He was facing the real Lyna Wethers, and didn’t even know it.

  But he was a fighter. Kaplen wasn’t. My friend came first.

  I followed the impostor, and the wheel turned shut behind us. The muffled swing music from the deck cut out. All I heard was the steady drip of water, and the slow clanks of footsteps.

  I followed her down another staircase, past a radio embedded in the wall, and through a cold metal hallway. Water dripped from a ceiling pipe, and black mould grew on the floor. Exposed light bulbs shone over us, getting dimmer and dimmer. My skin prickled, but I kept going.

  She approached an embroidered curtain at the end of the hallway, and halted for a long, excruciating moment.

  Then she pushed past the curtain, and I followed her into a low steel room. Faint orange lamps shone from the ceiling, pressing in from above.

  When my eyes adjusted, I choked.

  Men and women crawled on the rusted floor, their hands blistered, their suits and gowns ragged. They gathered in tight groups, forming rings round half a dozen Lyna Wethers. Impostors.

  Some of the figures lay on their backs, unmoving. The others crawled over them, crushing them, their limbs shaking, their skin pale and sweaty. Hundreds of bloodshot eyes stared in the dim light, unblinking.

  As the new fake Lyna approached, a few crawlers dragged themselves towards her. Others whimpered like animals, falling at my feet and reaching towards the phony. A woman clung to an impostor’s leg like an infant pining for her mother. She rocked back and forth, her eyes wide with terror or shock or devotion.

 

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