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Bartol had covered their tracks well. The Kingsfisher – the real one – was still out at sea, not due to return for several days yet. It would be some time before the border officers could question its crew, and more time still before they would be properly convinced that it was not the Kingsfisher that had visited Tempestorm after all.

By then, Bartol assured Isla, their faces would have been forgotten. The passengers aboard Tempestorm would be scattered across Surikhand, its crew each making his way home. Sailors were not the most patient of men; especially those who had just spent three weeks at sea.

There was no record of The Water Lily docking last night. Nothing, at least on paper, that could connect them to Tempestorm. But it did not mean they could parade Isla's – or Lilja's – presence in the Shapor household. Four daughters, suddenly turning into five? It would not take a naval marshal to smell the fish.

Which brought them to their current state of affairs.

Isla glanced at Bartol, then at the woman sitting across her. They were in the small room separating the Shapors' bedchambers from their kitchen, in which Mother Adnan had been kept the entire day.

'I've kept her occupied,' Mother Shapor had whispered to Bartol, 'but we're running out of clothes to mend.'

Now Mother Adnan was down to the last frock; a patched dress that once belonged to Kusuma, and then Eppi, and now was Persepa's.

The moment the old seamstress was finished, she would be free to return home and chat to whomsoever she pleased. Isla doubted news of Lilja Shapor would travel far enough to reach the wrong ears, but in the off-chance that it did ...

She had voiced a solution to Bartol. He was not sure it would work; truthfully, neither was Isla. But it was the only plan they had.

'Bart, you're awfully quiet. Not your usual, chatty self.' Mother Adnan looked up from her sewing. 'Your eldest daughter's home. Don't say you've gone shy?'

'We have a lot to catch up on, I don't even know where to start. It's been a long time since we last saw each other.'

'Five years, wasn't it?'

This was her moment. Bartol played on the conversation, and Isla slipped into Mother Adnan's mind. She spread her will around hers; a blanket, ready to smother whichever part of the seamstress she desired.

'You look distracted.' Isla felt Mother Adnan's attention rather than heard it. 'Are you tired?'

'It must be the voyage.' It was difficult to concentrate and make talk at the same time, but Isla held Mother Adnan's gaze and set her roots deep.

'You really should eat more. Look at you, all skin and bones. No wonder you look about to faint.'

'I eat plenty. It's sleep that I need.'

It was a shame Isla could not make the woman forget about her. The best she could hope for was to make Mother Adnan less likely to think, or talk, about her. Isla found Lilja's face, her name, her voice; and planted there a seed of insignificance.

Mother Adnan snorted. 'There's no such thing as eating plenty enough.'

'I shall be eating more, I'll wager, now that I'm home. Mother prepares the most delicious foods.'

'You hear her talk, Bart? Careful, or she'll be sounding less your daughter and more a lady's companion.'

Bartol chuckled, but his smile was false. 'Will you be staying for dinner?'

'Ah, no. But speaking of food ... you got any fish left from the market?'

Isla felt the woman's curiosity slowly wink away, reduced to a simmering bubble. By the time Mother Adnan left that afternoon, she had not even a morsel of interest for Bartol's eldest daughter.

'For now, you just have to lie low,' said Bartol as they watched her disappear into a neighbouring house. 'It'll be difficult, yes. She isn't the only nosy neighbour around here. But we just have to keep you quiet for a bit longer. Until the officers look elsewhere.'

'What will they do to the crew?'

'What do you mean?'

'The border officers. What will they do to the sailors manning Tempestorm?'

'Question them, I suppose.'

'And when they cannot answer?'

Bartol shook his head helplessly. 'I don't know. They'll detain them for a while. Eventually they might let them go.'

One plot after another darted through Isla's head, each more daring than the other.

Bart would never allow it. The look he was giving her confirmed her suspicion. But Bart doesn't need to know ...

'Don't even think about it.' It was the last thing he said to her before she retreated for the night.

Isla snuck out a little past midnight, only to find him by the front door. She cursed silently. Bartol sat on the clay terrace, smoking from a pipe, his back towards her and nothing but the moon and stars to light the landscape before him.

'If you think you can sneak past a smuggler,' he said, taking a long drag of his pipe, 'you've got another think coming.'

'I couldn't sleep.' It was not a lie.

'I don't blame you for your naiveté. You've lived a sheltered life in Elingar –'

'If you had seen the way we lived, you'd hardly call it sheltered.'

'As rough as Elingar might be, as pig-headed its men, this place has a different kind of danger, girl. There are a thousand ways your night could end if you walk out there on your own – none of them pretty.'

Isla sniffed. She was many things, but she would not consider naïve to be one of them.

'Well, I can talk you blue in the face and you'd still set out the moment my back's turned. There's only one way to teach people like you. It's good that you're dressed for the night.' Bartol stuffed his pipe into his pocket and rubbed his hands to dispel the chill, though Isla found it a warm night. The cloak she wore was more for disguise than to keep out the cold.

Even Pepper – a creature of fire – agreed. It wriggled free of Isla's collar for a taste of the night wind.

'I want to show you something.' Bartol pinned his brocade tunic shut. He must have expected a late-night trip, if he had one prepared.

Isla followed him, wondering if wherever he was taking her, it would be anywhere near the detention cells. She had a general idea of its location, after wheedling it out of Kusuma. Isla's theurgy was becoming more refined; more natural. With a little coercion, she could break anyone out of a cell. She was sure of it.

Instead, Bartol took her to the markets. It was a different place under moonlight. Yards of canvas stretched over wooden tables and stools, makeshift kitchens erected up front. They were closing, by the looks of it. Men were busy dismantling tables, loading them onto goat-drawn carts; but the piquant residue of charcoal-grilled rice and deep-fried fish still lingered in the air.

'Stay close to me.' Bartol's voice came from much further ahead. Isla had fallen behind, staring at all the left-over food that would go to waste.

A woman must have seen the hunger in her eyes, for she smiled and offered her a stick of grilled squid. Isla took it gladly and chased after Bartol, just as he disappeared into a passageway.

'Don't wander away,' Bartol warned her again. 'This isn't the best place to get lost.'

He need not tell her twice. The passageway arched up around them, leaving a slither above just enough to see a sprinkle of stars. It made Isla feel trapped.

'Where are you taking me?'

'Where all the strays end.'

A cart ambled past, wheels squelching in the damp earth. Isla swallowed her next question. The wagon carried children, trussed inside a cage; sickly thin, with clothes torn and muddied.

Bartol waited for the wagon to pass before he spoke. 'You walk out alone or stumble across the wrong people – this is where you go.'

The path opened into a giant courtyard, many smaller passages snaking in from all of its hexagonal corners. Platforms were raised at every scattered interval, each of them parading a number of prisoners with hands bound and feet tressed against one another.

Men and women surrounded each platform, faces hidden beneath grotesquely-shaped masks as they contemplated the merchandise before them.

'Trader's Square.' Bartol stopped before one of such platforms, close enough to see the defeat on each child's face. 'Almost every major town and city has one.'

'This is permitted?' She had heard of few slave-owners in Elingar. The practice was not common. Even then they could only traffic their slaves from abroad, keeping them as secret as sin. To see it out in the open and so shamelessly ... Isla's nose twitched in disgust.

'It's a business the Maha Rama pays no attention to. As did his predecessors.'

'So it is condoned.'

'I didn't bring you here to argue its ethics. I brought you here so you understand how careful you have to be. You need to stay out of trouble until we're ready for the next stage of our plan.'

A cry speared the night. Two young men were made to fight in a platform further down from theirs. They circled one another, daggers reflecting the pale moonlight. One lunged, drawing blood, receiving a mighty upper punch in response. The crowd before them cheered as he jumped back to his feet and charged once again for his opponent.

'This is barbaric.' Isla turned away, having no interest in the outcome of the duel.

'It is sport; or their idea of it. People place bets, the winning slave fetches a higher price. The people in masks are buyers. The men standing with whips by the platforms are slavers. But it's them you need worry.' Isla followed Bartol's gaze to a line of men, neither masked nor bearing whips, who sat in the warmth of fire-lit tents.

She knew many villains through her father's books. Treacherous generals drunk on power, corruptible warlocks fallen to the dark arts. Isla was instantly reminded of them.

The tented men were loud, toasting one another, rusted copper cups sloshing with every move. They were large; the sort of large one attains only through years of physical labour and good food. But it was their smiles that bothered Isla; predatory.

'The slavers sell, but it's the snatchers who take you, train you to submission. Don't be fooled – they call themselves stray-snatchers, but it's not always strays they take. Most of them don't care whether you have papers or even a family waiting at home.

'We've one team here. Been plaguing the area for decades, cuts down any other team who tries to share their market. So you better believe they're established and powerful. Their domain extends from the village of Ang Kur in the south, to the northern woods of Berau.'

The place sounded familiar. Perhaps she had read it on Eshe's map.

'Leader calls himself Nagendra, and he's the worst of the lot. A young woman like you, sneaking out on her own? You're a ripe target for the likes of him.' It was not immediately clear which of the group Bartol was referring to, but Isla had a good guess.

One stood out from the others. His face bore more scars; the most prominent running from his nose down to his chin, smearing his lips in a gruesome sneer. Isla unconsciously stroke her hips, her hands running over her own scar.

'He ambushes travellers. Snatches their goods and anyone young enough to make a good slave.'

'Where did you say he takes his victims from?' Something started to connect in Isla's head. She studied the man – in search of familiarity in his face. His head was shaved, and he had a thin, trailing moustache that reminded Isla of the catfish she had seen in the markets.

'He's been seen as far as Berau Forest all the way down to the woods of Ang Kur.'

'Ang Kur.' She had been a child, but one does not quickly forget the last time they saw their family. 'The woods just between here and Arikit?'

'Ah, you came from Arikit?'

Isla smiled, containing the energy swelling from her gut. 'I did.'    

    
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