There was movement below.
Agent Lin stood up slowly, careful not to shift her gaze from the tiny figures moving in the distant courtyard. Her back was stiff from staying in one place for so long and there was a steady ache in the centre of her forehead from a lack of sleep, but there was no doubt her quarry had broken cover. The girl was there, her head uncovered, wearing a scarlet jacket, of all things.
‘Doesn’t she realise she’s being hunted?’
Next to her, Gull shifted his enormous bulk and made a series of huffing noises. The bat had left to hunt periodically but had not gone far. Another figure had appeared in the courtyard: the Eboran who had dared to threaten her with his fancy sword. If she could kill him too – and she suspected she would have to, to get to the fell-witch – then Agent Lin decided she would keep the sword for herself. She deserved something out of all this mess, and there was little doubt that such a fine sword could be sold for an eye-watering amount of money. She wondered briefly if killing an Eboran could lead to any political trouble, but quickly she dismissed the thought. Mother Cressen preferred these things to be resolved without civilian deaths, of course, but this was a remote and lonely place with no witnesses, and besides which, the great empire of Ebora was a corpse now. Everyone knew that.
Gull chirruped, nudging her slightly with his great blunt head. She patted his nose lightly, still gazing down to the courtyard.
‘Not much longer to wait, now. Not much longer at all.’
The flagstones in the courtyard were wet, turning the ground beneath her boots into a broken mirror, reflecting the dull grey sheen of the sky. Noon glared at the stones, putting one foot in front of the other and thinking only of that. If she lost concentration, part of her started to insist that she had four feet at her command, which made walking suddenly more confusing.
‘What are you doing? Are you drunk?’
Tor was waiting for her at the compound gate. The Ninth Rain, which, against all odds, had not been lost on their flight from the fire, was slung over his back again, and he wore a deep hood that cast his face into shadow. Out here, in the daylight, the scars were especially hard to look at.
‘Keep your hair on, bloodsucker.’ Noon winced at her choice of words before continuing. ‘I’m in no rush to get torn apart by parasite spirits.’
She had several empty sacks slung across her back, as did Tor, and a bag containing a pair of large empty jars they had found in the kitchens, just in case that was the only way they could transport the fluid, and two pairs of thick leather gloves. Neither of them wanted to find out what happened if you got the stuff on your skin.
‘We’ll move quickly,’ said Tor, ignoring her tone. ‘We know where we’re going this time. We’re not on one of Vintage’s quaint sightseeing tours.’
Reaching him, Noon nodded. This close, she felt a flicker of the same awe she’d felt when she’d first seen him striding through the Shroom Flats towards her – only now he was an angry god, something half destroyed and vengeful. And on the edge of that, something else; a feeling she sensed came from the new presence inside her. It felt like longing.
‘Let’s get it over with.’ She pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck, glancing up at the bleak hills behind them as she did so. For a moment she thought she saw something moving amongst the rocks there, but dismissed it as the rushing shadows of clouds. There were enough immediate dangers without imagining new ones.
The gates to the compound were as they had left them, although a pile of old leaves had gathered against the door. Some of them, Noon noticed, were enormous; old brown and gold leaves as big as her head, twice as big. The cold presence inside her head shifted, and a new thought occurred to her.
‘The Shroom Flats, and this place. They’re both full of weird plants, aren’t they?’
‘Are you trying to impress me with your powers of observation now?’
Noon ignored him. ‘The vine forest as well. Vintage said she makes her wine from giant grapes, and there is Behemoth wreckage there too, hidden deep within it. Look at these trees.’ They had stepped inside the compound now, and the twisted, overgrown forest loomed all around them. The scent of smoke and wet ashes was a ghost on the edge of her senses. Noon lowered her voice. ‘This is a yellow oak. They grow on the eastern side of the Trick. It just doesn’t look like one, because the trunk is all swollen and twisted, and the leaves are three or four times bigger than normal.’
Tor had drawn his sword, and was moving slowly, the blade held at the ready. ‘You know, when Vintage left us, I thought I might get a rest from this sort of scintillating conversation.’
‘You really don’t see it, do you, you massive idiot?’ He shot an annoyed look at her for that. ‘It’s the fluid. The stuff we’re going to collect for your big creepy tree-god. It must have soaked into the ground all around here, making all these trees and plants grow bigger and stranger than they should. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened wherever a Behemoth has crashed. Think. The fluid is what’s responsible for the Wild.’
Tor stopped. He looked back at her, and the expression framed by his hood was one of genuine surprise. Noon felt her heart lighten slightly at the sight of it; it was the first time she’d seen him look anything other than angry or lost since he’d woken up.
‘By the roots.’ He looked around, as if seeing the strange vegetation for the first time. ‘All Behemoths must carry this fluid. And perhaps when they crash, it spills out all over the ground. Or some of it is vaporised.’
They were moving again, creeping through the eerie forest. Water dripped from branches and trickled down trunks.
‘In a place already densely populated by vegetation, like the vine forest,’ said Tor, ‘this Jure’lia fluid would have been carried even further. Dotted on the wings of birds, droplets on the wing-cases of beetles. I’m surprised Vintage didn’t see it immediately.’
‘There were so many pieces to the puzzle, that’s what she said. And some of those pieces are trying to kill you.’ Picturing the shimmering, light-spotted monsters, the presence inside her swarmed to the front of her mind. For a moment the dank forest floor was replaced by a shining riverbed of precious stones, glittering in sunlight – the water was cool on her claws, easing away the sting of hot sand. The world spun, and Noon stumbled back amongst the haunted trees. Tor was still stalking ahead and had not noticed her confusion. She cleared her throat. ‘I bet she suspected it, though, when she saw what it could do. I think if she’d had a chance to sit and study it, she’d have seen it much faster than either of us.’