The stables.

Gray had no idea how he got there.

He didn’t remember the hundred-metre journey, to the desk in the tavern where Barin kept spare change, then past Kraus climbing to her feet, past Sorena holding Codder at wand tip, past the ginger stray. Past cursed Chester Close.

Gray pressed his palm against the familiar carved timber of the stable door and undid the latch.

The door creaked open. It was dark inside. Gray could just make out the shape of tack hanging up on the far wall. Most of the stalls were empty. They kept quite a few empty stalls, ready for use for guests at the tavern.

Or they used to.

Gray stumbled past where Barin’s horse had been. Gone.

Harriette’s horse. Gone.

The Foixan purebred. Gone.

The black draft horse. Gone.

The dappled mare that knew how to unlatch the stable door. Gone.

But there was one left. Alistair’s favourite – Fudgie, named for her rich brown coat, huge and big-boned – was whinnying and stamping in the very last stall.

She looked OK.

She’d been cared for.

Thank Clochaint.

Gray approached the stall, and Fudgie snorted and nearly reared. Gray was too panicked, too sweaty and shaky; he was spooking her.

Gray sank to the ground, onto the stray straw on the stone ground, wiping his face with his sleeve.

Pull it together. Pull it together now.

The firebreath would be over by now. Killian would know it had been Gray. He’d know Gray’d escaped.

Maybe even knew the Ralph kids were gone.

He’d be fuming.

He’d underestimated Gray once – slipped up once – and Gray doubted he’d allow that to happen again.

Gray didn’t trust Codder not to tell.

The sting left over in the air from the firebreath was too much.

He heaved. Impatiently wiped his eyes.

Then, something caught his attention in his peripheral.

The strap of a rucksack that had been kicked under the bench they used to drape saddle blankets.

Gray crawled over and tugged it out.

Alistair’s rucksack.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The one he’d packed the night he’d died.

It was like the air had been punched out of Gray’s lungs. He’d been here. He’d been here, planning to take Fudgie. How had they missed this? They’d torn apart the tavern, the stables, Krydon, searching for evidence of what happened.

Gray wanted to tear through the rucksack, immediately, looking for clues, looking for reasons.

But he couldn’t. Not now. He slung it over his shoulders, took a deep breath, and grabbed what he needed to start saddling Fudgie.

Sorena burst in, her platinum hair flying out behind her. She skidded to a stop, and helped Gray finish with Fudgie.

She drew a circle on the cobblestones.

‘Get the horse inside the circle,’ she snapped.

They were going to farhen, Gray realised with a jolt. 'Kraus - is she -?'

'Circle,' snarled Sorena.

‘What about the Ralphs?’ said Gray.

‘Get in the bloody circle, sorcerer! You're coming with me, you're going to guide me through the forest!’

‘Killian’s going to be furious. I’m not leaving the Ralphs for him to track.’

Sorena looked like she was about to deck Gray. Her cold hazel eyes were wide. Her cheeks were bright red and damp with sweat.

‘Where?’ she said.

‘We’re meeting at the miner’s trail.’

‘Fine. We’ll go there first,’ rushed Sorena, her jaw tight.

Gray led Fudgie into the circle.

Sorena clutched her wand, and muttered a stream of words under her breath.

There was a whoosh. A crack. Gray felt like he’d been lifted from the ground and then thrown back down with impossible force.

He staggered to his knees. They cracked on hard cobblestones. On hay.

Fudgie shrieked and bucked away.

They were still in the stable.

Still in Krydon.

‘What the gods,’ said Sorena, shaking out her arms.

She clutched her wand tighter, her face impossibly flushed, her shoulders hunched.

‘Get that horse,’ she said.

Gray coaxed Fudgie back into the circle.

Sorena muttered incantations again.

Again, they were thrown. Weaker this time.

Gray glanced up at Sorena from the cobblestones and willed himself not to puke. She coughed a hacking, horrible cough.

Blood was trickling down from her nose.

‘I can’t,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I can’t.’

‘What’s wrong?’ said Gray.

‘I - I just rolled Codder.’

‘Rolled Codder?’ said Gray. ‘Did you kill him? Holy shit, Sorena, he’s Killian’s favourite, Killian will destroy-’

‘I didn’t kill him, but he’ll wish I had for the next two minutes,’ snapped Sorena.

‘Mount,’ said Gray. ‘We’ll ride double.’

Gray raced over to the shelf where Barin kept curses and jinxes in jars, in case of emergency.

He grabbed a Horse’s Calling Curse from the range of jars up high on the shelf, and a single fierilion from a dried bunch hanging from a hook.

‘What are you doing?’ said Sorena. ‘Let’s go.’

‘One second.’

He crushed the fierilion in his trembling palms, and then opened the curse jar, and mixed the two together, before whispering the names of the three horses he wanted excluded, then, blew it free.

Gray didn’t wait to see if it would work.

He prayed the Ralph kids were OK. That they had found the rocky, overgrown miner’s trail and the old well.

He climbed onto Fudgie, nudging his toe underneath hers in the stirrup, and got behind Sorena.

‘Which way?’ said Sorena, tucking her wand in her waistband, and taking the reins.

‘Right.’

Fudgie, Sorena and Gray fled after them. They fled east.

And all the horses from all the stables in town, all the neighbouring farms and studs, all the horses from the Auguste soldiers - and probably Mrs Farrark’s donkeys, too - pelted through Krydon. Gray prayed it would cover their tracks.