As Nico walked through the crowd, the pressure on his chest became more pronounced, as if someone were pressing his chest against the floor with their foot.

  The looks on his companions' faces flashed through his mind: frowning, perplexed, frightened. Eyes that did not recognize him. Eyes that had stared at him as one would stare at something unstable, potentially dangerous. Those faces were overlaid with other eyes, angry, full of hostility, ready to attack or defend themselves against him.

  He shook his head. As on other occasions, perhaps he was projecting what was not there. Perhaps those eyes were not Kiah's. Perhaps they belonged to someone else.

  He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, trying to blend into the sea of people as the darkness of evening began to envelop the fairground. The stalls were being dismantled or closed for the next day, and some owners were settling into a corner behind the counters, lying down there so as not to leave their goods unattended.

  As Nico walked by, he saw it: a small table had been set up on two trestles, and a dark cloth partially covered the wooden tabletop; above it, an oil lamp dimly illuminated a pair of dice. Around the makeshift banquet, three huge men with muscular arms, probably sailors or dockworkers, were gathered around the table with money clenched in their fists. Behind the counter was Peter. Nico slowed down, then stopped a few steps away, trying to figure out what he was doing.

  The burly men placed money on the makeshift table, then Peter threw the dice. They hit the cloth and rolled. When they stopped, one of the men cursed.

  Peter picked up the coins and quickly slipped them into his pocket.

  Nico, seeing the scene and knowing Peter well enough, guessed what was happening and decided to approach the makeshift table.

  “Again?” Peter asked one of the men. Nico saw Peter's feverish eyes fixed on the three thugs, the crooked smile on his sharp face.

  The three nodded, and Peter nodded back, then said, “If you want.”

  Nico stood watching. The men aimed again, fists clenched and faces hardened. Peter threw and shouted again, “The house wins!” One of the thugs slammed his fist on the table. “Enough.”

  Peter looked up, the crooked smile still on his face.

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  “You're cheating, that's for sure,” said another.

  Peter tried to quickly gather the coins on the table, while saying with an understanding face, “Calm down, we can talk about it.” But one of the three, a bald man with a thick dark beard, grabbed his wrist, while another put his hands on the winnings and pulled them toward him, growling, an angry smile on his scarred face: “We're taking these.”

  Peter tilted his head. “Well, that doesn't seem fair to me.”

  Another said, “If that doesn't seem fair to you, then we'll show you what's fair,” grabbing Peter by the shoulder.

  Nico stepped forward without thinking. He slipped through the crowd and grabbed the edge of the table. The top slid to one side: coins and dice spilled onto the pavement with a clatter, while the table ended up on the foot of the bald man with the dark beard with a sharp thud. He let go of Peter's wrist to hold his foot.

  The oil lantern tipped over, landing on the man holding Peter by the shoulder. Peter slid to the side, while in a flash the man's shirt caught fire.

  As the man tried to extinguish his shirt and the other held his sore foot where the wooden board had fallen, the scarred man looked at Nico with piggy eyes, fierce with rage, reminding him all too much of his cousin Bruno, and tried to punch him, but his fist struck the empty space where Nico's head had been a moment before.

  Nico grabbed Peter by the arm. “Let's go.”

  They sprinted away, and Nico heard the screams behind them as they ran through the crowd, trying to avoid the stalls, and he remembered with a smile on his lips when they had escaped from the Black Tower, dodging through the narrow streets of Narbras.

  They stopped, breathless and smiling, only when they could no longer hear anyone behind them.

  Peter leaned against the wall, laughing between gasps.

  “Where did you go?” Nico asked, amused.

  Peter smiled. “They said they wanted to play.”

  Nico stared at him. “You don't play with people like that.”

  Peter shrugged. “I always know how to get out of trouble,” Peter said, winking at him, then added, “But it's always handy to have someone to give you a hand.”

  Nico looked at him amused, then turned toward the fair. Some lights were already off, others were flickering. People were leaving and the square was emptying.

  Then the few lights in the square began to flicker, what he saw began to glitch, like a sudden rain. He turned to Peter: his face looked smudged, discolored, with black and white dots moving frantically. With wide eyes and a tight stomach, he looked at his hands: they too seemed to glitch, move, jerk forward, separating from his body. He looked back at the fair. He saw his companions, the group approaching him. The landscape around them was glitching: rain, streaks of pixels. As they walked, they jerked forward. A moment later they were behind him, then in front of him again.

  A lump in his throat blocked his breath and he felt his head grow heavy, his legs go limp, as the floor approached him.