‘It was not a threat. Merely a fact. Just as it is a fact that Moloney will seek revenge for the hurt you caused his Rooks. Just as it is a fact that the General here is being hunted by the Accord.’
I flinch, as does Pegeen. The General only narrows her eyes.
‘Any fool with a wire could have found that out,’ she says.
I force myself to look into Valdosta’s eyes. It is like looking at a reflection of a person when the real one was standing just behind your shoulder.
‘And, Low,’ they say. ‘So good to see you again.’
I know the others are staring at me, wondering whether I have lied.
The Augur rises from the chair. ‘Remind me, where did we meet? This world? Another? Have they crossed the paths of realities once again?’ They catch hold of my wrist with fingers that are too cold for the desert. ‘They follow you as they follow me. They have saved me, haunted me, scattered me across worlds, and they will not tell me why.’ The Augur pulls me closer. ‘I have been waiting so long for someone else who knows what it is to be chosen by them.’
I wrench my wrist away, terrified. And yet, part of me is desperate to know if I’m right, if they truly are real and not just a trick of my fraying mind. Falco hisses my name but I can’t look away. The Augur drags something from a large, covered cage beneath the mirrors; a desert snake, sinewy and scarred, flailing in their grip.
They slam it down, take out a knife and plunge it into the creature’s skull. While it twitches, they hack at the belly, spilling guts onto the table. Behind me, the General lets out a noise of disgust.
‘Rook,’ the Augur whispers, sorting through the organs, ‘Longrider. Spindigo. Hell.’
The hairs of my neck stand on end as the old woman’s voice comes back to me, that night at the snake ranch.
‘I see it now.’ The Augur’s eyes are shining. ‘I see. You have not made the choice yet. First you must die. You and the dead General must walk to hell.’
‘I’m not dead,’ the General snaps, her voice shaking. ‘Why do people keep saying that? I’m not.’
‘But you are. It’s already too late.’ The Augur grips the knife and shouts to the guards. ‘Take them all to the cages. Take them for the Converter.’
In the split-second that follows, everything seems to expand, like a vast, invisible explosion. Images crash through my mind, paths shooting across realities, every outcome tangles with a thousand others. I see the General staggering beneath a flat yellow sky, blood trailing out behind her, I see the others, lying broken on the sand, I see a ship smash to earth, its pilot dead, I see my own chest, flayed open to the ribs like the Augur’s snake, someone reaching in to seize my heart…
I stagger away, trying to escape the chaos only to come face to face with my own reflection. But my eyes belong to a bird of prey, and my skin is carved with tallies and as I watch, my reflection raises a bloodied hand towards my chest.
My fists fly, shattering the mirror. Distantly, as if through water, I hear cries and shouts. I see a version of Falco spinning around to seize the arm of a guard and break it with an efficient twist, while another her kicks the same guard out of the metal door into the drop below. Pegeen taking a shot to the spine, Pegeen headbutting a guard down the stairs. And the General – she is everywhere.
I stumble towards her, watching in horror the version of her that kneels upon the Augur’s chest, teeth bared. Her hand scrabbles among the glass and snake guts and comes up holding the small, curved knife.
For a moment, everything hangs in the balance. Is this the path they want? I don’t know. All I know is that, as the General sets the blade against the Augur’s throat, I throw myself forwards, and choose.
* * *
Blood runs over my hands, but it isn’t mine; it comes from the Augur’s neck, from the wound the General opened half an inch from the artery.
‘Rook,’ Valdosta gasps, fingers gripping their throat, ‘Longrider, Spindigo—’
The next thing I know I’m downstairs, among the cacophony of caged animals, all squeaking, squealing. Someone shoves a gun into my hand.
I can’t, I try to say, I can’t use it. I’m a medic, but no words come out.
‘We have to make a run for it.’ Falco’s voice reaches me. There’s a spreading bruise on her cheek. ‘Before that lunatic upstairs comes to and raises the alarm. You get separated, you’re on your own, Doc. I got to get Boots out safe.’
‘Leave me,’ Boots wheezes, eyes flickering. ‘You… go.’
‘You’re a G’hal,’ Falco says fiercely. ‘We do not leave our own behind. Injuries?’
I look around the room. The remaining guards lie slumped, dead or unconscious. Peg’s pale hair is matted with blood.
‘I’m fine.’ They grimace as Falco grabs their face in alarm. ‘Honestly, Mala, most of it isn’t mine.’
‘Gabi?’
The General nods. She stands above the slumped bartender, arming a pistol, her knuckles swollen and grazed.
‘Doc?’
Rook. Longrider. Spindigo. Hell.
‘Doc? Are you hurt?’
On the back of my hand is one long, deliberate cut. I don’t remember it happening. ‘No.’
With a nod, Falco kicks open the door.
The minute we step outside, we realise our mistake. People emerge from the cells on the upper gantries, alerted by the gunfire, yelling to each other, trying to fathom what’s going on. All of them are armed.
Falco looks at us, her eye bright.
‘Run.’
We make it all of four paces before bullets rain down, clanging and ricocheting from the metal gangway. Run, Falco said, but we can’t, not while half-carrying Boots, not while being picked off like rats in a barrel.
A hiss and Falco staggers, one hand pressed to her leg. Pegeen yells in rage and takes out three shooters at once.
