Mandy stares at the toxic sky. Nearby, a boy picks his way through robot, android and cyborg junk. As she lies naked and half-buried in the undulating ocean of alloys and plastic and human bones, where cheap but expensive to recycle machines and people are sent, she remains silent, motionless, expressionless. Perhaps the child will find something else of value before reaching her, and scavenge it instead?

​Silent, unmoving, Thym awaited the Frost Queen’s wisdom. The monarch’s rigid gown splayed out before her, its frosted-feather weave conjuring a dying phoenix in the she-wolf’s mind. Evoking despair, the mental image wounded the hope Thym sought in the elemental goddess. ‘Help us beasts survive,’ she wanted to shout. ‘My forest burns—those I swore to protect engulfed by flame and smoke.’ Yet the nature guardian restrained herself until the queen’s trance ended, and hoar frost edged her midnight-blue mane white.