The next morning, at dawn, they departed from the Arras Ranges, a party of Enchantment Weavers heading the opposite direction to join with Gwenivere and the others at the Rift. Lyssa had explained she wanted to see the thing she had helped to create destroyed, and that perhaps it was time for the Enchantment Weavers long seclusion to end too. Claire and her party’s own going had been slow down the rutted mountain track, but Jemroth had managed with skill and now, with the afternoon sun climbing higher, they were finally moving onto flatter, arable land. Soon, Jemroth would teach Claire how to drive the cart. There was just enough space on the wooden bench for Claire to sit beside him.

Lotte pulled back the curtain to look out on the countryside and farming hamlets. Peering over her shoulder, Claire could see towns in the distance, and even further off, a series of tall spires. Kelnariat. They’d be there by evening tomorrow, Gareth had said.

They trundled past a group of people camping along the side of the road. As they rolled past the tents, children ran behind them, their rags hanging in shreds as they called out. “Please! Something to eat.”

Exiles. Claire dug into her pocket and flung some bread she’d been saving for a snack to the nearest child. Gareth didn’t notice as Lotte’s eyes flashed, but Claire did.

She reached out and squeezed Lotte’s hand. “Before I leave this place, I’ll try and change your people’s situation, I promise. If I’m Kelnarium’s saviour, I can’t be brushed aside when I demand change. There’d be a kind of symbolism in it too. The exiles were punished for their involvement in the creation of the Rift, but if it’s finished, doesn’t that mean the punishment should end as well?”

Lotte looked at Claire, sad and angry and despairing all at once. “My people made a mistake and they’ve never stopped paying for it,” she whispered. “It ain’t easy for people to forget. When’ll they forgive?”

“Very soon,” Claire said firmly. “Trust me.”

“What are you two whispering about?”

Claire had forgotten for a moment that Gareth was still inside the cart. She tried to smile but it came out more like a grimace. “I’m excited to be reunited with Marcus. I was telling Lotte about him.”

Lotte continued to clutch at Claire’s hand as she bit her lip. Small children ran alongside the cart in the mud and stared after the party pitifully.

“I meant to apologise again, Claire,” he said, looking uncomfortable, “for seeing those memories when we combined learth. I can’t stop thinking about how unhappy you looked. How could anyone treat you, a powerful magical user, in such a base way?”

“There’s no hint of magic about me in Shale. I’m as ordinary as anything there. As for why they’re mean – Dad told me that’s what being a teenager is about. The worst years of your life, he said. But then, I think maybe he just claimed that to make me feel better. Our family isn’t well liked back home.” Much like the exiles. If she could change their lot, she would, and that might take changing one person’s mind at a time. She might as well start with Gareth.

“Teenagers?” he asked, sliding nearer to her.

“Our word for a young person who isn’t a child,” Claire explained. “Anyway, as a teenager, you have to deal with constant whispers, gossip, judgment of people, because of things you have no control over.” She thought of Liz and wished the pang of disappointment and shame would go away. Surely it had been long enough. “People are two-faced or do things that make no sense. It makes you feel hurt and humiliated, like you’re dirty and unclean.”

“But why would people want to make you feel like that?”

Claire shrugged, staring at the wooden floor. “My family was never what you could call conventional. Maybe kids my age were jealous of us or they were afraid because we seemed different.” She nodded towards the children outside. “Back home, I might as well be an exile. Just as unfairly treated as they are.”

“Unfairly treated?” he asked. “They’re descendants of assassins. I’m sure your grandfather told you they deserve everything they get.”

“He did, and I disagreed with him,” Claire said. “Kids were nasty to me because my parents are seen as weirdos in Shale, not because of anything I’d done.” Claire kept her voice low so that Jemroth, driving out the front, wouldn’t overhear them. “You must ask yourself, Gareth, is it fair that you visit the sins of the parents onto the children? Doesn’t that make you every bit as twisted as the exiles who murdered your people for coin?”

“That’s not true,” Gareth said, his voice rising. “You don’t understand us at all.”

Claire sighed as Lotte stared at nothing. “Maybe I don’t, but I do know you’ll only bolster their hatred for Maellwyn House and later, when they face better times, they’ll turn on you. Better to show kindness now and create a better Kelnarium tomorrow.”

Gareth looked unconvinced, but at least he was no longer angry, and she could tell that he was considering what she said.

Lotte caught Claire’s eye. “Thanks,” she mouthed.

They rode on in awkward silence for a bit, until Lotte broke the strained atmosphere. “About Marcus,” she said, “What’s the plan when we get to Kelnariat?”

“Yes, Gareth,” Claire said, relieved that some of the tension in the cart had dissipated. “Let’s go over the plan one more time.” They all knew it off by heart, but it gave them something to focus on that wasn’t their differences.

Gareth glanced at Lotte, then Claire. “As soon as we get inside Kelnariat, we’ll find Bron and have a proper discussion. He’ll give us all the information about Marcus; if he’s locked up or not, where he is, and what the situation is in the city for Maellwyn House. If it’s safe, he’ll get me a token to get inside the Council Buildings without too much comment. Envoys get given a plain brass token to have free range of the Buildings. I’ve used them once or twice before, and I’ve never had any trouble.”

But that was before farms and villages were supposedly razed by a magical House. Somehow, Claire didn’t think things would be as simple as Gareth made out.

They fell back into tense silence, the cart moving slower and slower as the road widened and they had to share it with other traffic as it wound its way through fields sporting healthy crops and dotted with larger buildings, until Jemroth came to a sudden halt. Claire let the curtain fall back into place at the back as he swivelled around to address them.

“We’re going to have to stop,” he said, voice strained. “There’s a shrine to Brighid up ahead and a bunch of priests are watching who says a prayer and who doesn’t. It’ll be better if we don’t draw attention to ourselves. Claire, all we have to do is get out, keep our heads down, join the line and mutter something quietly when we get to the front.”

Claire did as she was told, following Jemroth and the others even as her nerves jangled, her fingers closing over the coin she’d grabbed to give up in offering. As they joined the queue to get to the small wooden shrine, colourful flowers placed in heaps in front of it, she couldn’t help but listen to the people in front of her, many muttering about Dorran House and criminals. She was thankful her hair was dyed and that she was dressed as a simple farmer’s wife. She couldn’t help but notice that for every person who seemed neutral or indifferent to the magical brethren of Kelnarium, there was another two or three spouting furious rhetoric worthy of a newspaper tabloid back home.

“Did you hear about Candmere Farm? Not a single person or animal spared. It’s Kelt all over again,” one woman said, her dark hair piled in braids.

Her partner shook his head. “It’ll be a relief when Eidan declares the lot of them criminals. If a Dorran dared show their face near me …”

Claire couldn’t listen any longer. Things had better not be this ugly in Kelnariat or Gareth would have no hope of doing anything under his own name and then how would they get inside the Council Buildings to find Marcus? As she knelt in front of the shrine and took in the carved Brighid’s full lips and wavy hair, the same way Jemroth had done before her, she said a brief prayer to the Saura, asking that Bron would have a solution to everything. If he didn’t, her future wasn’t worth thinking about.

***

They reached Kelnariat the next afternoon, Claire getting a chance to drive the cart with help from Jemroth before they’d stopped overnight in Heath Town. The talk had been just as ugly there, and all four of them had been glad to leave at first light, the strain of trying to pretend they were as anti-magic as everyone else at the inn awful. At least the weather was good. Jemroth had pulled half the cart’s covering back so they could watch the passing landscape. As they meandered along the Teranth River, Claire took in the tall sailing ships and merchant barges caressing each shore, wishing she could be sunbaking on a deck without a care in the world.

Lotte grabbed at her arm. “That man’s being fanned by a massive peacock feather,” She laughed. “Can ya imagine?”

“When this is over, I bet we could ask for anything we wanted and Kelnarium would oblige,” Gareth said, leaning over to join their conversation. “I’ll ask for hot chocolate every day for a month and the softest cushions and I’ll hole up in my bedroom and sleep. What about you?”

Lotte bit her lower lip. “Someplace to live. A real home.”

“I thought you were visiting Dorran parts and had a home in Corinth Village?”

“I did, but I left it ’coz there’s nothing left for such as me there,” Lotte lied glibly. “I don’t wanna live in a city, but a village is dull as stagnant water.”

“Hey,” Gareth considered, “maybe you could live with me at Maellwyn Manor.” His shoulder brushed against Lotte’s. “I’m sure you’d find something you liked doing there and there are always things happening.” His face lit up. “I could show you the dolphins and the mermaids.” He leant forward from the cart to tap Jemroth on the shoulder. “What about you?” he asked softly when Jemroth turned around. “What’ll you do when this adventure’s finished?”

“Hmm, I’d go on a pilgrimage to where my House lived and died. Build memorial cairns, try and find clues as to where the Gofannon has gone. As I’ve been driving the cart, I keep thinking I’ve half-glimpsed my gnomes, but then I blink, and the image vanishes. Without them, it may take a long time to find the remains of House Domain.”

“What do your gnomes look like?” Claire asked curiously. “Maybe we could all keep an eye out for you. I know they don’t like to appear before people who don’t share their learth, but it’s worth a shot?”

“Yeah,” Lotte added, “and then we could help ya find ya home together when all this is over.”

Jemroth sucked at his cheek thoughtfully. “All I have is second-hand knowledge from Lord Maellwyn and Lyssa and they heard descriptions from their Domain friends, but I’ll tell you what I know: the gnomes were naked, their skin mottled brown and dark green all the better to camouflage into passing scenery. Their noses were the red of cherries and their cheeks were dusky. They had black bristly hair and beards and moustaches, and their eyes were black and dangerous. They weren’t cute and cuddly, you see, or even human, but rather quick-tempered and violent. Not even fully trained Domain’s found them easy to love, but they were ours.” His eyes twinkled. “Do you three still want to help me find my place when we’ve closed the Rift and risk coming across one with a metal axe?”

“We’re not scared. Sure thing,” Lotte and Gareth chorused as Claire tried not to feel left out. It would be fun to stay in Kelnarium but she couldn’t leave her parents wondering what had happened to her and Marcus forever.

“Quiet back there,” Jemroth warned. “We’ve nearly reached the gates.”

Claire pitched in with the others to cover the cart again, just in case, then scurried to the front to peer outside over Jemroth’s head.

Up ahead the city’s ragstone walls rose, dull and grey, the colourful silver and green flag of Kelnariat with silkworm and coloured glass stitched in the centre flying at every sixth crenellation. The walls rose up to five times her height, and beyond that she saw the tips of white and brown roofs, here and there tall grey stone buildings and in the centre of the tumble of structures, a gleaming building rising crookedly into the sky, with such height it made her stomach turn to think about being at the top of it looking down. Gareth noticed her stare and told her it was the main Council Building before lapsing back into silence. Sentries in leather caps and holding metal spears bound with blue ties strode along the walls.

Soon the wide road ended at a large stone gateway with two large doors pulled back and two circular and towering turrets at either side. Four sentries, all dressed in black hose and tunics with silver linked chainmail vests and steel metal boots waved them lazily through the checkpoint as soon as Jemroth explained they were visiting a cousin about to give birth. One even offered his congratulations.

Beyond the gates, the road narrowed and was paved with cobblestone and Claire couldn’t help but jerk from side to side with the rough movement of the cart. The smell of horse dung, sewage and smoke was pungent as she peered outside at the narrow wooden town houses and the coloured silk coverings of market stalls. Chickens and children ran about in the mud. Washing hung on ramshackle balconies, ragged and worn.

Within twenty minutes, they were nearer the city centre, the skyscraper Council Buildings drawing ever closer. Claire could see they were arranged in a semi-circle with the main tower in the centre. Claire could make out its unnatural angles. House Domain had built the tower to look like a standing ‘K’ with the sheer sides revealing glass windows with people scurrying overhead like ants. The whole complex looked like its own mini city.

“The main building is where meetings and the important business of government takes place,” Gareth explained under his breath. “Those other buildings are accommodation for the Council and for staff and Kelnarium’s army and for guests too, each with storehouses and kitchens and laundries. If they needed to, they could stay self-sufficient for many months without ever setting foot in the rest of the city.”

The townhouses surrounding these buildings were richer looking than those in the outer city, less ramshackle and with delicate carvings around windowsills and doors, and the markets were sparkling clean and the inns and shopfronts freshly painted. Yellow silks were draped across every house and market. Even over the pebbled street, swathes of the stuff swung overhead, tied from one end of the street to the other.

“We might have a problem,” Gareth said.

Claire turned to him in surprise. “What is it?”

“The yellow flags indicate an important funeral is taking place,” he said grimly. “It’s going to take longer than I thought to get through to Bron. Look ahead.”

Crowds of people blocked the road up ahead, all dressed in yellow silks and linens and cottons. A man dressed like the sentries at the city’s entrance diverted traffic. Many travellers stood in huddles or gave up on pushing through, abandoning their vehicles and joining the throng.

Jemroth twisted around. “We’ll never get through this. You might as well get out and see what it’s all about.”

Gareth flung long yellow scarves at the two girls. “Drape them around your shoulders. We always keep some spare for our visits to Kelnariat. Someone old and important usually dies when you least expect it.” He grinned. “Thank goodness the silks didn’t tip over the cliff with our supplies.”

Once they were all blinking in the sunlight, Jemroth directed the horses and cart into a line to his right at the guard’s orders, then changed into a yellow tunic himself.

“This is the main city square,” Gareth whispered in Claire and Lotte’s ears as they surged ahead with the roiling crowd. Soon, no one could move.

Surrounded by a sea of daffodil, saffron and lemon yellows, Claire stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to see to the front. The crowd ended at the foot of a dais, the main Council Building with its blue glass and dark-brown brick rising high into the clouds behind it. A strip of yellow silk hung from a window halfway up the building and shimmered all the way down to the platform. A group of men and women stood on the platform, and Claire’s breath caught in recognition of the person standing in the centre.

Eidan waited behind a dark brown podium, the symbol of the city’s silkworm carved into the front. He was surrounded by the eleven other Council members, who her grandfather had explained at a dinner that seemed long ago were elected from the major cities and towns across Kelnarium. All wore yellow from head to toe with their gold armbands of office visible. Out to the front and left of the platform, stacked high so the crowd could get a good view, a body lay wrapped in yellow cotton cloth tied to a wooden pyre by yellow ties. Wooden torches were alight all around the pyre and another guard with head bowed waited solemnly in front of the body.

Eidan raised his hands, palm upwards, in what she supposed was a greeting. He alone wore hose and tunic of plain black, a battered bronze badge pinned on the right side of his chest. As she watched, a young man was ushered up onto the podium beside Eidan, his clothing bright, his hair perfectly slicked. His blue eyes scanned the crowd.

Claire cried out before she could stop herself, recognising Marcus even at this distance. As Lotte turned to her and frowned, Claire bit her tongue. She’d known that Marcus was alive, but part of her hadn’t really believed it, yet here he was. He wasn’t in a prison cell or mistreated. He looked unharmed, and why was he standing next to Eidan like they were allies? Unless he was being forced to stand there? Maybe Eidan was going to do something horrible to him while Claire was forced to look on. The square was too packed to get closer to the front and she couldn’t have a complicated discussion with Lotte, Jemroth and Gareth in this noisy crush. She’d have to watch and wait and hope.

“My friends,” Eidan began, “We gather today to acknowledge the death of Rinn Taccala. She was one of us, an ally to me, a friend of this city.” The crowd cheered, even as Claire went cold. She hadn’t expected the important dignitary to be Rinn. Tears threatened to spill as she remembered the kindness of the Dream Mage. “Yes, friends, she will be sorely missed,” Eidan went on.

“This can’t be good,” Lotte muttered into Claire’s ear.

“Lotte’s right,” Gareth murmured. “If Eidan is giving Rinn a state funeral then it’s certainly not out of a sudden sense of decency or kindness. She wasn’t important enough to get this kind of attention. He’s up to something.”

He fell silent as Eidan gesticulated at the air to emphasise his next point and people in the crowd gaped up at him, hanging on to his every word. “But you do not yet know the extent of her sacrifice. Many of you may well be asking yourselves where the Dream Mages are, her colleagues, her friends and her family?” His voice took on an incredulous tone. “Surely her own kind would be here, at her funeral, surely yes, citizens?”

Whispers broke out in the crowd.

“They have made themselves scarce with good reason. Rinn Taccala was foully murdered by her own brethren and Dorran House in a conspiracy designed to silence her because she disagreed with innocent people’s livelihoods being destroyed. Rest assured that all shall be revealed in time – I shall not let this matter rest.”

The crowd gasped as one, followed by fury that rose like the buzzing drone of bees. Claire was glad that Gwenivere and Tarn had not tried to enter the city. If these people had spotted them now, she felt sure they’d have torn them apart with their bare hands.

“And so, my friends,” Eidan proclaimed, his voice rising, “over the departed soul of Rinn Taccala, we proclaim the Dream Mages criminals. Some fifty in Kelnariat are imprisoned and awaiting execution. As to their leader and her small party that carried out the deed at Dorran House, they are outlaws and must pay the price. Indeed, the same price that poor, honest Rinn was forced to pay. That of death to be meted out on sight. And what of Dorran House, you might well ask? I and my faithful guards took care of them in Rinn’s name and they are finished. I am honoured to have been able to make our lives safer.”

As Eidan stretched his arms out to the crowd, they began to cheer. The sounds of their chanting filled Claire’s ears and made her gut twist, their anger as potent as any intoxicating drug.

“Eidan! Eidan! Eidan!”

Marcus grasped Eidan’s hand and together they stepped forward, raising their arms to the sky. Then, Eidan indicated that the guard should approach Rinn Taccala’s pyre and the people sighed as the funeral process returned to normalcy. Eidan intoned something as the guard flung perfumed oil over Rinn’s body and set her alight, thick, sweet smelling smoke coiling overhead.

Many of the dignitaries in the front row shuffled impatiently, like they were bored now the grandiose speech was over. Claire’s fingers itched to slap someone, anyone. This wasn’t a political game, even if Eidan made it one. Rinn Taccala mattered. Claire’s tears blinded her. She tried to shrug Gareth off as he clutched at her arm.

“Listen. We have to come away,” he whispered.

“Why?” Lotte asked. “Things was gettin’ mighty interesting.”

“We have to get to Bron,” Gareth explained. “Don’t you see? Eidan condemning the Dream Mages on top of the anger towards Dorran House already spreading through Kelnarium will make things more dangerous for all of the magical community, including Maellwyn House. By the Nereus, things are far worse than I thought.”