“Hey, Astrid?” said Mishka, knocking on the wood next to one of the changing stalls. “I found something else nice.”

  There was a cursing from within, and Mishka pulled back the cubby’s curtain to see Astrid swearing at a pair of trousers she was trying to force over her thighs. “Stupid sizing, what does 1-1B even mean? Who were these made for!?” said Astrid, before looking up. “What is it?”

  “Look at this,” said Mishka, holding up a rather nice blue cloak with white velvet lining and several stars emblazoned on it. “It comes with a matching hat too-”

  “For the last time, that stuff is from the costume area!” said Astrid. “I’m not wearing a cloak!”

  “What’s wrong with cloaks?” said Mishka. “Cloaks are versatile-”

  “They make you look like a magician!” said Astrid.

  “No, they don’t,” said Mishka.

  “Yes, they do,” said Astrid, waving a hand over her. “Case in point.”

  Mishka grumped and shifted her find. “I’ve got white blouse too, oh, and a matching skirt here, it has nice yellow stars, look! Well, the shade’s a bit darker, but I think it’s close enough-”

  “I don’t wear skirts!” said Astrid.

  “Well, then- then there’s no helping you!” said Mishka, tossing her gathered finds onto a pile of other ‘rejects’ – most of which were cloaks and skirts.

  Really, both pieces were eminently practical and fashionable items of clothing – good, everyday, gender neutral wear for any kind of weather, particularly if the cloak had a hood.

  Well, then, if Astrid didn’t want her help, maybe Mishka would just get the hat herself, she thought, pulling that large, conical, floppy blue-with-stars headwear on. It got in the way of her ears a bit, but given Astrid’s propensity to shout, that might be a good thing, and she could always enchant it to transmit sound if need be.

  Annoyed, Mishka wandered back down the stairs to the pet section. Like the rest of the store, it was very quiet – with the only sound the occasional snuffling of the piglets, or the gentle woofing of the puppies who rushed towards her as she approached, jostling and pushing each other to get a pat from her as she leaned over the glass and scratched them behind their ears. She smiled. Her people had never really kept pets, but if she ever settled down somewhere, she’d love to get a dog, or dog-like analogue if it was one of the worlds that the Architects hadn’t seeded.

  Then she snorted to herself. If she ever settled down anywhere. As if she had any kind of choice in the matter. She pulled her slightly slobbery hand from the puppy tank and tapped at her bracelet for a moment, doing a passive scan of nearby space for any kind of indication of Beneath activity. Apart from her own very faint trace, nothing. Good. She’d been worried that they might have already detected the Eternity Splinter when Baelgoroth had exposed it. It didn’t seem they had.

  She wandered on, peering at the various reptiles and fish and eventually ending up at the tank full of iridescent octopi. They wafted about in the water, studying her with their weird, black slitted eyes. Someone had left the tank’s top open, and she reached up to slide it closed.

  The lights overhead flickered, and the faint sound of howling wind and a banging door could be heard from down the department store. It really was torrential out there. Probably best to sleep here, and then either explore this world or Voidwalk immediately if the storm was still ongoing the next day. She’d seen an inn-like area a bit further down with a wide array of beds that had looked free.

  The overhead lights flickered again, then died, plunging the store into darkness. Mishka heard a few shouts of alarm echoing through the store, including one from Astrid’s direction. Mishka blinked and rubbed her temple. Just for a moment, she thought she’d felt a whisper of something-

  There was another nearby shout, and Mishka moved back to where Astrid was swearing and stumbling out of the changing area, halfway into a set of ill-fitting trousers.

  “If you were wearing a skirt, this wouldn’t have happened,” admonished Mishka. “Skirts are very practical.”

  “Mishka?” said Astrid, staring vaguely in her direction. “Dammit! I can’t see. Help me find that pair of pants that actually fit,” said Astrid, moving back into the changing corridor and fumbling around blindly. “Summon a light, or something! You’re a magician!”

  “I’m a wizard, and even that is a gross oversimplification,” said Mishka. “I am from a culture that unified magical theory in ways that few species have ever dreamed-”

  “Yes, fine you’re a fucking archwizard or whatever,” said Astrid. “Just make the damn light already!”

  Mishka snapped her fingers and created a warelight.

  Or rather, she tried. She snapped her fingers all right, but nothing happened.

  “Mishka!” said Astrid.

  “That’s… odd,” said Mishka, going through the steps of the spell slower and snapping her fingers again.

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  Warm, orange light surged into existence above her, lighting up the area, although someone dimmer than it should have been. That was weird. Conjuring warelights was something she’d learnt as a very small cub, and Mishka had a lot more than just the general magical training all Ursulan’s received: she’d been a battle-mage in the marine corps for the first century of her career, before transferring to arteficing and then getting promoted up the ranks into command – she didn’t just fail at making a warelight. There was-

  “Ah ha!” said Astrid, finding the rather boring pair of ‘black jeans’ that she’d had been so chuffed with. She pulled them on. “Right, well, I don’t know how we’re going to pay with this power failure. Assuming you didn’t cause it this time.”

  Mishka gave her a withering glare and brought up her bracelet. A mana screen appeared above it, and she began to investigate. Or rather, she tried to – instead the mana-screen remained frozen.

  “That’s… that shouldn’t happen,” said Mishka.

  “What’s up?” said Astrid.

  “My bracelet – it’s… frozen?”

  “Sure, give it a minute,” said Astrid.

  “This- this isn’t a primitive device,” said Mishka, indignantly. “This is an Ursulan Portable Terminal. This has more calculating power than all the databases in your entire collection of worlds put together. It doesn’t- it doesn’t freeze.”

  “Uh huh,” said Astrid, rolling her eyes. “Or maybe you’re not as advanced as you like to think you are?”

  Mishka scowled and lowered the bracelet, instead rummaging around in her pocket for her magnifying glass.

  “Maybe shielding you from Baelgoroth damaged it?” muttered Mishka as she brought out the diagnostic tool and turned it on with a tap.

  It took a moment, longer than it should have, before the runes lit up around its exterior. She scanned her bracelet. It was also sluggish in its duties, but did at least start showing some diagnostic results.

  “It seems… fine?” said Mishka, frowning. “I don’t understand-”

  A scream ripped through the darkness. Specifically, the kind of spine-shaking howl of absolute terror that conveyed such overwhelming fear it was impossible to replicate or fake.

  Mishka grabbed Astrid’s hand and took off towards it at a run.

  “Hey! Hey, I don’t have my shoes!” protested Astrid as Mishka pulled her out of the clothing section and into the main, linoleum covered thoroughfare that led back down the stairs and towards the entrance, and in the direction the scream had come from.

  After almost ten seconds of running, a pair of figures appeared in the gloom. One of them, a human, was sprawled on the floor, while the others – who Mishka recognised as the gecken Razzarl, was hunched over them, shaking their shoulders.

  “Mr. Simons? Mr. Simons!?” said Razzarl in a scared voice. She looked up at the incoming light as Mishka and Astrid approached, her green eyes wide and terrified.

  “Let me see him,” said Mishka, skidding to a stop and moving to examine him.

  “Oh spirits, Mr. Simons!?” said Razzarl, her taloned paws shaking.

  “What happened?” asked Astrid.

  “There- there was- we were going to check the lights- but then there was- this- this thing and Mr. Simons- he, he collapsed!”

  There was no obvious sign of external injury, but when Mishka checked for a pulse in all the usual places for a ursulanoid she found nothing. She rolled him onto this back and checked his airways, clear. She snapped her fingers to begin resuscitation.

  Nothing happened.

  “What the fuck!?” snarled Mishka, snapping her fingers again.

  The man’s chest began to rise and fall as her spell took over managing the inhaling and exhaling of air, and began to pump his heart manually. He took a deep, rattling breath.

  “Oh, thank the Goddess-” began Razzarl.

  “It’s just a spell, I haven’t got him back yet,” said Mishka, opening the man’s eyes and peering into them. They weren’t responsive. She tried to check for brainwaves with her magnifying glass, but the stupid thing wasn’t working.

  “Nneehh!” said Mishka, flustered. She stuffed it back into her skirt’s pocket. It seemed she would have to do this the harder, analogue way.

  She rubbed her hands together and placed them on either side of the man’s head. Then she closed her eyes and focused, reaching out a psychic tendril and searching for his mind.

  She found… nothing.

  “That can’t be right,” she muttered.

  “Can you help him? Can you save him?” said Razzarl. “You’re a wizard, aren’t you?”

  “There isn’t anything to save,” said Mishka, opening her eyes and frowning. “There isn’t even any psychic residue; no trace. I have… I have nothing to bring back. It’s like he’s been dead for hours – days, even.”

  “What do you mean!? I was just talking to him!” said Razzarl.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mishka, waving a hand and cancelling her resuscitation spell. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  Perhaps if she was a specialised healer, a soulweaver, she might be able to find some kind of thread to draw back into the body. But she wasn’t. She was trained to keep people alive, or close enough to it, on the battlefield long enough to get them to a proper healer, and this man had been dead too long.

  Which made no sense, because there was no physical decay. It was almost as if he’d never been alive, as if he’d been a soul-less homunculus.

  “No! No! Cast your magic again!” said Razzarl, grabbing Mishka by the shoulders and shaking her. “Cast it again, bring him back!”

  “Hey, easy!” said Astrid, grabbing the larger woman’s arm. “Mishka always does her best. If… if she says she can’t do anything, she can’t.”a

  Razzarl turned and began to weep into Astrid’s shoulder. The human woman made soothing sounds, and rubbed her back.

  “This thing that attacked him,” said Mishka. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know,” sobbed Razzarl. “It was- it was dark… I think- I think there were lots of- lots of eyes? It was- it was horrible!”

  “A spider?” said Astrid with a shiver. “A giant fucking spider?”

  “Are those common in this area?” asked Mishka.

  “Are they- are they common!?” said Razzarl. “No! They don’t exist!” She paused. “Do they?”

  Mishka tapped her finger against her thigh. A giant spider in a place that didn’t have them, her magi-tech on the fritz – something that, barring hostile equivi-magi-tech, shouldn’t have been possible – and something interfering with her magic… all of that was very bad. Bad enough that had this been some kind of mission, she would have scrubbed it and called for an evacuation, and then a dedicated research team.

  “Where are the controls for your light system?” asked Astrid.

  “They- they are at the back of the store – in the staff area,” said Razzarl.

  “OK, great,” said Astrid. “What we’re going to do, is we’re going to go and find a way to turn on the lights. And Mishka here, you see her? Right? I know she looks like she pulls rabbits out of hats, but Mishka is actually a very powerful wizard. She’ll keep us safe. Won’t you Mishka?”

  Mishka stared down at the body that made no sense. She put her fingers against its cheek. Warm. Still warm, but no trace of a mind. That made no sense. Some kind of mind devouring giant spider? No, there’d be evidence of a mind being forcefully ripped from the body…

  “Mishka!”

  “Oh, um, right,” said Mishka. “Yes, protect, lights, right.”

  “Come- come on, it’s this way,” said Razzarl, standing shakily. “I’ll show you…"

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