Straight through and done with turquoise and lime. Yellow now: 4th Level Alert. Carver had dropped asleep, drugged this time by silence and the surrounding wrap of the dark. He thought he had dreamed of Anjeela again, standing under a magenta maple tree that had burned through the greenness of the woods. “Drop your pants,” Anjeela said. As he had said it. But that was all. The morning light was coming back now too. And above, the yellow glow in the shed was dissolving. Did he only imagine it had become fully yellow? Or did he imagine it was not yellow, or lime, that it was the same greenish blue as it had been before or did he–? “Energies.” Croft’s voice, distinct as if physically heard. “Nostocaris. That fish. Shining Knife. Casts no giveaway shadow. Someone without a soul.” Carver got up. His body felt stiff and unwieldy for a moment. But he was physically well enough trained this went off at once. He was hungry and dry and his bladder angry. He pissed against the tree, thinking of late revellers going home from the pub through the village woods around and behind his house there, that house he had owned and lived in with Donna, and how the drunks peed on the trees, as if this counted for anything.
