Page 11 of The Neverfear

‘We are.’ Argus handed Anya and Christopher spades. ‘Irian, Nighthand and I will start at the dock; you line the gardens. Start digging.’

They dug; it was hot, dirty work in the sun, setting the plants at fifty-foot intervals along the lip of the island, as close to the water’s edge as they could put them. They stretched out each plant’s long, spiny tendrils and entwined them with the next, and watched as the green fronds fused to become an unbroken chain. They quivered slightly where they touched the earth, and if you bent close enough to the plant, you could hear the faintest thrum of the power within it.

Christopher’s back began to ache, and Anya grew steadily more covered in mud, but slowly the barrier took shape: a spiked, green defence snaking around the perimeter of the islet.

The digging gave them a chance to talk. As soon as they were alone, Christopher told her about the flash.

Anya was fascinated but mystified by the green-gold light he described. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like it,’ she said. ‘I wish I could do it. It was amazing to watch, Christopher. You should practise it.’ She set a fendthorn into the ground and filled the hole with compost. ‘Not with the behemoth, though, obviously.’

It was dark when they finished, and everyone was blistered and pricked by thorns. They met at the dock to plant the final rose. Irian wound its tendrils around those of its neighbour, and they stood back.

‘We’re locked,’ said Argus. Anya shivered.

‘Remember, it’s not forever,’ Irian said. ‘It’s just until this trouble passes.’

Nighthand shook his head. ‘If you ask me – and I say this as a trouble connoisseur – the trouble’s just beginning.’ His enormous hands, playing with his digging fork, bent it sideways, and Irian laughed and took it from him. ‘We’ll see the fendthorn tested soon.’

He was right, though not in the way he expected.

Carla Venasque

Carla Venasque moved through the City of Scholars in the dark, noting some points of interest. The things that interested her, though, were not the things that interest other people. She passed by canals, lamplighters tending to the salamandric fire, a ratatoska lapping at a glass of wine, all without glancing sideways.

She noticed the heights of buildings, and the views that might be gained from their upper floors. She noticed alleys into which one might disappear. She noticed a shop selling knives, and another selling jewels, and the look on her face as she examined the two was the same.

She reached the house – a palazzo with a fountain in the courtyard and a sweeping tower, high even within a city of spires – in good time.

A caretaker opened the door and his mouth gaped wide. Carla Venasque was that rare thing: a woman of such beauty that even the most jaded men, even the haughtiest women, stopped to stare. It was impossible not to. People longed to see how it was done; how nature had blindly crafted something so perfect from human flesh.

Carla did not smile. She did not choose, these days, to show her emotion on her face. Why give the world more information than it needed? It only gave them ammunition to use against you.

‘Come in, lady, come in,’ said the caretaker. ‘I’ve got the keys here for you.’ He looked behind her, as if expecting someone else.

‘It’s just me,’ said Carla. ‘Show me the house. Has my telescope been delivered?’

‘It’s been set up as you asked.’ The caretaker led her to a room at the top of the palazzo, where vaulted windows looked out over the city to the sea. A telescope – long as a shotgun and made of shining brass – dominated the room.

The caretaker hovered behind her. ‘Watch out on the steps when you go down again, lady – you should take a light. Better safe than sorry, I always say.’

‘Do you? I don’t.’

The man moistened his old lips. ‘Unusual, a beautiful woman like you, all alone?’

‘Is it?’

‘You not married? You’ll excuse my saying it, but you’ve a face to stir the appetites of men. What are you wanting this big place for? The lads at the bar’ll be keen to know.’

She turned on him, and he stuttered to a halt.

‘Not that I …’ he said. ‘I’m not the sort to gossip.’ He seemed to register, too slowly, that there was danger in the room with him. ‘I won’t breathe a word.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s true. You won’t.’

She moved so swiftly and so gracefully that he did not notice the dagger in her hand until it met his flesh. Slowly, sweetly, she drew an X on the side of his neck.

‘You don’t know I’m here,’ she said. ‘If you speak of me – if you even think my name in the quiet of your own bedroom – I’ll kill you and throw your body into the canal. Now go.’

There was a look of hatred in her eyes as she watched him flee, though whether it was for the stumbling little man or for herself it would be impossible to say.