Hiding behind Hontor and Sons, I retrieved my glyphstone from my satchel and send out my mind to my brother and sister.

Xantaire answered.

“Kas. They’re sleeping, I think.“

Xan didn’t look the slightest bit tired; her eyes still had a wildness to them, a redness, that could only be the ongoing effect of the nightmare to which I’d exposed her. Getting beat up on her doorstep, getting her son’s face sliced open…

I cast it all aside. She got rich for it, though. She always knew the risks, since that first day, with the Cannibal Six.

“Is anyone there?” I asked. “Over Mud Lane, or hanging around?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” she said sourly. “Am I supposed to be on darkmage duty, now? Is that what you pay me for?”

“Xan, please don’t… It’s… It’s actually the champions I’m looking out for. Em…” How to explain it? “Em’s convinced I’m a heretic. It’s gone too far, Xan. I’ve got to go.”

“Go?”

“Leave. Leave Mund, at least till things blow over. Don’t worry, I’ll give you enough money to take Xas, take your granddad and find anoth-“

“So you’re just going to run?” she demanded. “How’s that going to look?”

“Better than the alternative, trust me.” Better than my headless corpse. “I can always try to clear my name, once it’s obvious I’m not a –” I was going to say ‘not a killer’, but then I remembered Linn’s blood splashing across the door. “Not a heretic,” I finished lamely.

“And you want to, what, just make them go with you?”

“It isn’t safe here! Not for me, not for them! Please, Xan. Please, will you wake them? I can’t come and hang around, they’ll be coming for me and if the twins aren’t ready to –”

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“Kastyr.” Timesnatcher’s voice was level as he descended alone into the alley, keeping far from my shields, and I immediately lowered the crystal.

Wizard-flight on him, I noted. Others won’t be far behind.

I cast out with my senses but I’d only rejoined with the wraith after returning to my home dimension. I couldn’t perceive anything, other than with the hairs on the back of my neck that were standing to attention, danger-sense in the extreme just pouring all over me, with or without eldritch augmentation.

“Irimar,” I acknowledged him, keeping my voice from trembling. “You at least must be able to see through this charade. I’m no killer, no heretic –”

“I warned you,” he said softly, hovering above the river of drop in which I stood. “I warned you, and you didn’t listen.”

I opened my mouth to retort but he was continuing.

“Yes, Kastyr, there were futures in which you entered the Thirteen Candles. But those futures are dead now. The other future – the other place – is, and has always been, your true destiny.”

I realised what he meant, and my shields almost fell away broken, such was the panic that lanced through my chest.

I might’ve called them a curse, but to put me there and take away my powers… the fact that this was even being discussed made my skin crawl.

How long did I have? Could I convince him?

“Not Zyger,” I pleaded. “It’s not Heresy, Irimar. It’s just the dragons –”

“I give you a chance!” he roared. “Where is Tanra? Did she tell you? Look at me! If she too –”

I started braying laughter. I couldn’t help myself.

He can’t see her.

‘I’ll keep everyone safe.’

At a hidden signal, a telepathic prompt, they revealed themselves.

Netherhame and Spiritwhisper. Sunspring and Fangmoon. The four of them were floating there, above the alley.

Even Fang… Even she’s come for me…

“I know it’s not Heresy – not yet.” Timesnatcher moved a little closer to me. “Only for this reason alone have I been permitted to deny the headsman his shot at your neck. But it will be Heresy. Do not bother attempting to deny it. I have seen it. You have been consumed by lies, Kastyr. This is your only way forward.”

“Into the dark?” My voice sounded like a child’s to my own ears. “That’s no way forward, T-Timesnatcher. That’s –“

“You lied!” he screamed. “You misled me! Me!”

“For his life!” I clenched my fists. “What would you have done to Nighteye? Tell me, tell –”

The enchanter, who’d once teamed up with me at fortify and driven me mad with his constant elbowing, spoke over me.

If I’d thought Em’s voice harrowing at times, it was nothing compared to his. It didn’t cover distance. It spoke within me, bubbling up in my brain like an exploding geyser.

“ENOUGH.”

I still wore his amulet, Spiritwhisper’s magic at my breast. There was no warning. A pulse swept through my head. Brute force attack.

The blackness I feared swallowed me, and I was gone.

* * *