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stepped through.
    He was in a back alley, six feet in width—just wide enough for a land wag. There were garbage cans out here and the alleyway stretched off around the edge of the hotel building, a streetlight blazing right into Grant’s face. Grant turned left and right and spotted the three figures as they trotted off down the alleyway and slipped into another side passage, the woman’s tail of white feathers bouncing up and down with every step.
    Grant followed, chasing the strangely dressed trio as they disappeared from view. As he turned the corner into a narrower alleyway, he had a flash of premonition—the old instincts from his Magistrate days kicking in. He dipped his head, tucking it into his shoulders. As he did so, something came hurtling at him from the narrow alley between the tall buildings, whizzing just over his ducked head before impacting against the far wall in a shower of sparks as metal met brick.
    Grant lurched aside, his right arm darting ahead to slap against the opposite wall as he sped after his quarry. It was at times like this that Grant regretted not coming armed. Behind him, he heard something metallic drop against the paving slabs with a low tinker like a falling paint tin lid—it was whatever had been tossed at him.
    Up ahead, the trio turned again, and this time Grant saw as one of the men—the one with those eerie tattoos—plucked something small, circular and shiny from his waistband before drawing his arm back, ready to throw it. The object was roughly the size of a compact disc, and it hurtled toward Grant at incredible speed.
    Grant stepped to the side, pressing himself against the wall as the silvery disc zipped by. In that moment he had a clear view of the woman where a streetlamp illuminatedher, but only for an instant. She was stunning—olive-skinned with an oval face framed by long dark hair that cascaded to midway down her spine. Her skintight dress, the colour of a purple bruise, hugged every line of her lithe body like liquid before fraying at the hips into torn strips that fluttered all the way down to her ankles. Behind this, a cascade of white feathers fluttered at her rear like a peacock’s fan. But it was her headgear that was most impressive—rising almost eighteen inches above her head. The piece was designed like twin horns, entwining one another in a complex web of twists and turns. Grant had the sudden feeling that the stag-like horns were somehow made from bone.
    In the microsecond it took Grant to register all of this, the second dark-skinned man worked the door to a building on the alleyway, and suddenly the three figures disappeared inside.
    Grant gave chase again, reaching the door a fraction of a second after it had closed. It was a fire door, he realized then, completely smooth with no provision given to opening it from this side. Which raised the question of just how the hell these people had managed to open it.
    But that was only one of the many questions racing through Grant’s mind at that instant. Grant hammered against the door for a few seconds, but no one responded. He looked around him, taking in the narrow alleyway as if for the first time. Three- and four-story buildings stood to either side of him, dark windows peering out onto the narrow passage, a sliver of indigo sky visible between them like an upturned river. Grant wondered where the doorway led, but there was no obvious entrance farther along the wall.
    As he peered up and down the alleyway, Grant spotted something lying at the edge of the door. It was a feather, presumably from the woman’s train. Leaning down, Grantpicked it from the sill of the door, lifting it closer to study it. As he did so he felt its sharp edge cut him across his thumb, just like a paper cut, and he winced. The feather was eight inches long and almost two inches wide, goose white with a pale stem. But there was red at the edges of the feather, and as Grant held it, the red