I have it in my hands, but I don't understand it. Mirah peers over my shoulder, grins in my periphery, and pokes at it. The amber cloud reacts to the gravity of her digit instantly, particles drifting into a new configuration of spin. As she removes her finger, the light spirals back into something like its original shape, spitting out loops of fire and tiny shrapnel as it goes.

"Where did you find it?"

Out in the desert even the rattlesnakes have forgotten their names. The moon is fat, hanging overhead, a palid herald of a witching dawn. Over in the east hints of watery blue edge cautiously along the horizon, skirting the big cold empty. The wind caresses raw earth, gentle for the lack of cover, picks at my shirt sleeves, ruffles my hair. Face down, blood has been pooling cross my eyes, drawing a crimson shade on my soul. This is how it ends, and how it begins. After six hours paddling on the shores of final sleep, stumbling to my feet is the only thing to do.

You have been lied to. About everything. The world is mad. You have been made another shivering goblin in the dark, part of someone else's nightmare. There are giant shellfish encrusted engines that make the oceans go around... did you know that? That insects are the gardeners of this world, an enormous hivemind, that works to a single purpose? That at the centre of the earth is a clockwork the size of Mexico City?

They make me to look this way, but it’s just an after-effect. It’s been forever since colonists birthed natural young. The patterntwitching prevents culture shock, for our neighbours, and ourselves. It holds back multiplicity… nothing is mine, everything is someone elses. All my identity is statistical error. My ankles come from the 23rd century, a thousand runners between my toes and my calves… and mostly they’re Kenyan. Eyes took longer, they’re 24th: a Nordic bluegreen that holds focus through age.

“Clouds are slipping out of the oil bright sky, but where the planes soar, they all stutter in flight. Buildings ripple in the wind. The barefoot Lady Of Pale stalks across the tarmac with a storm in her eyes and graceless cats left in her wake.”

Fiona has always had vivid dreams,

“Here she comes, lips stolen out from under kisses.”

But this is from the waking world, her expression blank, gaze vacant.

“Distant jet engines give up and go mute.”

Suddenly Fiona is blonde, the warmth goes out from her cheeks.

“Her whispers fill the sky.”

The halls move in on him like sharks, crowding, coming in from obscure angles. The whole house is a predator. Up on the moor, it swallows what it can, and spits out the broken remains. The villagers find the victims, sometimes, before they die of exposure. Knocked down by the wind and cradled by heather.

Crow feathers lace his flesh, they have done ever since the Succession. Not that it had a name back then. At the time there was only chaos as the houses returned and laid claim to their heirs. He had been blind for a week after his eyes had rolled black, had cut himself to ribbons on his own talons. Instinct had made him claw together his every belonging and huddle in the ruin until the screams had faded away, until his sight had come back- teeth long fused into a pair of overlapping blades.

Winter comes late this year. The ground ices beneath her, the twilight stars twinkle clear. She hates these sordid affairs, hates Hammerfest town, and hates the heat more. She breathes on the windows near naked and draws patterns in rime. Wanders the streets and kills flowers as she goes. Sits herself down on the harbour's edge, and stares at Summer where Autumn used to be. Once a time was, she could freeze the blood of man with her glare, now his can burn the flesh to ash.

It's the end of an era, and the sun is plummeting. The birds fly away from the horizon as if it were on fire, yellows and reds licking at the early stars. They flicker, fading in from far away. Taking our place as we flicker out, a little like falling asleep.

Everything that comes after this will be a dream.

All we want is for the world to keep on turning, anything else is too much, or too little. The sun rises. We've been awake for hours, just to keep the morning stars company. The moon rises, and we're there, simply to make sure. Every turn of the great wheel needs watching. The dance is a ritual to keep boredom at bay. The music is just to bide the time. What we're here for, what we're really here for, is the cold and the light. To be there, stood in the middle of empty roads. Stood under dying street lamps. Stood shivering and damp, steaming and wide eyed.