He moved listlessly, as if he had nowhere to go and didn't know quite how to get here. Felicity Serafine was used to it, and it made him easier to follow, though sometimes she wondered why she bothered.

Because you're under Donna's orders, she reminded herself. Because she cares, even if she likes to pretend she doesn't.

 Cern Akafren was withering inside his skin; she had tried to reach him, time and again, but he barely seemed to live in the same world now. That Lisa girl had turned up to shout at him a month ago, and she'd thought that might do some good, but perhaps it had only widened the rift between him and his former friends.

 She was starting to think that it was pointless: all the chivvying in the world wasn't going to bring him out of this apathy. He had to do it himself. Flick just wished he'd get a move on.

 She was about to step out and confront him when the part of her that ran on four legs shrieked a warning. A predator was nearby, though it smelled like nothing she'd encountered before: sharp, cold, and faintly smoky.

 Dangerous.

 I think I'll stay here, she thought, crouching in the undergrowth, sliding into a less noticeable form with only a brief struggle, as if she were trying to put on a too-small sock.

 "Are you still here?" The voice came from the trees on her left, downwind, and held a wealth of contempt.

 Cern turned; in profile, his bones jutted from his skin, and the added effect of the gloom and his hollow eyes gave him the appearance of a trapped fawn. "Where else would I be?"

 A boy stepped from the woods. She couldn't help but gawp: his hair was a neurotic blue, and his skin was pale enough to make her wonder if he'd crawled out from his coffin. That aside, he was good-looking enough to be just on the right side of the line between exotic and ridiculous. "Dangling from a noose, I would have thought."

 Cern's teeth bared. "You'd love that, wouldn't you, Malefici?"

 It twigged: this had to be the infamous Blue Malefici, who'd been the one to kill Cern's soulmate, hell-sent, hell-raising and - well, hellishly attractive. She'd heard he wasn't exactly an angel, though Cern was vague about just what he'd done to make everyone else hate him so much.

 "It'd make a nice day out, but there wouldn't be any snacks or sideshows, so on reflection, I'd probably take the London Dungeon over watching you lose your nerve yet again." His voice was smooth and rich as Belgian chocolate and just listening to him was probably piling on the calories. "Either way, make up your mind. This became tiresome a long time ago."

 "Well then, why don't you finish it?" Cern snarled. The wolf inside her wanted to howl in answer: there was a challenge in those words.

 "Unfortunately, I'm bound by a promise I made to someone of more worth than you." Blue was looking away, as if Cern was barely worth his attention, and as his stare swung over her hiding place, she felt momentarily dizzy.

 It was only for a second, but she looked right into his eyes as if she looked into the barrel of a gun: she saw her death in them, coloured blue and blazing, a promise of meticulous horror.

 Unthinking, she scrabbled further into the dense vegetation, as if the leaves could shield her from him.

 Cern's laughter was hard and mocking, a carrion call. "Toya, you mean? Gods, I bet you hate that."

 She didn't understand this conversation. She should leave, run away back to the wolves, who were monsters of a simple type. They might kill her, but only if she drove them to it: not because they wanted to pick her apart vein by vein and listen to her shrieks with the inquiring ear of a musician tuning his instrument.

 But she had to look after Cern.

 "I seriously doubt my soulmate galls me half as much as yours does." She flinched at the cruelty of the remark, unsheathed in those precise tones like claws.

 Rage flared on Cern's face, and between his hands, fire leapt: royal purple, twitching like a lightning seed.

 Blue gave a heavy sigh. "Spare me your pretensions of power, half-breed."

 Cern drew his arm back and hurled the fire as if he was throwing a softball - it streamed towards the boy, making her eyes ache. And then-

 Blue caught the power in one hand, where it formed a crackling ball; he closed his fist, and light flared from between his fingers. Flick gawped; the boy didn't smell like a witch, but surely he had to be to do that...

 When he opened his hand, a tiny ball of purple light remained. Blue regarded for a moment, then flicked it up in the air, and ate it.

 This was getting weirder by the second.

 "Free hint," he said, showing no ill effects - such as exploding into a gory mess, which Flick had always understood was what happened to people who tried stunts like that. "If you really want to try and murder me, magic is not the way to go."

 Breathing hard, Cern stared dumbly at the boy. He looked as shaken as Flick felt. "Why did you come here?"

 "Quite simple, really. Hurry up and kill yourself. If I find you still alive by the time spring comes, I will be most displeased. You're beginning to interfere with certain strategic moves of mine."

 By living? Flick thought, perplexed.

 A faint flush climbed Cern's profile. She could smell the fear that rose from him, faint and sour. "Do you think I give a damn about your displeasure?"

 The smile changed the boy utterly; eyes lowered, mouth curving in a promise of bliss, he was demure as a choir boy. And then his eyelids lifted, and as she saw the absolute ruthlessness in him, Flick could only be glad it wasn't directed at her.

 "Chatoya Irkil gave a me a long list of people she wished me to leave unharmed." The boy sounded disappointed at that. "But she did not include any of your four-legged friends on that list. So tell me, half-breed, how much does your pack matter to you?"

 "What makes you think they matter at all?"

 "Call it...instinct." His eyes flicked to her hiding place, and Flick wanted to whine, but could only stare back, petrified. "Will you listen to their songs in the night, doing nothing as one by one they fall silent? Will you send them to your soulmate with a wish and a prayer, hating them for dying while you live on, too afraid to follow?"

 "I'll warn them," Cern whispered, hands clenched at his side.

 "Please do. In fact, I may drop by this evening and let them know myself. I do like to put the personal touch on my work."

 "And if I tell Toya?"

 The boy laughed, a careless sound that sent shivers scurrying from her head to her paws. "To what avail? Our bargain was non-negotiable. Oh, she may try to make a new bargain, but I fear that this time, she will not find herself so...fortunate."

 Silence descended with the weight of a shroud. She could see Cern trying to think his way out this, trying to find something to bargain with. An unfathomable guilt was stealing over her: if she hadn't followed him, would this Blue Malefici have thought to threaten him with the lives of the pack?

 Oh, Cern might pretend he was passing through, just a hermit who'd happened to find himself in the company of vagrant wanderers, but she had seen a certain softness to his features when they sat around the fire at night, when Donna sometimes got drunk and sang old songs.

 He has you trapped, she thought desperately. Caged amidst our bodies, and to save yourself, you only have to be willing to let us die.

 But I don't think you could do that, and I don't think you even want to save yourself.

 She almost thought that Blue Malefici was only hurrying up a process that he had begun long before. And taking a vindictive pleasure in the whole affair that made her want to tear the breath from his throat, stopped only by the paralysing thought of those killer's eyes.

 "Get out," Cern said dully. "You've won. You've taken everything I had."

 "Oh, even I can't take full credit for this one."

 Cern's interest snapped to the boy; the only thing he could rouse passion for, she thought. Hating those who'd taken away his soulmate, looking for someone to blame.

 "No, applaud yourself for your obsession, your unwillingness to face facts, your decidedly boring despair," Blue said scornfully. "Death is only the end for one person. Had you listened to any of those gullible idiots you call friends, you might have held it off for another few decades. As it is, since the moment you decided your existence was pointless - well, more pointless - without her, you've been living on borrowed time."

  The boy gave a little bow - but in her direction, she realised, not Cern's.

 "Time to pay up," he drawled, and she knew the conversation was over.

Blue Malefici was almost into the shadows of the woods when his voice came into her mind with an eagle's swift attack:

 Dark and rich and cruel, the words lingered long after his invasive touch had gone.

 When she looked back at Cern, for one horrific moment, she thought she looked at a ghost, so bloodless and lost was he. And she knew it was a glimpse of what was to come.
 
  Blue Malefici had made that very clear: suddenly the wind in the trees sounded like the creak of the gallows.

 In the thin shelter of the foliage, Felicity Serafine felt dampness on her face, and for a moment, she didn't know what it was.

Only for a moment.

Just let me throw one more dice - I know that I can win:
I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

Lyrics come from Colin Hay's song Waiting for My Real Life to Begin.