Maisie crouched on the curb, stomach knotted with dread, while waking stars blinked dismally against the city’s glow.

Beside the trim, pilastered residences of the cul-de-sac, she cut an unimpressive figure. Worn. Brittle. Nothing like her family. Her teeth worried the inside of her cheek, the aftertaste of pasta sauce displaced by metal and fear. On the main road, a car approached; her pulse leapt and subsided with its passing.

Arthurs aren’t cowards, rang her father’s rebuke from earlier that evening. But bravery came easier to the Gifted, and Maisie was as ungifted as they came.

The next car turned into the junction. Heralded by a growl like a chainsaw on concrete, she recognised it as Samson’s before looking up. Resignation beat out adrenaline, and when a custom hubcap came to a stop within centimetres of her nose, she braced for exhaust fumes and pushed leaden legs to stand.

Up slid the door. Her middle brother leaned over the passenger seat to glare at her. ‘Are you trying to get run over?’

‘My legs were tired.’

‘Your legs were tired,’ he mimicked. ‘This is dangerous business. If your legs are tired, you should tuck them in bed and stay away.’

Her bed and sleep sounded entirely too alluring right then. Instead, she ducked into the car.

‘When did he tell you I would help?’ asked Maisie.

‘A couple of hours ago.’ A pause as the door lowered, dulling the engine, then Samson muttered, ‘You?’

‘Around then.’

‘Did you even try saying no?’

She shrugged in lieu of answer. Since last year, when her father decided she be inducted into the family business, gifts or no, her protests had dried up. Explaining her reasons to Samson was pointless. He was the perfect fruit of their family, blind to rot and cankers.

He huffed derision and shifted the car into gear, pulling out into the street. 

Maisie held her questions for the first mile. Absent words, she could pretend they drove to a mundane destination: an evening class, or the leisure centre. In this fantasy they were normal siblings, their silence companionable. 

A dull ache in her right leg pulsed with the rhythm of the engine, a reminder of where a telekinetic caught her with shrapnel from a broken fridge. The pretence died.

She traced a finger along the seam of the window, watching street lamps strobe her knuckles. Like lighthouse flashes — but where were the rocks? ‘Where are we going?’

‘Dad didn’t tell you?’

‘He told me nothing except the time you'd pick me up.’

‘So you waited by the road like a good puppy, no questions asked.’

‘You drove to collect me. I hope you got a better treat.’ She almost bit her tongue, but the retort was out.

His gaze found hers in the mirror. To her surprise, he dipped his chin in acknowledgment. ‘We’re going to the Kista warehouse.’

‘Who’s making mischief there tonight?’

‘The Gladiators.’

A portion of tension slipped away. The Gladiators was a big name for a mid-league gang in the slight and insular criminal underworld of Briston. Samson must have noticed the change, because he continued, ‘Don’t look relieved. They’re real trouble now. Someone connected them with Flight.’

And her stomach plummeted to hell. Flight granted users a dice-roll chance of incredible gifts. The gifts varied in strength and utility, from flying to glamour, only lasting hours if they manifested at all, but within those hours, a select few could wreak devastation. Worse, under Flight’s influence, personalities warped. Sometimes the change was barely perceptible; sometimes they became monsters.

Flight had defined the course of Maisie's life. The panic following its rise catapulted her father into the stratosphere — her brilliant, extraordinary father, born with the gifts other people risked everything to gain. He was a hero. One of The Five. As for Flight and her mother… in that direction lay sorrow.

‘Sounds like a fun night out,’ said Maisie, but the sarcasm rang hollow.

‘You shouldn’t be coming.’

‘So you’ve made clear.’

They came to a stop at a traffic light, and Samson turned toward her, carved face sober. ‘Dad’s trying to include you, but you don’t have to let him.’

Include? It didn’t feel like inclusion to her. No, their father meant to forge her into less of a failure, and these outings were his furnace of choice. ‘He was happy not including me for fifteen years.’

That killed the conversation. Samson’s jaw worked, but the defence she anticipated stayed swallowed as red changed to green.

‘Maybe he could have handled things better,’ he conceded once they were moving, and Maisie almost slumped from the shock. ‘But this isn’t the way to fix it. Tell him you won’t join us anymore.’

‘I can’t.’ Not when the repercussions weren’t contained to her, a secret Samson would never believe.

‘You can. You just don’t want to. How many times have you barely walked away? You have no gift, Maisie. But rather than admit that, you put yourself and others at risk by being too stubborn and proud to say ‘no’ to Dad.’

Her hands curled into the sides of her seat, nails digging crescents in the leather. ‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Isn’t it? If you stood up for yourself, maybe he'd respect you more. I would.’

She said nothing.

He sighed. ‘I can’t deal with you.’

Back to normal. But as she watched the uncaring facades of shops streak past, she wished he’d try.

They parked on a rundown street at the edge of town, the air between them taut as Maisie’s muscles. Dread numbed her tongue, forestalling further questions. An all too brief walk between houses, and the abandoned industrial estate opened out like a trap.

Silver beneath the moon, the defunct Kista Cars plant stood partially demolished, an ugly ruin of the modern age. The warehouse, now the only building on the estate still intact, hid from view by the gutted corpse of the old factory and a small copse of trees that had once been an employee picnic area. A riot of undergrowth had risen to swallow the grass verges, the more intrepid pushing into cracks on the potholed road.

Samson pointed to the thicket, and she trailed him up an embankment, trying not to flinch as her trainers crunched on broken beer bottles and who-knew-what-else that she couldn't see in the dark. When they reached the trees, he melted into the shadows against a trunk. She mirrored him, a twig poking her in the back.

‘What now?’ she whispered.

He didn’t answer, twisting to scan the trees. Maisie locked her knees together and tried to gather courage. Courage wasn’t obliging.

‘You're late,’ said a cold voice in her ear.

Stolen story; please report.

She managed to suppress her jump, teeth clenched tight. There was no point looking around. ‘Hello, Alfred.’

Beside her, she could almost feel Samson rolling his eyes. ‘Stop messing around, Alfie.’

'Alfie' was a poor fit for their hard, icy older brother. Only Samson called him by it, and she suspected it was born from a brother’s need to aggravate instead of an endearment.

Alfred scared her. Samson bought into the family mythos, but Alfred breathed it. Their father raised him with the view that he was apart from others — a demigod, whose gift gave him the mandate to do anything in the pursuit of justice.

A shape materialised to her right. Tall, slender and pale as a wraith, Alfred looked alien in the moonlight, the strong bone structure that worked so well on her father and Samson giving his face an eerie, otherworldly quality.

Maisie blinked at him, inwardly cursing this game. His gift rendered him close to invisible when he wished, light bending around him like water around a stone. On a bright day, a slight warping of the space where he should be, as if looking at the world in a curved mirror, gave him away to people who knew what to look for. In the grey of early night, he was a phantom. His pale eyes chilled her.

‘You look scared. Going to wimp out on us?’

‘No.’

She held his stare until Samson rolled his shoulders. ‘All right, then. If you’re finished, let’s talk business. What did you find?’

Alfred gave him a curt nod. ‘There were three sentries. They weren't very discreet. Two were drunk, so I don't think they expected anyone.’

‘What did you do to them?’ asked Maisie, knowing with a bitter twist in her stomach that she wouldn't like the answer.

‘Took them out.’

‘Permanently?’

‘And efficiently. Any of them could have taken Flight. It was justified.’

Was it? A Flight user had laid ruin to the capitol. Killing someone you reasonably suspected of taking Flight was a tested defence — not that Alfred worried about the long arm of the law. But why would The Gladiators waste merchandise on drunk lookouts too unimportant to bring into the fold? Her nose hurt, a harbinger of tears she couldn’t afford.

‘Did you recon the warehouse?’ Samson asked, moving the subject away. For a second, she thought she saw a flash of something close to regret cross his face, but it was gone too soon for her to properly identify. Did it bother him too? Probably not. It never appeared to bother him before.

‘I tried, but they've got the place lit up like a Christmas tree.’ Alfred's face twisted into an expression of disgust. ‘I'd say they're idiots, being as blatant as that, but I couldn't risk getting closer in case I tipped them off, so maybe there's a method in their madness.’

‘They've set up lights?’ said Maisie, troubled. ‘What makes them so bold?’

Alfred didn't spare her a glance, continuing as if she'd never spoken. ‘I checked the fire exits. They've boarded them up, so the only way in or out of that place is the loading door at the front. Whoever's inside is keeping quiet. Oh, and I almost forgot,’ he said, in tones that made it clear he hadn't forgotten at all. ‘Of the ones outside? One of them is on Flight.’

Samson swore. ‘How do you know?’

‘I saw him growing.’

Maisie’s chest constricted. She wanted to be anywhere but here, be anyone but herself in this moment. She was scared. Her father would hate that. The thought was a perversely comforting one.

Samson’s eyes were on her, judging through the gloom. ‘Go home, Maisie. You're outclassed.’

‘I don't want to be here!’ she snapped, keeping her voice quiet despite the pulsing frustration. ‘But Father—’

‘Isn’t worth risking your life tonight.’

He could never understand. The worst of it all was that she almost wanted to tell him. They'd never been close, the three years separating them and Samson's youthful devotion to Alfred and Father forming an unbreachable void. But he was changing, she thought. Since he'd left home, the hero worship seemed to have faded from his eyes. Before, if their father said jump, he'd hit his head on the moon. Now, he was openly telling her to defy a figure he once considered infallible.

She looked away.

‘Maisie—’

‘No, Samson,’ said Alfred abruptly. ‘She's got to stay. As little use as she is, Father wants her here.’

Maisie shot him a sharp glance. How much had Father given to his confidence? She’d thought the threat was for her ears alone.

‘Why?’ asked Samson.

‘Because he said so.’

Samson tossed his hands in the air in a gesture of defeat. ‘You're idiots. Both of you.’

There was a judgment she couldn't deny. Her teeth caught the inside of her cheek.

‘So we stick to the plan,’ said Alfred.

Samson nodded, resigned, his attention turning to the woods as if he saw their target through the trees. At that moment, a cloud passed over the moon. In its absence, she could see a pale haze above the branches in the direction of the warehouse.

Again, Maisie had a twinge of unease. Something was wrong here. Lights obliterating any attempt at subtlety, drunks as lookouts, hiding illegal merchandise in a place long associated with criminal activity. Surely the Gladiators weren't that stupid. But if it meant surviving tonight unscathed, she'd cling to the hope they were.

‘I don't know the plan,’ she said.

‘Alfred goes in the front. Takes out the entrance and anyone out there. I take the back, hit them where they aren't expecting it. You come with me. Try to stay out of my way.’

‘Some plan,’ she muttered. Her fingers brushed the handle of a tactical blade, hidden in a concealed nylon sheath at the top of her trousers. It was warm from the heat of her skin, the familiar shape moulding to her hand, reassuring even as its comfort disturbed her. It was the one gift Alfred had ever given her. A joke, she thought — what use was a knife in a battle between Gifted? Joke was on him, because the knife had become a lifeline, even as the thought of using it on another person turned her gut.

Alfred shrugged. ‘We're Arthurs. This is what we’re meant for.’

Except me, Maisie thought.

‘Come on.’ Samson stretched and pushed off the trunk behind him, moving into the trees. Maisie followed.

They picked their way through the overgrown picnic area, the darkness making progress slow. Twice she tripped into bramble bushes, the thorns tearing through her trousers and drawing blood. The second time she fell, she felt a hand grip her shoulder and lift her with practised strength.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Samson didn't respond.

The light was getting brighter. She saw the side of the warehouse through the trunks, half yellow brick, turned grey by the night, half corrugated cladding, stretching twenty meters into the sky. A mammoth of a building sprawling over half a cubic kilometre of land, it once held the title of largest unsupported roof in the county. Now it loomed above them like a fortress of old.

Time to storm the castle.

When they reached the edge of the trees, they split, Alfred turning toward the roadside and the source of most of the light. A second later, he vanished. Maisie turned the other way with Samson and kept walking.

The back of the building had no weak point. No door, not even a boarded-up fire escape, broke the pattern of the brick and steel.

Samson's right shoulder began to swell under his jacket. It expanded slowly, leather straining around the joint until it reached the size of a football. Maisie fought queasiness. The growth spread down his arm, bicep splitting the seams of his sleeve like the skin of overripe fruit. His fingers clenched, veins popping against the back of his hand in painful, vivid purple.

He pulled back his fist and waited. A second passed. Two. Shouts broke out in the distance — Alfred arriving.

Samson punched the wall.

Brick shattered.

The sound reverberated through the night like a thunderclap. In the distance, the shouts silenced. Where the wall once stood, impregnable, there was now a luminous hole. Dust rose from it, catching the glow and stinging Maisie's eyes and throat. She blinked, swallowing a cough.

Samson didn't pause, advancing through the opening he'd made. Silhouetted against the light, his lopsided figure defied logic, right arm like a graft from a Titan.

Maisie drew her knife and stepped over the rubble behind him.

‘Careful,’ he said, not sparing her a glance. His feet splayed in a fighting stance, body alert. She positioned herself to his left and slightly behind.

No one came at them.

She waited. Nothing.

The warehouse looked empty. Blindingly empty, lit with a legion of floodlights to rival Wembley stadium. Some were propped along the wall while others hung from the maze of steel girders supporting the ceiling, their rays reflecting off the insulation foil on air conditioning ducts until fractured light blazed from every direction.

Coloured dots swam before her vision. It was too much.

Samson reached up with his un-deformed hand and rubbed his eyes. A malign part of her was glad to find him not immune.

She squinted, and could just make out a generator in the far corner. The warehouse hadn't been connected to the main power grid since it went defunct. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to set this place up.

In the centre of the floor stood a pile of crates, a lone island in the sea of concrete. She counted them. Ten.

What? She counted again.

A hissing exhale escaped her. ‘If that's all Flight, they have enough to supply three counties.’

Samson shook his head, not relaxing his stance. ‘Not possible. There's no way they could have so much.’ But he watched the crates like he expected them to explode.

‘Where is everyone?’

‘I don't know. I don't like this.’

From the front of the warehouse, the sounds of fighting resumed. Gods, she hoped Alfred could hold them.

‘What do we do?’ she asked. It was times like this that she felt totally useless. She didn't have the training of her two older brothers. Once Father had realised she had no abilities, he'd deemed the exercise pointless. For years she'd been ignored, an embarrassment to put aside — until last May and the splintering of her world.

With the empty warehouse, either the gang was incompetent — which clashed with the nightmare load of Flight they'd procured — or she was missing something. Her instincts blared a warning siren.

Samson scratched his hip, appearing to weigh his options. ‘We need to look at those crates. See if it's all Flight. If everyone is distracted by Alfred, maybe we can secure the merchandise.’ He sounded doubtful.

Maisie frowned. A good two hundred meters separated them from the centre of the room. If one or more Gladiators waited, concealed by some Flight-gifted ability, they would be totally exposed, with little avenue of retreat. Samson, with his incredible strength, was good in a close fight, but there wasn’t much he could do if their enemy attacked from a distance. Maisie was no help in either scenario.

She opened her mouth to protest, and then shut it. ‘Okay.’

With his gift and connections, their father had carved a place as Briston’s protector, the first line of defence against petty Gifted and Flight. As pawn for his cause, Maisie had no move but forward.