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‘Tynisa Maker of Collegium,’ said Gaved wearily, ‘I present Prince-Minor Salme Alain of Elas Mar Province.’

Tynisa stared, caught off guard, because somehow she had never even considered the idea that Salma would have had family here beyond his mentor Felipe Shah. And she had already thought that the Salma that this Alain resembled so much was more that youth who had first come to Collegium, not the later man she had last seen planning battles against the Empire. A younger brother, but such a likeness nonetheless.

‘Why, then, what chance has brought you to grace our lands, Tynise?’ The flowery words were all mischief, but then he had always been like that.

There was a void in her heart where the answer to that question should have been and, as she opened her mouth to answer, she knew that she had no words. She had come here to the Commonweal because being anywhere else had become intolerable. She had come to Siriell’s Town because she wanted to find a Mantis death, and no amount of equivocation would hide that, now that she looked on her motives again. Looking into his face, though, and reaching for a response, the void was abruptly filled with one word: You. Salma had brought her here – and here he was, both in image and in manner. She felt the world was yawning open beneath her, the brink of a chasm at her very feet.

‘I . . . am travelling to your family,’ she finally got out, the words stopping and starting, and utterly beyond her ability to predict. ‘Salma . . . my Prince, I knew your brother. He was my friend. I bring word . . .’ She could say no more, but Salma was already looking towards Gaved.

‘Seems Dien made quite an impression,’ the Dragonfly said philosophically, but then the warmth of his smile was focused back on her, and she met his gaze boldly. ‘Well, such things have been known, and you make a better messenger than a turncoat Wasp. Will you come to Leose, then?’

She had no idea what Leose was, but she nodded nonetheless. Let me go with you, she thought. She was terrified that, if he left her sight for an instant, she might lose him for ever.

But already he was waving a hand at Gaved. ‘Bring her with you, Turncoat. I must report to Mother, of course, but no doubt we’ll meet at the castle.’

She wanted to ask why they could not all travel together, but Alain put his fingers to his mouth and whistled piercingly. A moment later she heard a low drone that quickly built up into a buzzing roar of wings, as something descended on them from the skies above. The downdraught of its wings battered her, and Gaved’s little fire leapt and danced madly to the point of extinction. The dragonfly glittered like silver in the light, surely twenty feet from its stubby antennae to tapering tail. It hovered for a moment and then found a perch on one side of the defile, claws digging deep for purchase.

Seeing her expression, Alain was all smiles. ‘Lycene,’ he named the animal. ‘Only the Salmae breed dragonflies that can fly so well at night. You have your report, Turncoat?’

With a start, Gaved dug in his tunic to produce a messy fistful of paper. ‘There’s more. I’ve learned today—’

Alain waved it off. ‘Then it can wait until you get to Leose. You have a horse nearby?’

The Wasp nodded glumly.

‘Good, make best speed, and bring our new guest with you.’ Again the flash of teeth. ‘I will look for you in more civilized surroundings,’ he told Tynisa, ‘and I’d wish duty didn’t lay its hand on me so hard, but I must go.’

She tried to say something but her throat had dried up, and a single flick of his wings lifted him into Lycene’s saddle, where he holstered his bow. Then the insect was aloft again, its wings thrashing up a gale, and seconds later he was gone, swept across the vault of the sky far enough that even her eyes could no longer pick him out, as the sound of Lycene’s wings became a diminishing hum.

Horseback riding was not something Tynisa had been called upon much to do, and she would have found it