We slink through backstreets of the Hybourg, Tug and Brin with their knives drawn, Kel and I wedged between them. My brother trembles and in the occasional flicker of firelight I catch sight of the new bruise on his face. I am terrified too. Behind these crowded walls, inside cramped homes built from the same black slabs as the giant market pit, there are more minds than fish in a river.

The relentless fragments of memory disorientate me. It is difficult to focus on the real danger; men who pass by hunched under the weight of giant hemp bags; the occasional group of gamblers gathered around dumpster fires, smoke twisting on the crisp air and cloaking their movements.

Beneath the smoke lingers an acrid, burning stink that sticks to my nostril hairs. Along with the animal dung and the dirty water coursing in drains, it is enough to make me clutch my stomach, and breathe through my mouth. We curve into a long street of tilted houses, and are met by the thunder of running boots echoing off the close walls.

Five boys appear from the shadows, tearing towards us. The oldest is about my age, the youngest smaller than Kel. Tug crushes Kel and me against a wall and Brin jumps to his side to conceal us. The boys fly past hollering and screeching before they whip into an alley and vanish, slapping boots and voices vanishing with them as though they have been swallowed into another world.

A ghostly silence hangs on the air, broken a second later by two men running up the street, shouting obscenities. They blunder past, knives glinting, fury in their eyes and their voices. My ears thrum with blood. I press Kel's head against me, feeling more naked here without my knives than in the forests and outlands.

I have not been near a town for nearly six years, since Kel was born. My yearning for a life beyond Blackfoot forest has grown with every passing long-sleep, but this is not the sort of place you can relax for one minute. This is not the sort of place anyone would desire to go.

Tug eventually allows Kel and me to breathe again by removing his crushing bulk. We hurry down the street, following Brin into an empty tavern with one torch burning in the arched doorway.

If Tug intends to take Kel straight to the Pit and leave me with Brin, I have only moments to bargain. But before I can do anything, Brin pushes Kel towards a wooden stairway while Tug greets the innkeeper. Relief pools out from my stomach making my arms and legs limp. I want to hug Kel and cry. Instead, I reach for Kel's hand as he hovers before the first step.

"It's OK, Kel," I say. "They're just stairs."

Brin bustles us up, then Tug arrives with the key to the room, and we all enter. One double bed, a fireplace, a bathroom. The bare essentials, but Kel has never been inside a room before and his face opens, fascinated and afraid. Tug checks the window and closes the wooden shutter. Both men unload their packs. Brin sets about tying Kel to the bed frame.

"You think anyone saw his eyes?" Brin asks.

"We'll soon know one way or another."

"How are we going to get him to the Pit?" Brin finishes with Kel's hands and ties his feet, linking the rope so that Kel cannot stretch out. Tug picks up the dog and strokes its muzzle. Its tongue lolls, and it's panting though it's been riding in Tug's backpack.

"The same way we've made it here so far," Tug says.

I keep my head lowered, trying to decipher if Beast-face is treating me differently after my stunt with the dog. If anything, he seems to pay less attention to me than before. He's seen what I've got and it doesn't stack up to much. But if I can get him to believe taking me to the Pit is in their interests, I could find valuable information about the man who buys Kel.

"I can warn you," I say.

Tug's wolf-like eyes gleam at me. "About what?"

"Anyone following us, lurking in side alleys, planning an ambush."

Brin's gaze slides towards Tug and he shakes his head. Brin does not trust me. But it's more than that. He is still afraid of my talent, refusing even to bind me, though he has finished with Kel.

Tug puts the dog on the raised bed and ties my ropes himself. He jams my wrists together, fibre biting into my torn flesh. Then he stops, breath tickling my nostrils as he scrutinizes me. Heat rises to my cheeks. His gaze seems to say he knows what I'm thinking—my reasons for going with them to the Pit. I might be the one that can trawl his mind, but he is the one that sees straight through me. Once I am bound, he picks up the dog and the men leave, locking the door behind them.

At least he didn't refuse to take me. Perhaps he's considering it.

"I'm thirsty," Kel says.

"I know." He must be hungry too. We have only eaten scraps for days. I scoot up beside him. There is not enough free rope to circle my arms around him. He leans against my side. I rest back against the bed frame and lie my head on his. The two of us, exhausted, half-starving, fall asleep almost at once.

I am poked and shaken towards consciousness. My body aches, my head pulses where Brin's fist met my face. It's like someone stuffed my cheek with small buds of snow cotton that push up into my eye. And the memories. The memories are draining. Even in sleep, the violence, blood and duplicity of the Hybourg has seeped into my dreams.

That shaking again.

"Mirra, wake up," my brother whispers. I raise my eyebrows, hoping my eyelids will move up with them. Prisms of light swim across my vision. It is day. How long have I been out of it? I scramble to sit from where I'm lying in a fetal position, feet and hands still tied to the bed frame.

"Hey, Bud," I croak. The bruise on the side of his forehead where Brin struggled with him has turned a purply-blue. His skin is paler than ever, and moon shadows have formed under his bright blue and gold swirling irises. He stares at the floor near the door. There is a tray with two full bowls of white flaky slop. It has been purposefully left out of our bound-up reach.

Wood crackles in the adjoining washroom, the sound of a fire being lit with damp sticks.

"Which one?" I whisper.

"Tug," Kel whispers back. Tug must be boiling water for the tub. I wonder how long he intends to leave us waiting. It is punishment for my defiance yesterday and Kel's attempted escape. Or it is simple logistics. He cannot unbind us to eat and wash at the same time. Perhaps our needs don't even enter the equation.

The tantalisation of food so close by, and not being able to reach it makes every passing moment torturous. Worse because we do not know how long we will sit here before Tug concedes to let us eat. Not wanting to give the Beast-face satisfaction in such torment, I turn my thoughts to Kel. Somehow, I will make Tug pay for the tattered hope and agony on my brother's small face. Somehow, Tug will regret the day he ever crossed us in Blackfoot forest.

As the anger simmers, I remind myself that every second I have now with my brother, might one day be a second I would kill to get back. I push down the resentment and raise my bound hands to remove my lodestone.

"I want you to have this, " I say, twisting and fumbling to undo the thread. My trusted lodestone has been with me for five years. "Rest it on a leaf in a river and it will always turn so one end faces north."

My brother's eyes flick up from the porridge. "Why?"

"Because."

"No point." Despite his protests, I place the leather string over his neck, and hold it with my teeth to tie it. "You're my north now," I say, tucking it inside the fur of his parka. "Wherever I go, I'll always be heading for you."

Scowling, he turns his shoulder to me and fixes his gaze back on the food.

A sound of splashing water comes from the washroom. We both grow still. Tug exits amid a faint haze of lavender and mint. He kicks the tray towards us. The porridge slops down the sides of the wooden bowls. My brother stretches as far as his rope allows, grabs the bowl within reach and starts gulping. If I twist to the end of my ties, I could inch the tray close enough to take the second bowl. But Tug's eyes are glued to me. I have the impression I'm being tested for something I can't pass. I stare back, heart pounding in my chest. The wolf dog is no longer with us, I realize. And if it hasn't survived, I am to blame.

My body twitches as the hunger claws at me. I resist until Tug grunts, wanders across the wooden floor and closes the washroom door behind him. Manoeuvring myself as close to the porridge as I can get, I stretch out my fingertips and touch the tray. Easy now. I twist the wooden board across the ground. Finally, I can wrap my palms around the sides of the container. With shaking arms, I raise it to my mouth. The gruel is cold and tasteless, but it's like sunshine on my dry, cracked lips. I attempt to drink slowly. Kel grabs the tray and mops up where the mush spilt. He is licking and licking though there is nothing left, only wood splinters to prick his tongue.

"Here," I say, giving him my half-drunk slop. He takes it without hesitation and I watch him guzzle it down, regretful to see it go. But after all these years of taking care of my baby brother, the gesture is instinctive and seeing him eat makes me feel better.

A faint shimmer of warmth oozes from the washroom, along with the smell of burning pine. The fire has taken. In the fort where my mother grew up, they had fires beneath the clay floors to heat the baths and the bedrooms. But I know from our cottage in the town we moved to when I was seven, after my glitter eyes had settled, and from my father's memories, in most places bath water is boiled, then poured into a tub.

A loud rap at the door makes Kel and me jump. A splash comes from the washroom, followed by the sound of wet feet slapping on the wood floor. Tug appears with a fold of material around his waist. His broad arms and hairy chest drip water. Wavy hair hangs around his tattooed, unshaven face. He walks to the door, knife handle curled in his fist.

"Who's there?"

"It's me," Brin says. Tug's shoulders relax and he steps aside. Brin enters, emptying a large thread sack on the bed. I strain to see what he has brought. A gray dress, a pair of boy's trousers, a tunic, and a brassiere which is far too big for my flat chest. They mean to dress us up and sell us as prize objects to rich, scheming merchants. The idea sends invisible bugs crawling across my skin, but it will have its advantages. A wealthy man who believes I am a helpless, dainty shadow weaver, waiting to be bent to his will, will not pre-empt me the way Tug can.

"How are things looking?" Tug asks.

"They're being very cagey about who they're letting in and out. Rumors about the King's soldiers has got everyone on edge."

"Not good for business."

Brin glances at me before he speaks again. "Maybe we should wait a couple of days."

"No. Every day increases the risks."

The tension in Brin's arms and fists relaxes. He is glad Tug has refused to wait. He wishes to be rid of me as soon as possible.

"Let's get the boy ready," Tug says. Brin unknots the rope at Kel's feet, lifts him up and carries him to the washroom. Tug strides over to the window. It is high up in the wall and despite the cross slats angled to cut down the wind, a chill breeze leaks through when he opens the shutter. Droplets of water cool on his bare back, but he doesn't notice the cold.

"I've decided to take you with us to the Pit," he says, watching the street below. "You will be another set of eyes that can see what men wish to hide. Try anything again and I'll kill you. Or him," he adds. "Both of you. No matter how much coin it costs me."

I nod even though he isn't looking. Thank the heavens! I dig my fingers into my palm and force my breathing to remain calm. I will see the low-life who buys Kel, travel through his mind and discover where he is from and what he intends with my brother's skill. And when Tug's purse is full from my own sale and he is thankful to see the back of me, I will escape and do what I am good at. I will track and hunt. Only not with beasts of the forest, but with the man who thinks he owns my brother.