Hûw Steer's Blog, page 25

SPFBO – Or Not

The bad news: Ad Luna has been eliminated from the 7th SPFBO.

The good news: the guys at FanFiAddict did at least seem to enjoy reading it!

“The world building is excellent, prose is crisp and pacing is spot on.”

Definitely one of the better rejections I’ve had over the years.

But fear not – there are some other competitions that I’ve been eyeing up for Ad Luna, so all is not lost…

What’s Going On?

Technically we’re not in lockdown anymore, so I think Tokyo Drift is over. Whether we stay out of lockdown is another matter…

Update time, I think, as it’s been a while.

Boiling Seas 2 may still lack a title, and a cover, but the editing process is about 2/3 done. Probably more. I’m just about finished with editing ‘part 2’, which was the longest and probably most complicated bit, which leaves me with just the whole jungle trek to do. But there are big easy cuts I can make there. I just need to seed all the ideas that I came up with along the way for the overarching plot of book 3 a little earlier…

I’ve got a week’s holiday from work coming up. I’m beginning to move house during it, but I intend to use the time wisely and get a chunk more editing done. Hopefully I’ll have it ready for proofreading within a few months. A summer release went out of the window long ago, but I’m confident it’ll at least be out this year. Maybe Christmas. Maybe earlier.

In terms of other books, Ad Luna has yet to be eliminated from the SPFBO, which is a good sign. Maybe pick up a copy. It’s not a bad book.

Short stories… well, haven’t written any new ones for a while, but I’ve submitted a few around the place to see if I can find them some new homes. Right now I’m working on something longer and newer, as you may know if you read last week’s post…

In sadder news, my venerable old Kindle Keyboard appears to have given up the ghost after (I think) 15 years. I’ve managed to pull all the books off it, thankfully, but after many many restarts a factory reset is the only option left to me. So as soon as I can get it to turn on again to do that…

But I’ve also started sending out agent query letters again. Well, one so far. And it got rejected. But still. It’s progress. I’ve left it far too long as it is.

Lockdown: Tokyo Drift #17 – Burning To Death

“In July the sun is hot… is it shining? No it’s not.”

Except it is, Flanders and Swann. It’s bloody boiling.

My brain has been melting since the moment I woke up, so it’s a little difficult to concentrate on writing something that makes coherent sense. So I’m just going to give you all a little teaser on my current writing project. (My current editing project is of course still Boiling Seas #2).

Funnily enough, it’s also hot in what I’m writing. Very hot. The kind of hot that kills you. But there is life, regardless. There’s water. It’s just only in one place. A place that looks an awful lot like this…

Let me know if you know where this is – and even if you don’t, then let me know what you think my world might be looking like…

Lockdown: Tokyo Drift #16 – I Miss Game Manuals

A bit of game-related nostalgia, as I work my way towards the ending of Mass Effect 3 (which I’ll write a post about soon, especially about the Citadel DLC…).

You’ve just been out shopping in town with your parents. Trips like these aren’t as dull as just going to the supermarket, but standing around for hours while your mum and sister try on clothes (or, worse, make you try on clothes), or your dad goes and buys shoes or widgets or whatever he needs for the garage this time, is still boring. As a small boy, there aren’t a lot of shops that are remotely interesting enough for your goldfish-like attention span.

But if you’re lucky, you might have been allowed to go off on your own for a bit. You might have been able to wander up the high street while the others were in White Stuff or Monsoon. You might have been able to go into GAME – and if you were even luckier, you had pocket money, and when your parents came to find you 10 minutes after you were supposed to meet them outside the bank, you might walk away with a shiny new/preowned video game.

Then, of course, it was back to the car for the drive home. The car, of course, is famous around the world for not having a PS2 in the back of it. (Unless you had one of those cars with the little screen in the back of the headrest, which barely anyone actually did, despite every child wanting one more than anything else in the world). Your preowned copy of Ratchet and Clank 3 (the best game of all time) was just a lump of plastic in your hands for the next 45 minutes, before you got home and could actually play it. But that didn’t matter – because when you tore off the weird sticker that held the box shut, inside the box was the most exciting thing in the world besides the actual game itself.

The manual.

It didn’t matter that you couldn’t play the game yet. It didn’t matter that the pictures were so tiny and low-res that you could barely see what they were depicting. The manual had everything you needed for the journey right there. It had the controls, it had a summary of the story. It had a list of weapons and gadgets whose descriptions set the mind on fire as efficiently as they would soon be setting enemies on fire. It had a list of instructions about how to play multiplayer, on the Internet! You’d never use them, because getting a PS2 online required eleven bits of external hardware, and it was much easier to just have your friends come to your house – but sitting in that car those instructions were the most exciting words in the world.

There was no better way to build anticipation for a game than reading the manual. I remember dozens of trips like these, dozens of car journeys with my head buried in those little booklets. By the time I got home I’d basically been playing the game in my imagination already – and as soon as I was allowed to I’d sprint upstairs to the PS2 and get playing for real. Even later when I was in high school and I had a PS3, many games still came with a proper manual. I remember devouring the instructions to Skyrim on our way home in 2011.

Not now, though. There are no manuals these days. If you do actually buy a physical game (and it’s probably just a download code), there’s never anything in the box besides the disc and a few DLC codes or whatever. Skyrim was probably the last game I bought that had a proper manual in it. My other PS3 games just had a barebones list of controls, if I was lucky. More cutting by far were the booklets of safety information and adverts for weird proprietary cloud services. When you picked up the game case, it felt like there was a manual inside… but when you opened it later, there was just useless, boring paper.

And of course these days we mostly download our games straight from the Internet, so we don’t even have that.

I miss those days. I miss manuals more than I miss old games. I can still play the games. But I’ll never read those manuals for the first time again. And I’ll probably never read a new one.

The Boiling Seas: Non-Canon Adventures, Epilogue

Rounding off the non-canon Boiling Seas story with a little epilogue. I forgot how much fun I had just writing side-stories with these characters. Whatever happens with Book 2 (and presumably Book 3), I think there’s scope for me writing some more little adventures later.

(Read Part 4 first.)

Tal’s boat was a tiny thing, barely worthy of the name. Its hull still steamed faintly from its outbound journey, still hot from the scalding waters that washed onto the beach, wave by wave. But it was big enough for the two of them.

“I’ll push,” Tal said, and Max climbed gratefully into the little skiff. Her limbs were still leaden, but she felt much better after their run from the grounds. When they had surfaced, the guards, by the grace of the gods, had been none the wiser to Max’s escape. The two beneath the ground in the ossuary had clearly failed to report their suspicions to anyone else before going down. No alarm bells rang; no hounds barked as they sprinted loose around the grounds. It had been an unexpected blessing. Tal and Max had made their way to the walls and to the narrow postern gate, disused and rusting, that Tal had managed to force open to gain entry to the grounds. It had been so overgrown that most of the guards couldn’t have even known it was there.

Then it had been a straight run to the beach, crouching briefly behind a rise as a dog patrol made its way past, and to the narrow inlet where Tal had hidden his little boat.

Max raised the collapsible mast and unfurled the dark sail at Tal’s command. It wasn’t much, but it would do. It was only a short hop to the main islands, and the Boiling Seas seemed calm. The steam that rose from the slow waves made a mist of the shoreline. Hopefully that would obscure them enough. The walls of the asylum behind them loomed tall and dark, and atop them walked guards with sharp eyes.

“Ready,” Max called softly. Tal tossed his satchel into the boat next to her, rolling up his sleeves.

“Three, two, one.”

With a great heave, Tal pushed the boat, heels digging into the warm sand, just enough for it to slide back down the steep slope of the shore and into the crashing, scalding waves. He leapt aboard just before the waters touched his boots, wincing as a splash of hot water caught his arm. Max hauled at a line as the boat slipped into the water and dragged the dark sail out. It caught what wind there was and billowed, barely visible against the starry night. It was a smuggler’s boat, this; Max had looked carefully away while Tal had been obtaining it, haggling at the docks with some… interesting characters. Some things she just didn’t want to know. It was small, but it was hard to see, hull and sail both deliberately darkened, quick and nimble even on the roiling waters of the Boiling Seas.

Or it would be if there was any wind. Tal was at the tiller now, but the boat was barely out of the breakers. They needed to be faster. They did not have forever.

Max reached out. It was much warmer now, with steam rising gently all around her, the water hot beyond the boat’s alarmingly thin hull. It was treated with some very clever chemicals but it would not last long in this water. Caulking and planks were warped and devoured quickly by the heat and minerals within the waves – there was a reason all large vessels had hulls sheathed in metal out here. Never mind the guards patrolling the shoreline, perhaps moments away from spotting them and sounding the alarm – if they stayed out on this sea for too long the boat would breach and they would boil alive before they could even drown.

But though the night was cold, the sea was hot, and that was all Max needed. She reached out, and drew it in, feeling her shivers subside, her body fill with blessed warmth, with energy. She drank it in, sucking it from the air, from the water – there was no danger of the sea growing cold – and with it she seized the air and dragged it hard into their dark sail. It billowed, ballooning outwards, straining at the mast, and the little boat shot forwards like an arrow from a bow.

“Woah!” Tal fumbled with the rudder, barely keeping them on course as the boat skipped across the surface of several waves in quick succession. “Bring it down a little!” Max flushed, and let go, the sail slackening, feeding just a little wind into it. She glanced back, and saw the asylum island disappearing rapidly into the steam. It lurked in the mists, terrible to look upon – but it was small, now, a nightmare swiftly forgotten upon waking. On the wind, she heard, finally, a bell ring out, as the guards at last realised that something was amiss. Took you long enough, she thought with a smile. They were far too late to catch the ‘escapees’. We’re out and away.

“Thanks,” Tal called, over the rushing of the wind and the flowing of the waves. “Needed that boost.”

“No problem,” Max replied with a smile. She felt better than she had all evening, the borrowed warmth of the Sea flooding her limbs. She’d still pay for her exertions later, of course – the body did not take too kindly to having so much energy poured in and out of it, even after long practice – but for now she felt warm, and alive.

Tal consulted the boat’s fixed compass, adjusted the tiller.

“Keep the wind up and we’ll be there in less than an hour,” he called. “Can you?”

“Sure.” The wind seemed eager to respond to her touch after her bending of the reluctant light.

“Let’s see it then.” Tal’s eyes were bright with anticipation. Max grinned, and reached into her pocket for the object she had taken from the ossuary. Thank you, Lord Fierling. She held her hand out, then opened it. On her palm there sat a small silver key.

“That’s it?” Tal’s gaze was locked on it, his breath catching.

“That’s it,” Max confirmed. They crested a wave, the boat riding the swell, and Max closed her hand tightly, quickly as it rocked. If they were to lose the key now… “It matches the description. Four teeth, silver. And it has the rune.”

“And we found it on the body of the man who claimed to have found the thing it opened.”

“That too.”

“Then we’re set,” Tal said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “We’re ready to go out there.”

Max shuddered at the thought, whether from fear or excitement she couldn’t tell.

“I guess we are.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Tal pointed out gently, as he checked the compass, adjusting his iron grip on the tiller. “What’s wrong?”

Max took a long moment to reply, letting the warm wind rush over her as she put her thoughts into words. Above, the stars shone brightly.

“Nothing major,” she said finally. “Nothing important.”

“But you’re nervous?”

“No.” Don’t be an idiot. He’s your friend. “…yes. It’s just…” she faltered.

“That we’re a long way from home?” Tal finished.

“Something like that.” She grimaced. “I read books, Tal. I don’t actually go out and see the places they describe.” For most of her life she had sat in the great university tower and studied, reading countless texts on places long ago and far away. She had dreamed, for years, of going to see them; had accepted the fact that she likely never would.

But now she had the chance. And it was wonderful and terrifying all at once, and she wasn’t sure whether to weep or laugh.

“I was the same, once,” Tal said softly. She had to strain to listen to him over the wind she was still channelling. “I read, and dreamed. Never dreamed I’d actually do it. It was simple. Peaceful.” He smiled sadly. “Sometimes I miss it. Usually when I’m about to get myself killed.” Max chuckled. That does happen a lot.

“But when I’m out there,” Tal continued, “when I’m living what I thought would only ever be stories… it’s exhilarating. It’s like nothing else. And I’m guessing you feel the same.”

Max thought about it for a moment. Then she smiled.

“Yeah. I do.”

“Good.” Tal twisted the rudder. “So. You ready to go put ourselves in serious danger for bad odds at a vast reward?”

Max chuckled.

“No. No, I’m not.”

“Want to do it anyway?”

“More than anything.”

Tal smiled, and twisted the tiller, and Max reached for the wind, and together they sailed through the mists of the Boiling Seas towards the dawn.

The Boiling Seas: Non-Canon Adventures, Part 4

If you haven’t read part 3 yet, do. If you have, welcome to the crypt…

He strode off along the corridor of skulls, and Max followed. Shelf after shelf after shelf they passed, Tal’s witchlight flowing smoothly over pale bone. Most were unblemished, stripped of whatever aged flesh had once wrapped them,  but there were many that showed signs of damage. Max was healer as well as scholar, and recognised sword-cuts and hammer-blows, fractures old and new, the swathes of tiny spines that spoke of cancers of the bone, and other strange mottling besides. Most of the alcoves were stuffed full of bones – but again some were missing leg-bones, or half a stack of ribs. They passed one skull that grinned down without a lower jaw, its remaining teeth glinting in the golden light. Max shuddered at that one without quite knowing why.

A few alcoves – just a few, but enough – had no skulls. Their plaques described nothing but neat stacks of long bones, their owners’ faces lost forever.

There were sconces in the walls for old-fashioned torches, but none were lit. As they progressed, torches became oil lanterns, then chemical, as the bones in the ossuary’s alcoves grew brighter, whiter, newer. But there was no light at all, save that which flowed around Tal’s fingers. The shadows flowed too, oil to the water of the witchlight. Finally, after what seemed like a mile of shadowed skulls, they came to a break in the bones. The shelves stopped, and beneath an extinguished lantern there was a pedestal of the same grey stone as everything else at the asylum. On it was a heavy book. It was old, but nowhere near as old as anything else they’d seen so far.

“If this isn’t alphabetised,” Tal muttered as he stepped over and opened the tome, “I’m going to burn that building down.” He sighed with relief. “By date. That’ll do. When are we looking for, Max?”

“Date of death or internment?”

“Internment, looks like.”

“Fourteenth of Parthis, twelve seventy-two.” The date rolled off Max’s tongue like her own name.

“Your memory,” Tal said as he began flipping pages, “is genuinely frightening.” The pages were heavy parchment, each one landing audibly as Tal turned them. “I brought your notes and everything. Wish I hadn’t bothered.” He patted his satchel absently, and Max noticed that it was bulging a little more than normal. She grimaced guiltily. She wrote quickly and profusely, and in the process of gathering information about their target she’d filled a heavy notebook from cover to cover – and stuffed it with loose papers. And then, because she’d known that nothing she took with her into the asylum would come out again, she’d committed it all to her admittedly prodigious memory.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Tal said, flashing her a smile. “But if you write much more we’ll have to buy a bigger trunk. And hire someone to carry it.”

“I’ll condense a bit.” Tal carried nothing but his satchel. Max had a pack and a set of cases that weighed almost as much as she did.

“You’d better.” Tal was still flipping pages. “And you’d better keep watch. I’m only in the eight hundreds.”

Max nodded and stepped back. She wanted to look at that book – but if she did then it would be days before she reached the entry they needed. She knew she wouldn’t be able to resist taking a proper look – but Tal could skim-read like a professional. She stepped away and turned to face the pitch-black corridor. Keep watch. Right. She hadn’t quite gotten the hang of Tal’s air-sense yet, and she couldn’t see a thing.

So she closed her useless eyes, and listened.

At first, all she could hear was the whisper of turning pages in the echoing gloom. But she opened her mind, stretched out her senses. She could feel the stone of the tunnel, cold beneath her bare feet. It was still, at first. But as she breathed, slowly, in and out, she felt the subtle movements shaking through it, through the air that began to feel like liquid against her skin, the vibration of each and every tiny sound – for that was all sound was, when you broke it down, and vibrations were energy – and so was magic. Some audiokenes could wield sound like a weapon, roaring like a storm as easily of breathing; some could render crowds as silent as a whisper. Max was newly come to the discipline, but practice made perfect, and the best way to learn to wield an element was to immerse one’s self in it. So she stood, and paid no attention to anything save touch and sound. Her own breathing was like thunder in her ears, each page Tal turned a great door creaking open. She tuned those sounds out – something that had taken her a lot of practice to master – and listened for the vibrations in the air and stone ahead of her, from the tunnel. At first there was nothing. But as her connection to the stone grew stronger she heard sounds that were faint at first but grew louder: the sound of distant voices, incomprehensible but there, the sound of heavy boots on flagstones.

“They’re in the chapel,” she whispered, wincing at the thunder of her faint words. “Two… or three.” Their voices mingled from so far away. “Can’t hear them, but they’ve not come down yet.”

“Alright.” So close, Tal’s whisper made her jump out of her skin. Max refocused herself, listening again, connecting herself to the far end of the tunnel with a chain of gently humming particles. The longer she listened, the easier it became to understand the distant voices.

“…broken… something…”

“…prisoner?” That chilled her a little; not patient, prisoner.

“But… locked. All… floor.”

“They’re starting to figure it out,” Max warned, feeling her own words ripple from her mouth in a great wave. “We don’t have long.”

“Almost found it,” Tal replied, his voice another pebble dropped in Max’s ocean of sound.

“…downstairs?”

“Can’t have.” She could pick the two voices apart now. One reverberated far deeper than the other. “It’s locked.” The rattling of the heavy door on its hinges cut sharply through the air. “See?”

“Unless they picked it.” The other guard’s voice was reedy and unpleasant. “Let’s just check it, shall we? No harm. And it’s out of the wind.”

“Sure,” the other guard sighed. “Why not.”

The sound of the lock being turned rang sharply in Max’s ears as she broke her trance. Sound rushed out of her ears in a flood, and she reeled for a moment as she adjusted to ordinary noise.

“They’re coming down!”

“Got it!” Tal slammed the book closed with a heavy thump. “Further on. Seven twenty-seven.”

Without another word they both turned and began to run. Tal’s boots were soft and Max’s feet bare, so even at a jog they were near-silent – but behind them Max could hear the clicking of hard heels on flagstones. The guards were coming.

“Dim the light,” she hissed, and Tal did so, the glow in his fingers dimming until they could barely see two feet ahead. She heard him begin to count under his breath, marking the alcoves they passed by the rhythm of their footsteps rather than sight. Behind them, the glow of a chemical lantern was slowly becoming brighter as the guards marched down the corridor of bones.

“five, six, here.” Tal skidded to a halt, and Max stumbled after him. He raised his glowing fist, and illuminated the plaque marked with the number 727, and the name Thaddeus Fierling, and the grinning skull that had borne it.

“That’s him,” Max whispered. Her mind was already painting the skin and muscles back over the man’s face, his regal countenance etched in her memory from a dozen portraits and etchings. Thaddeus Fierling, gentleman explorer. The nobleman had been legendary in his day for his extensive travels across the world and the Boiling Seas in particular, sailing in his own personal cutter on the wildly dangerous journeys that had been all that were possible in the age before steelships. His accounts of the islands of his era had been required reading in the Lantern’s history classes, lauding the intrepid noble for an inquisitive spirit centuries ahead of his time.

Max’s own reading had uncovered a very different man: hypocritical, prone to outbursts of violence – especially against his long-suffering servants – and as exploitative as possible of every culture he had encountered on his travels. There was a reason that his skull and bones were lodged halfway down a colossal ossuary instead of having a fine tomb of their own, that his name had been almost entirely forgotten outside of the world’s universities and archives. He was one of those figures it was more expedient to leave forgotten than to make the effort to remember.

But there had been enough written to tell a diligent researcher – or at least one diligent researcher – where to look to find Fierling’s bones. And what might have been left with them.

“Be careful,” Tal warned, as Max reached up to the alcove. She was taller than Tal, could reach it more easily. The wiry thief held up his witchlit hand, his eyes turned away towards the corridor, watching for the guards. The light flowed over Fierling’s skull like molten gold. Carefully, Max reached up and took the skull in both hands, bending down to place it gently on the floor. A swift examination showed her nothing hidden within it, inside the jaw or beneath. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

Bone by bone, Max slid the fragments of Fierling’s body free of their alcove, slowly and carefully, checking each and every one for the object they sought. She couldn’t rush, not with something so delicate – but as the distant footsteps of the marching guards grew louder, she knew that she soon wouldn’t have a choice.

“Anything?” Tal hissed.

“Not yet,” Max muttered. She slid a thighbone free, and barely caught the femur above it as it slipped from its place. She wobbled on her tiptoes, trying to hold both bones in one hand, but recovered her balance.

“Be quick,” Tal said. Carefully, slowly, he drew his knife. “They’re almost on us.”

Max slid another bone aside, but there was nothing in the alcove but dark stone and old dust. Frustrated, she looked down at the row of finger- and toe-bones. She shoved them aside with one hand, trying not to rattle them – and saw beneath the fingers a glint of silver. She grabbed it.

“Got it!” I think. But there wasn’t time to look for anything else – the light of the guards’ lantern was growing brighter and brighter. She bent for Fierling’s skull.

“No time!” Tal hissed, grabbing her arm.

“But they’ll see – ”

“Can’t be helped. Move!”

Light in hand, he pulled her away – deeper into the tunnel.

“You think there’s another way out?” Max whispered as they ran.

“Not a clue.”

“Then shouldn’t we – ”

“Just run, will you?”

Max shut up and ran, bare feet slapping softly against the flagstones, the gleaming object she had snatched from Fierling’s bones cutting into her palm as she gripped it tightly. Behind them came a shout of alarm, echoing down the tunnel: the guards had clearly reached the old explorer’s desecrated alcove. Max winced. Sorry. Whatever kind of man he had been in life Thaddeus Fierling deserved a peaceful rest. She felt guilty for taking so long, not replacing the skeleton. Tal, she knew, had fewer qualms about such things than she did. Though he respects them too. It was just that he was more prepared to be practical when it was really necessary.

They ran through a blur of bones. Tal let his light grow brighter – there was no point hiding it now, now that the hard sound of boots on stone was fast and loud, joined by the clinking of metal as the guards ran down the corridor after them. There must be another way out. Or they wouldn’t be rushing. Or maybe they were just eager to catch the intruders, Max thought to herself as they ran. She was out of breath now, trying not to pant too loudly even though stealth would soon be pointless.

She hoped Tal had a plan. She had assumed he did when they started running, but he hadn’t stopped, hadn’t said anything. She saw the knife in his hand. Not like him. He wouldn’t resort to violence. Would he?

“Here!” The whisper was sharp, and Max stumbled as Tal skidded to a halt in front of her, almost running into him. The witchlight played off another alcove, like the one before, holding another pedestal with another ledger. Of course! There had to be more than one copy of the heavy index. Tal had known that. That was why he had run on.

“Get in,” Tal muttered, sliding behind the pedestal awkwardly. It was a small alcove, and once Max had obeyed and struggled inside herself there was no room to move at all. She was shoulder to shoulder with Tal, pinned against the back wall by the pedestal.

“They’ll see us!” she hissed. It was the worst hiding place she had ever seen.

“Not if you do that thing again,” Tal muttered, bringing his knife-hand up across his chest awkwardly. “Like you did outside.”

“I don’t have the strength,” Max protested feebly. She really was tired; the run would have been bad enough if she hadn’t already been drained by the magic she’d done above the ground. Could she do it again?

“Tough,” Tal said curtly. “Now or never.”

His witchlight dimmed, then died, and all was dark – for a moment. Blinking rapidly to adjust her eyes Max saw the faint but growing glow of a chemical lantern, as the sound of the guards’ footsteps grew louder and louder. Now or never.

She took a deep breath, and drew the darkness of the tomb around them like a shroud, and as the light of the guards’ lantern finally lit the alcove she pushed it away. Please. She gritted her teeth with the strain of it – but then the clinking mail and hard boot-heels were gone, fading as the guards kept running straight past the dark alcove and into the unknown.

Max felt Tal’s hand on her arm – a warning. Hold it. She knew better than to let the cloak of shadows drop, but it was hard, so hard, to keep it up. But she managed it, drawing on energy she hadn’t known she had. After what felt like forever Tal squeezed her arm, and she let the magic go, gasping as cold flooded her very bones. Tal’s witchlight ignited dimly.

“Well done,” Tal whispered. “Very well done. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

With a gentle hand at her back, he helped her down the tunnel and back out to the surface above.

Part 5 – the finale – coming next week.

Interview with Fantasy Hive – Ad Luna, SPFBO, and More

I was interviewed last night by David M. Samuels (of Euvael fame) for Fantasy Hive and the SPFBO. It was a nice informal chat about Ad Luna, how I wrote it, etc., as well as potential teases of a new project or two. Provided that bit made the cut.

You can watch it below on David’s YouTube channel – and it should be up on Fantasy Hive soon.

The Boiling Seas: Non-Canon Adventures, Part 3

Part 3 of the non-canon Boiling Seas story. If you haven’t read part 2, it’s here. But now it’s time to get spooky.

The chapel was as bare and dull within as without. The walls were whitewashed, the seats rough wooden benches that didn’t even look properly sanded down. Even the most simple places of worship would display the symbols of the various gods – but in here they were small, dull things, looking almost an afterthought above the plain stone block that was the altar. The pulpit was of the same rough-hewn wood. There were no banners, was no metalwork, no ornamentation of any kind. Max’s lip curled in disgust. She’d spent a lot of her academic career examining accounts of the temples of old, things of gold and soaring spires dedicated to deities long since forgotten. Tal, who had actually seen many of those forgotten temples, looked just as unimpressed. This was a paltry imitation even if one were feeling generous.

“So,” Tal said, dragging Max from her reverie, “this ossuary.”

“Um, somewhere behind the altar. That’s where they usually are. In places like this.” Tal nodded, and strode down the aisle between the benches without hesitating. The chemical lanterns that ran in a line along the ceiling were extinguished, the only light within the pale moon, filtering through the slit windows. Even if someone were watching the windows no passing shadow would be visible. She followed him. There was a door, but Tal ignored it. Probably just a back room. Instead he knelt behind the altar, where there was flat double door set into the flagstones, heavy and ironbound. It too was locked, but Tal’s picks flashed, and though it took him a moment he had it open swiftly. He pried up one of the doors, grunting with the effort.

“Give me a hand.”

Together they lifted the heavy doors free. The hinges were thankfully well-oiled. A steep stair led down, into a darkness like pure pitch, utterly impenetrable. Max shivered at the sight despite herself. You broke into an asylum. And out of it. This isn’t even the most frightening thing you’ve done today, let alone lately. All the same, the dark, and her knowledge of what lurked within it, made her shudder.

“Guards!” Tal’s hiss was urgent. His eyes were closed as he felt the air. “Two coming. With a hound.” He was already halfway into the hole in the floor. “Come on!”

Half-reluctantly Max dropped into the steep stairwell, and she pulled her door up and over, straining at the huge weight of the iron and old oak. She almost let it drop – almost – but she held it, and she and Tal lowered the doors as gently as they could, setting them in place with barely a sound and plunging them into total darkness. They were just in time. As the doors slotted into place Max heard the chapel’s main door open, and cursed quietly. It shouldn’t have opened at all, should have stayed resolutely locked without the key. The guards would see the shattered lock – and as she thought it she heard one of them exclaim, muffled by the heavy doors but clearly startled. She grimaced.

“Sorry,” she murmured, almost directly in Tal’s ear.

“Don’t worry,” the thief murmured back. He was doing something in the dark, working by touch alone. “They won’t find us.”

“Surely they’ll look in here?”

“Not – ” there was a soft click from above them “ – if it’s still locked.” There was another, softer snap, and a soft golden light filled the air, gently spreading out from Tal’s clenched fist. It was dim, but in the darkness it was more than enough to see the satisfaction on his face as he pocketed his lockpicks again.

“Very nice,” Max admitted. Tal grinned.

“Thanks. Now let’s get below before they bring over the damn dog.”

Down the steep stair they climbed, into the dark, the golden glow of Tal’s witchlight dripping from his fingers. Max had to fight not to be fascinated by the light, forcing herself to concentrate on the rough, plain stone of the tunnel, looking for clues. Tal’s light was a strange piece of magic, neither pure fire nor pure light, nothing that any piece of book-learning had prepared her to see. But then he’d had no formal training like she had, knew none of the structures and theories of magic that had been laid down by centuries of scholars. The light running over Tal’s hand like liquid was something instinctual, something new.

Thankfully there was neither sight nor sound of pursuit – the guards above must have been fooled by Tal’s relocking of the doors. The surface was, presumably, still in uproar from the broken lock, clear evidence of trespassers – but at least, for now, they were out of sight and mind. Max didn’t relish the thought of what might wait for them above, though. She pushed it out of her mind. The tunnel levelled out quickly, and the witchlight illuminated more plain flagstones, more rough walls. Tal’s frown deepened.

“Long way down.”

“They wish to keep its contents safe,” Max replied as they walked. “I cannot blame them. This is a traditional design, in any case.”

“Arcadian?”

“Later, but inspired. The dead must be kept at a minimum distance from the living worshippers. To avoid unintentional idolatry.” Max remembered the hefty treatise she’d laboured through a few years before when studying funeral rites for a series of essays. “Space and layout were very important to the Arcadians. Alter placement, proximity of relics – ”

“I do know a little,” Tal interrupted – but gently, with a small smile. “I don’t need a lecture.”

“Sorry.” Max flushed. Not talking to anyone for four days had clearly affected her more than she’d realised.

“Anyway,” Tal continued, “you can point it out to me in person. Here we are.”

Before them, the rough tunnel ended in an archway of smooth black marble, polished to a mirror-bright gleam. Tal took another step, stretching out his hand, and the liquid glow of his witchlight licked at the walls beyond the archway, and caressed the bones that sat upon the rows of endless shelves.

“Hellfire,” Tal breathed. Max was already ahead of him, leaning close to one of the shelves. The bones were human, and they were legion. They were not laid out in the shape of skeletons, but packed neatly into the shelves, separated by wooden dividers. Long, thin bones were stacked at the back of the deep shelves, tibiae jostling for space with ribs; in front of them sat vertebrae stacked three or four high in tight columns. The small bones of fingers and toes had been placed in slots in the bottom of the shelves, running the width of each alcove, and atop those slots, at the front of each space, was a grinning, eyeless skull.

“Fascinating,” Max breathed, examining the nearest skull. The alcove was barely wider than the skull itself, every bone of the owner’s body packed tightly into the space behind it. It was a very efficient use of space. A small brass plaque gleamed below the skull. The owner’s name had been Alexios. The dates were several hundred years old. Amazing. That was old Arcadian. Had this bone-House really been here for that long?

“Just how many,” Tal began, but he faltered as he raised his hand, clenching it, his witchlight glowing more brightly, and he saw the full extent of the ossuary. Max gasped too. There were hundreds of alcoves, the shelves stretching floor to ceiling, eight feet high, and from every one there leered a pale skull, dark-eyed and grinning.

“Hundreds,” Max breathed, her thumping, fearful heart fighting a bloody war with her fascinated scholar’s brain. Thousands, even. All named, all dated. This could not have always been an asylum. What other buildings stood on this isle before? Temples? Palaces? Given time she could have compiled whole books’ worth of new knowledge of the old Empire from these bones and this place, she was sure of it.

But they didn’t have that time. The guards would, eventually, realise she was gone from her cell, and when they did so no stone would be left unturned in their search for her. The asylum prided itself on its security. According to them, no patient – or prisoner – had ever left without being discharged. If they dallied, they would be hunted – and eventually they would be found.

Tal saw the look on her face and grimaced. He, too, had the glint of fascination in his eye. A thief only he was not.

“We don’t have time.”

“I know.”

“Maybe some day.”

“Maybe.” But Max knew it would almost certainly not be a day in her lifetime. She breathed in deeply, and then let out her regret in a great sigh.

“Alright,” she said. “There ought to be an alcove further along. With records.” She felt a pang of loss, knowing what those records might be able to tell her, but quashed it.

“An index?”

“I hope so.”

Tal let out a sigh of his own, and straightened, brightening his witchlight.

“Come on, then. Let’s get this done.”

Tune in next week for part 4.

The Boiling Seas – Non-Canon Adventures, Part 2

Here’s the next instalment of the little non-canon Boiling Seas side-story I wrote a while ago. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, you can find if here. Once/if you have, enjoy the next bit.

Tal stepped over to the door and bent to the lock. Max caught the flash of picks in his hand, and shook her head. Enough magic at his fingertips to melt metal, and he still relies on this. But it was his way, and she wasn’t about to interrupt – and besides, she thought as the lock clicked open, he was very good at it.

“Anyone there?” she whispered, wary of the guards. She didn’t want to start a fight if they could help it, and knew that Tal didn’t either. They were neither of them warriors. She saw him close his eyes, concentrate. Another trick I need to learn. Max watched him taste the wind, feeling its currents – draughts, breezes, and breathing.

“Nobody in the corridor,” he muttered. “Clear.” He opened his eyes and opened the door, and Max followed him into the corridor. The light hurt her eyes; the cells were dim but the corridors were warmly lit by chemical lanterns at regular intervals. Automatically she leached a little of their heat, replenishing her reserves. She had a feeling she’d need it.

“This way,” she said confidently. Tal shut the door – there was no sense advertising her absence – and followed her. Max hadn’t had much chance to look around but she’d seen enough to know where they were going. She trod carefully, mindful of her bare feet. Wish you’d brought some boots, Tal. The asylum was a warren of outbuildings, and its main keep a maze of corridors, but she walked with confidence towards the nearest stairwell. A madman would have been hopelessly confused on their way in, as the orderlies marched them to their cell. But Max had been paying attention, and if there was one thing her time at the Lantern had given her it was an excellent memory. They slipped down the stairs silently, padding along the next corridor past cell after cell, each one locked securely, each with its own occupant. The doors were heavy, oak bound in iron, but they were not completely soundproof. Max’s lip curled in discomfort as she heard whimpers, moans in many voices, many accents. There was nobody around to listen, except for them, and they could do nothing. They were here to steal something, not on a rescue mission. And even if we did, what would we do with them? The Lantern might be able to look after them better than this place – but the Lantern was far away, and its wardens would not be best pleased if one of their wayward daughters turned up without warning and with a hundred invalids in tow. One day, she promised herself. But it could not be today. They had another job to do.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Tal raised his hand sharply, his fist clenched. Max froze in place, watching him as he closed his eyes again and felt the air. They’d realised a while back that they’d need to communicate in silence sometimes. Max had spent some days developing a simple sign language and teaching it to the thief. He might have always worked alone before, but he was a quick learner, and she was, it turned out, a decent teacher. From his fist, Tal extended two fingers without looking around, then tipped them to the left. Two guards on the left. Max thought for a moment, recalling the layout of the corridor, then nodded. That would work.

For a moment she thought herself a fool as she patted her very empty pockets, but in the tunic Tal had brought she found what she needed; a few small coins, each one in its own pocket so they did not clink together. He does think of just about everything. She took one, closed her own eyes, visualising the angles… and then as she tossed the coin she breathed out, sharply, and grabbed at her own breath with her mind, and the wind came with it, and the coin shot off into the darkness like an arrow from a bow. She kept up the push for a long moment, then let go, and an instant later she heard the coin strike a distant wall with a sharp, metallic noise. Perfect. Max listened, and could hear a faint murmur of confusion. Then she heard footsteps, faint again but there, moving away.

“Nice,” Tal whispered. Max smiled to herself, then followed him as they moved again. Down the corridor they crept, and down another flight of stairs, and then another, seeming to double back on themselves at least twice. Max began to doubt herself as the corridors stretched on and on… but then she felt fresh, cold air on her face, and she and Tal slipped through a heavy door and out, at last, into the asylum grounds.

The huge keep loomed behind them, six floors tall and broad with it, all dark stone and dozens of tiny slit windows. She had been in there only a few days, and had known escape was coming for all of them, but Max still sighed with relief when she stepped outside. Freedom. It was as simple as breathing cool night air, tasting a hint of salt on the breeze.

“Which way now?” Tal asked, pulling her gently into the shadow of the main building. Max saw the distant lanterns of patrolling guards, atop the thick walls, their battlements eroded by sea air but still strong, that encircled the complex of buildings. The asylum had a small island to itself, just off the larger isles that housed the nearest city. The barrier of the sea kept its poor residents safely out of sight, sound and mind. She shrunk into the shadow as best she could.

“Fifty yards south,” she muttered, remembering the layout. “The chapel’s right there in the open.”

“And the body?”

“Bones,” Max replied. “In the ossuary. It should be empty.” I hope. She was going off very little observation – from the inside, true, but still not much – and the footnote in the old and boring book that had given them the location they needed – or at least had claimed to. They had that on their side, and the information they’d teased out of a drunk former guard two weeks before in a tavern at the docks. It was amazing what you could learn with the right questions. She’d thought it would be difficult, but it was just like any other bit of research she’d done. And I’ve done a lot.

“Open ground,” Tal murmured. “Men and dogs all over the place. What d’you reckon?”

“How did you get over here?” Max asked, frowning. Why does he want my advice? She was a scholar, not a thief – of all the people to ask about stealth she was not the one.

“With difficulty,” Tal replied sarcastically. “Hence my asking. Any tricks up your sleeve?”

“You packed this shirt,” Max shot back. “You ought to know.”

“Very funny. Stretch that brain of yours. We need an edge.” He looked out into the grounds, not saying what they were both thinking: he, the practiced sneak and thief, could probably make it… but not with a gangly scholar in tow. Max knew it for a fact too, hated it. But she was glad Tal hadn’t actually felt the need to say it.

Max thought for a moment, shivering a little in the night air. There were indeed guards everywhere, lanterns in one hand and leashed hounds in the other. The chapel, squat and dark like everything else, was visible from where they lurked, but it was across almost completely open ground. The only trees within the asylum’s wide walls were tall and spindly things, offering little cover to any erstwhile thieves or burglars – and there were none between them and the chapel anyway. Whoever had designed the place had thought that much through. So, we need something else. Another edge.

“I have one thing,” she said slowly, reluctantly. “Nothing guaranteed. Bit of a work in progress.”

“Anything will do,” Tal said with a smile. “What is it?”

Max told him. His smile faded.

“Oh.”

“And you wonder why I didn’t tell you.”

“No, it’s fine.” He was backtracking hastily and unconvincingly, but Max could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

“If it helps, it’s not the same thing. The same discipline, but not exactly what he did.”

“Fine. It’s fine.” Tal drew a deep breath, let it out, opened and closed his hands. They did not shake at all. Max made sure to notice. “Just do it. Let’s get this over with.”

Max nodded, and concentrated, closing her eyes. This would be difficult, but she had never shied from challenges when it came to her magic. You’re one in hundreds, she had been told repeatedly as a child, with a gift that most would kill for. You must learn how to use it properly. And she had, and learned how to use it in more ways than her teachers had ever anticipated, even at the vaunted Lantern. This trick, for instance, was something she’d only ever read about, and then only in books older than her grandfather – at least, until she’d seen someone pull it off as easily as breathing. What she had managed to achieve was a poor imitation, but for today, it would do.

She thought of her skin, and Tal’s, glowing pale in the wan moonlight. She considered that moonlight, shining down from above and casting shadows dark and deep. She took the shadows, and tugged, and wrapped them around them like a cloak. Almost immediately she started to shiver, feeling the energy leached from her veins – but it was working.

“Go,” she whispered, ashamed at how badly her voice trembled. “Go, now.” To his credit, Tal didn’t hesitate, but darted out into the night. Max did her best to follow, keeping her friend within the sphere of darkness. The theory was straightforward enough: sight worked through reflected light, so if they weren’t reflecting light, they weren’t visible. Unfortunately that translated practically as just turning them into a big dark sphere – which wasn’t exactly inconspicuous itself. In time, Max ought to be able to reflect the light not just from them but around them, that they might become completely invisible – but for now her magic worked in the dark, and that was about it. And it drained her like nothing she’d ever had to do before. Even lightning is easier than this.

But while they might not be invisible within their cloak of shadows they were at least much harder to see. Tal’s instincts were unerring, and Max followed his lead as they crept across the grounds. She could see, just, through the shadows that surrounded them, see the bright spots of guard lanterns approaching – but then Tal would steer them clear, keeping them firmly in the darkness. He held them briefly in the shadow of a single, spindly tree, as a dog handler walked past, his hound broad-shouldered and drooling. Max gritted her teeth as she bent the light away, feeling her hands shaking. But the guard did not notice that the shadow was larger than it should be, and then Tal was moving again, and she stumbled after him, trying to be as quiet as possible. The thief’s soft steps made no sound whatsoever.

“Here,” Tal whispered, pulling her gently forwards, and she realised that they were at the chapel, its dull stone walls filling her view. It was a small building, blocky and ugly, its windows narrow, with none of the stained glass or ornamentation that other such places had. It was utilitarian to the extreme.

Tal led them round the building and into the narrow porch that sheltered its door. There were no guards there. Why would there be? Max thought as she shuffled herself into the corner, as out of sight as she could manage. Why would a patient sneak into a holy house?

She released her magic, and the light flooded back onto their skin. A wave of fatigue washed over her, and she leaned against the wall heavily, hoping it would pass. Damnit. I need food. And sleep. But she could feel the warmth leaching back into her limbs, slowly but surely. She would have pulled what she could from the air if it hadn’t been so cold already.

“Good job,” Tal muttered. He was examining the door’s lock, picks held loosely in his offhand. Max peered over his shoulder, but there were no guards in sight. There was but a single lantern above the chapel door, but it was shuttered, dim. They were safely shadowed in the porch.

“Just get us inside,” she murmured back. She wanted to sit down and never get up.

“Trying,” Tal said. She heard the almost inaudible sound of his picks scraping metal. “Damnit.” The curse was muted but heartfelt.

“What?”

“Too stiff,” the thief muttered. “One of those heavy-duty old things. Can’t push the pins – damnit.” He pulled his hand back. In it was a cleanly broken pick. He produced a flat-bladed knife and worried at the edge of the frame, trying to catch the lock-bar itself and push it sideways. Max waited for a moment, until Tal gave up with a scowl.

“Allow me,” she said quietly, pushing Tal gently aside. The thief raised an eyebrow.

“Have you been practicing?”

“Not with picks,” Max said, laying one hand flat on the lock plate. She felt the metal, the mechanism – stiff, not oiled in far too long, its tumblers coated in a thin layer of rust. They would move, but only with something much heavier than a lockpick to turn them. They needed the key: that, or Max would have to get creative. She considered the mechanism. She might be able to manipulate a lighter lock by pushing at the air, but this one was too stiff. Were she a more skilled mage she could warp the structure of the metal itself – but that wasn’t something she was yet capable of. If she hadn’t already exhausted herself reflecting the light she could have melted it, but she didn’t have the energy. But I don’t need it.

“Do you have water?”

Frowning, Tal produced a slender metal bottle from his satchel. Max took it, and, carefully, poured the contents into the keyhole. She held it in place with a skin of air, letting the water fill as much of the mechanism as it could, covering all the springs and tumblers and ratchets. She set the bottle down. Then she took a deep breath, and pulled, not pushing her body heat into the lock but pulling the lock’s warmth out,and the metal plate grew cold beneath her palm, so cold that her skin stuck to it, and inside the lock the water she had packed there cooled too, then thickened, then froze. And as it did so, it expanded. There were a series of dull cracks, thankfully muffled by the water, as old metal gave way. Looking around, Max saw more than one distant, bobbing lantern pause, their bearers turning at the sound – but Tal was already pulling her hand free of the lock and turning the handle. The door protested, but the ruined mechanism ground, then gave way. The door swung open.

“Go,” Tal whispered, and Max slipped through the chapel door, wincing at the rawness of her palm, a little skin left behind on the icy metal. Tal followed, pulling the door gently closed behind him. Max saw the lock from within, frosted with ice, and she smiled as the warmth she’d drained from the metal and water stopped her hands from shaking.

“We need to be fast,” Tal muttered, looking around the inside of the chapel with a practiced eye. “Someone will want to have a look.” He whistled softly. “Though at what, in here, I can’t imagine.”

Part 3 next week. Stay tuned.

The Boiling Seas – Non-Canon Adventures, Part 1

Quite a long time ago – more than a whole SPFBO, in fact – I wrote a little Tal and Max story for Rockstarlit Book Asylum‘s Tales from the Asylum series. The version that went up on their site was a nice short one – basically just a test of writing from Max’s perspective, rather than Tal’s, which came in handy for the still-in-progress Boiling Seas 2.

But the version that went up on Tales from the Asylum wasn’t the full version. I actually wrote a much, much longer cut initially, and only the very beginning ever went public.

And I just remembered that I said I’d publish that full version some day… and then promptly forgot about it entirely.

So, now seems as good a time as any. It’s a long old piece, so I’m going to do it over the course of a few weeks – but it was fun to write, and it’s a nice little mini-adventure.

But as the title of this post suggests, it’s NOT part of the proper Boiling Seas continuity. At least, not at the moment. Bits of this story ended up inspiring completely different bits of the second Boiling Seas book – but given I introduced several other characters since writing this, it doesn’t really fit anymore. So when I eventually publish the second book, don’t worry about reading this – it won’t get referenced. But it’s still a nice story. So without any more ado, here’s the first chunk. More next week.

Maximillian had discovered that she was not very good at waiting.

That, she corrected herself, wasn’t entirely true. With a book in her hand or a pleasant view to mull over, or even some interesting rock strata to observe, she was perfectly content to wait and while away the hours. She was happy to wait for an experiment to mature, relishing the anticipation of success or failure, her mind filled with possibilities. She was a scholar. In many ways, waiting was at the heart of her profession.

What Max wasn’t good at was waiting with nothing to do. And here, wrapped in a straitjacket in the padded asylum cell, she really had nothing to do.

She’d left her books behind, which was just as well given all the personal effects she had carried had been taken away when she’d been committed. It had been absurdly easy to have her taken inside – no paperwork, no doctor’s note, no proof at all that she was disturbed or ill in any way. They had simply walked her to the front desk in the little gatehouse and asked to have her taken away. A little gold to grease the orderly’s palm, and Max had been inside. She’d been marched inside the imposing building, all dark stone and dark tiles, brooding on its own little island just off the main group, without the chance to even ask the warden’s name, and placed in front of a doctor for the exact amount of time it took the balding man to look up from his paperwork, look her up and down, and then order her confined. Max hadn’t even left the room before he’d started writing again, as though she’d never been there. That had stung. But she’d kept her mouth shut as the guards had frog-marched her up the winding stairs, through a truly bewildering array of corridors, and into her cell. Her new home, for the last two days.

Three, now. It had just passed midnight by her reckoning. If she really had been mad, it would have been an utter travesty to treat her so. The fact that she was completely sane didn’t make it much better.

It was dark outside – not that the time of day made much difference to the inside of her cell, which was dim and dull even at high noon. The wan starlight came through a narrow grate at the top of the room, set into the wall. It would be big enough to fit through – but it was barred with iron. The walls were high, and padded with thick canvas. Even if her hands had been free she wouldn’t have been able to climb. The floor was much the same, and the room had no furnishings at all – no bed, no chair, nothing. She could stand, and walk around a little – with not inconsiderable effort, given that her hands were bound in front of her within the straitjacket she’d been forced into. It was immensely uncomfortable.

And there was nothing for Max to do.

At the absolute least she wanted to write down her observations. It wasn’t exactly glamourous, but this was a rare opportunity to see inside a mental institution like this, and her hands itched for paper and ink to record her every thought. It was a shambles, true, a parody of effective healthcare (Max ought to know, given that she studied at the finest hospital, physical or mental, in all the Seas), but that only made her want to write about it more. Her mind was filled with facts and figures, churning with all her myriad observations: the poor quality of the food she’d received; the already debilitating isolation – the only human she’d seen was the man who brought the awful gruel round – the pain in her arms from the tight straitjacket, the total lack of any physical or mental stimulation. There had been no more visits from the doctor, at least not to her, which made her question further the reputation of this place as a haven for the mad and mentally ill.

She’d heard some of the other patients, though. The cell walls were padded but they were far from soundproof, and the muffled voice of the doctor and his assistants seemed to carry through the whole building. She’d heard too much by far already. There were a lot of people in this place, and none of them wanted to be there.

The memory of the sounds had haunted Max when she had finally managed to sleep. She suspected that they would never stop doing so.

This, she thought to herself for the umpteenth time, had better be worth it.

She tried to get comfortable against the padded wall, and failed. The only way to be remotely so was to lie down on the floor – also padded – and stare up at the bare stone of the ceiling. Clearly the asylum’s budget hadn’t stretched to full coverage with the canvas. Her arms ached, pinned in front of her. She should have been allowed out of the jacket by now for a few minutes at least, lest she suffer some long-term muscle damage, but she hadn’t even been freed to eat. The man with the gruel had fed her like a baby; a broad-shouldered man with a closed face and small eyes. Max had tried to get some conversation out of him each time he had come into the cell, but his eyes hadn’t even flickered when she’d spoken, asked his name, whether the doctor was coming. He hadn’t responded at all, had just continued to spoon gruel into her mouth mechanically, forcing her to shut up and eat. Four times the man had come, and four times he had stayed silent, simply gathering his tools and leaving as soon as she was done, locking the heavy door behind him. He hadn’t even looked her in the eye, not once. To him, it was as though Max hadn’t been a person at all.

Max had hoped the man might leave some tool behind, a spoon or pen or something – but he had been careful. The only thing she had managed to do was tease a loose thread in the canvas free with her teeth in a fit of boredom, which was incredibly useful when she had no hands with which to hold it.

It was doubly frustrating knowing that, if she really wanted to, she could probably get out in minutes. But that hadn’t been the point of her coming here. That hadn’t been the plan.

So Max leaned against the padded wall and waited.

She couldn’t even look out of the high window, tall as she was, out into the asylum’s dark grounds. Even they were dark and foreboding, ringed with tall trees whose leaves cast heavy shadows all around. The walls around the grounds were thick and tall – clearly this place had once been a fortress, a bastion of one of the forgotten empires. The main building, in which she sat and waited, would have been the keep, blocky and strong. She’d glimpsed guards walking atop the walls as she was marched in from the gatehouse – itself a seriously sturdy construction, a rusted portcullis hanging ominously from the ceiling – five or six at least, heavy cudgels swinging from their belts. Attempts to escape, it seemed, would not be met with gentle reparations. Presumably there were more guards walking the grounds themselves – she had heard, earlier in the day, the sound of other people outside in the sunlight, whether patients or staff she couldn’t tell. It’s alright for some, then. Maybe in a few years she’d be let out too. Maybe in a few years she’d have actually been treated.

Max didn’t intend to stay quite so long, but it was one of the nicest thoughts she’d had all day.

She went through her mnemonics again, for want of anything better to do. She’d gone through the exercises taught to her as a child so many times now that the taxonomic and astronomical lists were absolutely embedded in her memory. It would have helped to write them down, of course. She hoped she had them right. If he’s left me to spend three days memorising the wrong things then I’ll kill him, she thought to herself. She looked up at the window. It had to be midnight by now, surely. It was time already. So where is he?

But all was still. Max sighed, and began going through the full names of the various species of ironclad shellfish that lurked around the northern coast of her home isles. She wasn’t even a biologist, not properly, but it was knowledge for the sake of it. She closed her eyes as she did so, listening to the sounds of the asylum all around her, to the gently moaning wind through the trees outside, and to the sound of quiet sobbing from the floor above.

She had reached Craven’s Oyster when she heard the faint scraping from outside her cell window.

Max froze, abandoning the memory exercise, turning all her attention to the noise. It came again – a soft sound, something scraping at the rough stone of the asylum wall. Leather, she thought, concentrating. A boot. Well, presumably two. Then she heard a soft grunt, and looked up just in time to see a hand appear from nowhere and take hold of her window’s bar, and a familiar face, sporting a familiar smile, rose into view through the narrow slit.

“Took you long enough,” Max whispered with a grin.

“They have got dogs,” replied Tal Wenlock, looking slightly offended in the moonlight. “I had to take few detours.”

“Around the whole island?”

“Have you seen the size of those walls?” Tal shook his head. “Good thing we found that side-gate. You’d have been here a lot longer otherwise.”

“I’m not staying here a minute longer than I have to,” Max said, the words heartfelt. “It’s been too long already.”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry I’m late,” hissed the thief. “Now can you let me in? Much as I’d love to hang here forever, my shoulder’s killing me.”

Max shrugged her straitjacketed shoulders pointedly. Tal scowled.

“Oh for the love of the gods, just break out already.”

Max smirked. Then she concentrated, and let the heat build in her arms, all the energy she had saved over the last few days of confinement boiling out from her blood, and the straitjacket smouldered, then caught, white-hot flames devouring the fabric like a starving man. The buckles came free and so did Max’s arms, and she pulled the jacket over her head as quickly as she could, throwing it to the floor and beating it out awkwardly. She kept the heat bubbling beneath her skin – her undershirt was sleeveless and the night was cold – as she darted over to the window.

“Drama queen,” Tal muttered. Max scowled.

“Do you want to hang there forever?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then I’m left,” she said. Tal nodded.

“Right,” he confirmed. They both closed their eyes and concentrated, and Max took the heat in her veins and pushed it down, channelling it all into her hand, her fingers. She reached up, more thankful than ever that she was tall, and took hold of the leftmost of the window’s three bars. It was iron; she could feel its structure, familiar as a pair of gloves. Perfect. Steel would have taken much longer, and she didn’t trust Tal’s shoulder to hold out that long with its old injury.

Max forced the heat out from her fingers and into the metal. Slowly, it began to glow a dull red, and she had to be careful to keep pushing the heat away from her fragile hands. Carefully, she grasped the bar, still filling it with heat, and pulled. The bar resisted at first, but it was cherry-red, and after a long moment it gave, bending in Max’s hand, the top end scraping free of its socket in the stone frame. She twisted, pulled harder, and the bottom of the bar came away completely. She tossed it aside quickly, the metal thumping softly on the padded floor, sending wisps of smoke where the hot metal met the cloth, and banked her inner fire, wincing at her crimson palm, a minor burn waiting to happen. Careless. But she had been trapped for long enough already, and burns that would heal completely were a small price to pay.

Tal grunted and pushed his own bar into the room. Max saw that it was straight, unbent, and noticed that the stone around its socket had crumbled like sand.

“Very nice,” she said approvingly. “You’re getting better.”

“Seemed a good time to practice,” Tal grunted. “Now do the other one before I fall off the damn building!” He shifted his grip to grasp the windowsill instead of the bar, and Max summoned her magic again. The last bar didn’t take as long – she was already warmed up. She threw the bent metal into the corner of the room, then grabbed Tal’s wrists.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Max pulled, and the skinny thief slipped through the narrow window as easily as breathing, landing catlike on the padded floor with barely a sound. He straightened, dusting off the worst of the stone-dust that covered his dark clothes with more dust from his hands, then pulled his satchel around from the small of his back, rummaging inside.

“Here. Cold out.” Max took the offered tunic gratefully. With her magic banked, she felt the midnight chill keenly in her thin undershirt. Tal didn’t seem concerned himself, standing without shivering in a simple shirt and trousers. His satchel of tricks hung from his shoulder, as always, and his face was dark with lampblack. Sneaking in couldn’t have been easy, and she felt a wave of affection for the man who’d broken in to get her out – before remembering that it had been his idea to put her in here in the first place. On balance, she would give him some credit. Some.

“Thanks,” she said, pulling on the tunic.

“No problem. You’ve got to learn the temperature trick.”

“I’m making progress,” Max said, annoyed. Tal smiled warmly, and her ire faded.

“I know.” He looked around the padded cell, raised an eyebrow. “Nice place you’ve got here. Love the décor.”

“I’m thinking of moving,” Max replied with a smile. “Right now, in fact.”

“Well, let’s get you packed,” Tal said. He paused for a heartbeat. “All done.” He indicated the door. “Now, shall we?”

“Let’s.”

“You know where it is?”

“Roughly.”

“Then let’s be off.”

Stay tuned for more next week.