Claire sat at a crowded trestle table at an inn as evening fell in Autun, along from Lotte and a young cattle breeder. He’d bought her and Lotte two brimming tankards already, and they were onto their third, uncaring that the beer was watered down. It warmed Claire’s insides and left her with a buzz that numbed the hardships of the last two days. Candles fixed into an iron ring and held to the roof by chains cast shadows onto the dice they rolled. Behind them hung a shield with the symbol of Autun City; blue river, brown mountain and the yellow of wheat.

The party from Dorran Manor had left the dense forest and crossed the narrow stone bridge that spanned the Teranth River, and had intended to take the road around Autun, but the weather had turned foul and the horses had started slipping, the carts bogging in ruts. Though she knew it was risky heading into a big city, Claire had no choice in the end but to direct the party into Autun for shelter.

They’d arrived early afternoon. Maen had paid precious coin to enter at the quiet Southern gate and had led the party through cobbled streets, past a pungent fish market and the livestock pens into a bustling alleyway. “Innkeeper Giers knows us well,” he’d explained, before vanishing to settle lodgings for the night.

Claire and Lotte had gripped each other tight, mouths hanging open. Claire had only seen old inns like this on the TV and Lotte had never travelled far from her camp. The inn was made of brick that had been whitewashed, a lantern hanging over the door, plants on either side with purple flowers adding colour. Raucous laughter drifted through the glass windows.

While the others took care of the horses and Maen and Rael went in search of news, heavy rain allowing them to cover their head and faces without comment, Claire and Lotte went in search of a good time, eager to drown out bad memories. Claire had wrapped a scarf around her bright hair, but as the room grew warmer and warmer and no one said a word about her presence, she’d let it unravel without much care. She’d told everyone her name was Clera and no one had batted an eyelid. She hadn’t felt so safe in days.

“Ha!” Lotte said, throwing another two sets of six. “Looks like it’s yer unlucky night.” She pulled the small pile of bronze towards her as Claire and the cattle breeder groaned. Before he could demand yet another rematch, a man with long blonde hair and a dark green cloak shoved his way towards them, easing onto the bench. His hand gripped Claire’s as she tried to slide out of his way.

“Hey!” She elbowed him in the ribs, but his grip merely tightened. “Let go!”

The table went silent as Claire’s pot of beer went flying, splashing up the man’s cloak. He pulled the dripping plaid back to place a dagger onto the table, its blade jagged and sharp. People’s eyes slid away, and the bench quickly thinned out.

“Do what Clera asked. She’s a friend,” the cattle breeder said. The stranger aimed his dagger the breeder’s way, poised in his hand for a close-range throw. Claire’s so-called ‘friend’ was on his feet in a flash. “See you later,” he flushed, tipping his hat at Lotte and avoiding Claire’s disgusted glare as he headed for the lodgings upstairs.

The man sank onto the bench, brows quirked at Claire, his left hand still gripping the leather binding on the dagger.

“What do you want?” Claire asked cautiously. She didn’t think Maen would be happy about all the unwanted attention she was attracting, and she wished she’d adjusted her scarf when she’d had the chance.

The man’s hand pinched her arm. “Where’ve you come from, Clera? You’re not from round here.” Claire felt his suppressed rage like an electric wire touching skin.

A tall woman opposite, with sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a stained apron over her plain grey dress, leaned over. “It’s a big city, mate. Let her be.”

“What would you know, Hillarth? You don’t hear much baking bread all day.” The man spat on the table in front of Claire. “And when’s the last time we’ve seen red hair in these parts? Don’t tell me you don’t recognise this Clera’s look?” The man’s lips pulled over his teeth into a snarled grin.

Claire’s palms felt sweaty. “I don’t know what you mean. My cousin and I are from … from …” She couldn’t remember where she’d decided Lotte came from near Kelnariat. She twisted to Lotte, begging her to understand what she needed.

“Yes?” The man prompted, acerbic and mocking.

“Corinth Village,” Lotte said quickly as sweat trickled down Claire’s back.

“Corinth Village is it?” He turned his grin on her. “Sure you didn’t mean Dorran Manor?”

The inn was emptying. Those who stayed to watch the show gasped.

Claire shook her head, hoping she looked convincing. “No. We’re … we’re from Corinth, as my cousin says.”

“With that pale skin?”

Damn! She should have remembered her grandfather’s lessons when she’d concocted Lotte’s cover story. The climate in Northern Kelnarium was warmer and the people’s skin darker. Claire willed her legs to stop shaking under the table. If he noticed … She had to cover her slip-up and fast. “I … I … my mother married a southerner.”

“The thing is, Clera,” the man insisted, pushing his tanned face closer to hers, “I don’t believe you.” He pinned those around them with a cold stare. “Haven’t you heard the news? Dorrans have destroyed good crops and farmland from one end of Kelnarium to the other. How can you stand for this?”

“She’s no Dorran,” Lotte said, voice shaking, but the man ignored her.

He shoved his free hand into Claire’s hair, tugging her head back violently. “Go check the posters in Temple Lane. Rewards offered for Dorrans captured and sent to the militia.”

“He’s telling the truth,” an old man with a long-white beard said, rubbing his hands together. “Are there others in your party, lass?”

As if she was going to tell him. “For the last time, I’m not a Dorran!”

“And I haven’t run the merchant guild for six years,” the man gripping her hair said. “I’ve dealt with enough of you scum to recognise you on sight.” He let her go with such roughness she reeled.

“Shut it, Val,” the innkeeper, Giers, said from someplace behind Claire. “Not all of us have the stomach for a religious rant before noon. Have a free drink on the house and we’ll say no more.”

The man, Val, stabbed his knife into the table, so that it quivered point down near her thumb, making Claire flinch. “You’ll regret helping people like her. Eidan’s men rode through the city a few days ago and I learnt many an interesting thing.”

“Like what?” Claire asked. She couldn’t show she was afraid, and this might prove to be important information she could share with Maen and the others.

“Your people are finished, Clera. Eidan’s finally seen sense. Dorran House is no longer welcome in Kelnarium. You show up in any major city or town, you’ll be hanged and if you dare enter Kelnariat … well, I’ve been told Eidan is concocting a special punishment for your kind in the capital.” Val laughed. “And as to the other magical brethren … it’s only a matter of time until the priests convince Eidan to target them too. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Claire couldn’t breathe. She’d known Eidan had lost it, but this was something else. To put the safety of this world second to his rage at a crime Dorran House hadn’t even committed was madness. Her palms sweated and her heart pressed too hard against her rib cage as she realised something worse. She’d witnessed how her grandfather’s imagined betrayal had affected Eidan. He’d show no mercy to any Dorran who crossed his path and Marcus was a Dorran and stuck in Kelnariat. He could be imprisoned or tortured or killed. She had to warn Maen.

In a flash, she tugged the dagger out of the wood and flicked it under Val’s throat. “Let my friend and me leave.”

***

Claire wrapped a green woollen blanket around her shoulders as she eased back against a goose feather pillow, shifting in an effort to avoid an uncomfortable dip. The mattress was threadbare and full of holes. Maen, Rael and Gwenivere steadied themselves as the whole rickety bed frame creaked. Lotte had backed up Claire’s story of what had transpired downstairs, but now that they needed to discuss strategy, she’d been sent away. Claire hoped she’d understand, but it would look too weird if she insisted the “farm lass stray” she’d picked up sat in on private Dorran meetings.

“Is there anyone in Kelnariat you can think of who would have set Eidan on this path?” Maen was asking Gwenivere. “Did you see or hear anything unusual before you left the city and joined us?”

She grimaced. “Not that I can think of. Eidan was his usual self; good-natured and grateful that we Dream Mages took up Praine’s offer of quarters in the Council Buildings and assisted him as we had her.” Gwenivere considered, smoothing out creases in her dress. “He was excited, but so were we. We were about to meet the person who could save us, after all.” Her eyes darkened. “Though I suppose there was …”

“Yes?” Claire asked, sitting forward.

“Some of Eidan’s councillors had started looking at me in a strange way. Wallis and Heath.”

“How do you mean ‘strange?’”

Gwenivere frowned. “I don’t know, really. In hindsight, I’d say it was secretive … like perhaps they knew something I didn’t. I was going to mention it to Eidan when he joined us at Dorran Manor.”

“Wallis and Heath have only ever tolerated Eidan’s allegiance to magical brethren. They were of a hard-line cadre who tried to prevent Praine coming to power, but they supported Eidan grudgingly,” Maen explained.

Claire knew it was for her benefit and shot him a grateful smile. “Then it sounds possible they put Eidan up to this. We won’t know what they plan and how they got into Eidan’s ear until we get to Kelnariat,” Claire said quickly. “We can’t spend long with the Maellwyns.”

“What do you mean ‘until we get to Kelnariat?’ We should deal with the Rift first,” Maen said.

Claire should have known this would happen. “No! We have to go to Kelnariat to rescue Marcus. I won’t go home without him. Think of what Eidan will do to him.” She couldn’t tell her parents she’d abandoned her brother to the mercies of a madman and she’d never live with herself either if she did. She looked to Gwenivere. “And there are the remaining Dream Mages too. It doesn’t sound like they’re targeted for now, but perhaps it’s only a matter of time …”

“Much as I’d love to do as you ask, it’s too dangerous,” Gwenivere said firmly. “I don’t know what game Eidan and his councillors are playing, but the world dies unless you do something about the Rift.”

From the looks on Maen and Rael’s faces, she could see that they agreed with Gwenivere and weren’t about to change their minds. “We’ll see,” Claire said, dropping it for now. She’d have to come up with a clever reason for the detour to Kelnariat. Besides, she’d thought of something else in the hour or so she and Lotte had waited for the others to re-join them. “How exactly did Kelt make the Rift?” She held up a hand impatiently as Rael opened his mouth to speak. “Oh, I know he joined forces with other Houses, but I mean specifically how did he do it.”

“Why do you need to know?” Gwenivere demanded.

“Because,” Claire began, “surely I need to reverse whatever he did to get rid of it.”

Rael and Maen exchanged glances, then nodded. Maen cleared his throat. “He used a spell we haven’t taught you yet; hot and cold flame combined. He shot it straight into the sky and drew on everyone’s power around him to sustain it.” He rubbed at the rough bristles growing on his chin. “The Saura have mercy on us, we think he destroyed the barriers between worlds and made something new from the space between.”

“It sounds like I need this spell to reverse what’s happened. Will you teach it to me?”

“It’s too risky to use on the Rift,” Gwenivere said. “You could rip it wider or make a second one.”

Claire curled her hand into a fist and plunged it into the mattress. “When are you going to trust me? You made me head of Dorran House.”

“Be that as it may, Gwenivere’s right,” Maen insisted. “It’s too risky.”

Claire gave up. She’d push this again at the Maellwyns. She rearranged her expression to one of business. “I’ve sent Meghan to purchase ingredients for hair dye from the markets. Kiera will need to dye all us Dorrans and then we’d best be off at first light now the rain’s easing. I will rest beforehand.” She settled back against the bedhead, signalling the discussion was over. “You may go,” she added as she closed her eyes.

As the others left, closing the door behind them, Claire wondered at herself. She’d never have spoken with such authority back in Shale, where no one had paid her any attention let alone done as she’d asked; she couldn’t imagine her commands working at home when she didn’t want to do the washing up. The thought made her smile.

A moment later, the door creaked open and her smile vanished as her eyes sprang open. “Yes?” she said loudly, as she scrambled to sit upright, the blanket around her shoulders half slipping off.

Then Lotte was there, holding a mishappen dagger to Claire’s throat. The exile must have carried it in her pouch. The dagger Claire had taken from Val was all the way across the room on a desk. She had no hope of getting it before Lotte slit her throat.

“Ya gotta be careful,” the exile said, eyes narrowing as she put the dagger against the blankets near Claire’s thigh. “If I wanted to kill ya, yer’d be dead.”

Claire’s heart was hammering. She couldn’t look away from the twisted metal dagger by her side, imagining how easy it would have been for Lotte to kill her if she’d wanted to.

“I was listenin’ in on yer whole chat by the door,” Lotte said settling herself on the end of the lumpy bed. “It’s true about you and the Rift then? When the Crian said I weren’t so sure ’coz she’s a bit weird, ya know, but if yer own people think it … an’ I know they do ’coz I could hear it in their voices …”

“Yep,” Claire said with a grimace. “The person who is going to save your world is me.”

“Ya don’t sound thrilled.”

Claire rearranged the blanket. “I was happy with my family in another world, but then my grandfather took my brother, Marcus. Turns out he didn’t have the magical ability needed for the job so now I’m stuck doing it.”

“Wait,” Lotte considered. “Ya were born outta this world?” She whistled softly. “What’s it like? How’s it different? How – oh, blast. It ain’t important right now.” She pressed a hand to her forehead like it focussed her, then caught Claire with a grim stare. “I almost sold the secret of yer identity for the reward. Yer people meant nothin’ to me. Yer’d have been hung and I’d have taken my coin and started again.”

Claire couldn’t look away from Lotte. She hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense. “Why didn’t you?” she managed, through a mouth that felt like sandpaper.

“Somefin’ made me hesitate.” Her gaze dropped to the mattress. “Mebbe it were that ya weren’t like any other Dorran I’d met. Mebbe it were I kept seeing the Crian looking at me real reproachful. Mebbe it were deep down I knew ya was telling the truth from the first. I told myself I’d eavesdrop on your council of war and then decide.”

“And?”

“The seriousness of what ya discussed told me what I already knew. There’s no point in me betrayin’ yer. I’d have money, sure, but I’d die alongside everyone else. Besides, I don’t think yer people did murder mine. Something strange is goin’ on. Seems to me the best way of finding out who killed my family is sticking with ya.”

“It’ll be dangerous. You could die.”

Lotte shrugged. “So could ya.” She shuffled up the bed to sit next to Claire. “I’d rather face death together.” She held out a hand to Claire. “I’ll forgive ya for your people’s hatred of mine if ya forgive me for almost betraying ya.”

Claire thought of Liz and how it had felt to have someone to confide in, even if only for a brief while; she remembered laughter in the playground, choosing each other for reading group, making crowns out of grass and flowers, but most of all she remembered how it had felt to be less alone. In Kelnarium, without Marcus, the terrible emptiness inside was ever present.

She leant against her so their shoulders pressed together. “It’s a deal."