Eagles and Swans

Chapter 1: Children of the Street

Ruthenia was trapped in the alley behind the New Town railway station, and she was running out of ideas.

In the rain-wet slabs beneath her feet, she could feel the trains rumbling, ready to be launched into the world. Steam hissed and wings fluttered overhead, breaking the light in the alley.

Of course, the only thing that mattered right now was that there was a pistol barrel in her face.

“Look, look—what do you want?” she breathed, clenching her jaw. The noxious scent of smoke was stirred with petrichor. They stared each other down in that narrow slip of sunlight. “You want money. You want my argents—is that right?”

“Give me your pouch,” growled the brunet boy clutching the gun in his hands. But his voice broke awkwardly, and now she saw that he was shaking almost as much as she.

She forced herself to look at the gun between her eyes. It was wood and brass, and she vaguely recognised its make—an Ordiva of some sort: Cerdolian, cheap. The engineering on this piece was so atrocious she'd have turned up her nose, had she not been a literal inch from death.

Ruthenia cast her gaze about. For something. A gutter, hanging from the eaves, just out of reach. The wheels and crankshafts of her mind began to clatter.

“That’s brass,” she said, fumbling with the crook of her umbrella. She took a step back, then a second. “You could’ve used those aurs on twenty good meals.”

“I...I don’t buy my guns,” he replied, eyes flicking to the sides before regaining focus upon her face, then redoubled the force in his voice. “I said, your pouch.”

She came to a stop beneath the overhang of the roof. “Did you get yourself tangled up with a gang?” She let her umbrella dangle from her loose fingers. “I know where you’re headed. It’s not worth selling yourself for. Find yourself a job and do something good.”

“Find a job! The kings won’t let me find a job!” he snarled, jabbing the weapon at her face.

In a single sweep of motion, Ruthenia flung her umbrella up in the air, its crook catching on the edge of the gutter. Then she grabbed the ferrule and yanked down, hard.

At once, rusty metal groaned. Metal brackets snapped one by one. With a creak the entire gutter tilted, and a cascade of rainwater tumbled down upon them both, leaves and all. The boy yelped and sheltered himself with his arm ineffectually as the water doused them both.

“Idiot!” he screamed, pulling the pistol on Ruthenia. Heart booming, she snatched his arm and twisted it, and he pulled the trigger in a last-ditch attempt to halt her—permanently—but it did not fire, merely clicked as the spark attempted and failed to light the damp gunpowder.

She snatched his wrist, twisted, and flicked the weapon away. It clattered on the cobblestones.

It took a moment for the sound to register. His eyes went wide. Then he began to pant with fear, before she thrust him against the wall, stabbing her elbow into his chest.

“I’m not the idiot here,” she answered. He wheezed. “You’re right, the kings are the problem. But that doesn’t mean you should take any old gun they give you.”

“D-don’t report me,” he whimpered.

“To the police?” She shook her head. “I hate them as much as you do.”

---

“Right on time, as usual, Ruth.”

By the time Ruthenia rounded the corner into the alleyway between the bank and the bakery, the tremors of fear were finally beginning to desert her.

The source of the call—a young man with pitch-black hair—stood awaiting her, like a raven, his dark coat almost invisible within the shadow of the building.

“Den,” she said. “I got caught up in some funny business on the way here.”

“Aggressive lard soap salesman?”

“Kid with a gun,” she replied with a glance skyward. “Good thing it rained. I could’ve died, or lost my money pouch.”

“Children of the poor are everywhere these days,” sighed Den. “The kings could do better for them. They ought to, or they’ll bite back someday.”

“You think so?”

“Someday, not yet. They don’t care enough yet.” He shrugged.

There was a clatter from the crates behind Den. “Ruthenia!” shouted a bright voice as a lid slid down the stack.

“Hyder?” she barely had the chance to reply, before the brown-haired boy had clambered over the edge of the top one and down a staircase of crates, dashing towards her with a big grin on his face. Gordo’s head appeared where Hyder’s had been, and he stared at the newcomer as if expecting her to perform an acrobatic stunt.

Hyder tackled her with a hug and then released her with almost as much vigour.

“Hyder!” exclaimed Ruthenia. “What’s the hurry?”

“It’s been two weeks, and I guess I missed you,” he said, touching his neck. Then his eyes widened. “Is it ready? The key!”

“I’m a woman of my word,” she replied with a smile, fishing about in her pocket.

There was another rustle from behind the crate stack, and Ruthenia's stomach clenched at once. “Let me see it,” hissed a voice. Tante wasn’t one for pleasantries, and by the sounds of it, he wasn’t in the mood to be lenient either. “You’ve kept us long enough. Take our projects seriously, won’t you?”

“I’m taking it as seriously as it deserves to be,” she growled. “Here.” She slid the fishbone key out of her pocket and raised it on her palm. The others went quiet.

“Shiny,” murmured Hyder. He snatched it off her hand and held it up to his eye.

“I want to see it too,” added Gordo, extending a meaty hand in his direction.

While Hyder and Gordo passed the key back and forth between themselves, Tante finally deigned to emerge from the shadows, and he did so with a scowl. He stalked into their midst, and did not waste a moment acknowledging anyone’s presence.

“Let me have a look,” he muttered, extending a hand. Hyder promptly placed it in his bony fingers. The straw-haired knifeman twisted it about in the light. “This is what we’ve been waiting for? Is that all?”

“What, you don’t trust me?” she muttered.

“I do,” said Hyder. “Give the key back here, Tante. I’ll finish as quick as possible, and then we shall have us some lunch.”

Before their chatter had died down, Hyder had already begun to do what he did best: he began to Mask himself. At once, everyone went silent to watch him.

With his fingers, he tugged and pushed at the air around his head, as if there were an invisible piece of cloth enwrapping it.  Piece by piece, they watched his face change to that of another. Shaggy brown hair was replaced by waves of blond, immaculately-combed; expressive grey eyes turned green. All at once, he was no longer Hyder: he was the Arcane King’s younger brother, Aleigh Luzerno.

Ruthenia stumbled away in surprise. Being a student at one of the most expensive schools in the nation at Tanio’s insistence (and by his financing), it so happened that the royal priss was her classmate, and she could say with full confidence that the resemblance was perfect, right down to the supercilious squint of his eye.

“Well, someone’s studied the portraits well,” remarked Den, walking a circle around their friend, who proceeded to Mask his attire.

The Masker returned a characteristic grin, one that looked decidedly strange on his new face. “Do you like it?” he answered, putting on the snooty accent that all the golden-haired Arcanes had. Sniggering, he rolled the Arcane Prince’s eyes and grimaced like an idiot. Everyone was soon bent double laughing.

“These Arcanes sure do dress themselves nicely,” chortled Gordo, tilting left and right to study his friend’s new countenance.

“That’s what makes them Arcanes, innit—velvet, frills, and underwear on too tight!” answered Hyder. Hearing those words out of the Arcane Prince’s mouth had them all laughing again.

The uproar faded as the Masker began a final verbal run-through of the procedure with Den, fiddling with the fishbone key as he went. Ruthenia smiled as the metal pins slid in and out. It would not function as intended here, no. But slide it into a lock, and it would work magic.

Den clapped Hyder on the back. “Put on your best show,” he said. As the Masker departed onto the street, Ruthenia sniggered, trying to imagine what the Helika Morning Herald would come up with this time.

---

Arcane Prince Flirts with Toileting Classmate: A likely case of out-of-body experience, say experts

Helika Morning Herald, 14th July 491.

This morning, Arcane Prince Aleigh was reported to have broken into a toilet cubicle in at Helika ferry station and made advances towards his classmate.

The victim, Feldon Jayle, was in the middle of his essential activities when he was alarmed to see the door unlock by itself—moments before the Arcane Prince allegedly entered and immediately began to engage in suggestive speech.

‘He came in and started asking me if I wanted to “have fun”—I didn’t know what to do,’ describes Jayle, nervous from his harrowing experience.

Upon questioning later that afternoon, His Highness denied rather vehemently having performed either of these acts. The rest of his family, as well as His Majesty, King Hazen of the Ordinary, also readily backed him up, claiming he was ‘at an advisory board meeting’ and did not leave his seat at all during the time of this alleged happening.

Psychology experts have suggested that this is an instance of an out-of-body experience, during which the soul leaves the body in the person’s semi-unconscious state, and moves about independent of it. The person’s mind would register such an activity as a daydream.

‘Come to think of it, Aleigh was a little zoned out during the discussion,’ states Her Eminence, Arcane Viz Talia, mother of the Arcane Prince. ‘I did not think he would harbour such fantasies.’

More investigation will be carried out at a later date. The royal family has requested the privacy of this case.

*

Clang went her wrench, spinning across the ground and banging against another plate.

Ruthenia was laughing so hard she was going dizzy. She wiped an imaginary tear from her eye, and continued to bang a fist on her thigh, gasping between long, loud guffaws.

The giggles continued to come intermittently as she set back to work on the open train engine in the middle of the little work shed that was her home. The sky shone blue through the two windows, reflected in the glass dial coverings. She laughed as she drank out of her metal flask, thinking of the myriad jokes she could make at the Arcane Prince’s expense today; the result was a few seconds of choking and a coughing fit.

Ruthenia made good enough speed that school had only just begun by the time she’d finished work. Even with tunnel winds in her favour today, the trip would take her twenty minutes. But twenty minutes wasn’t late, to her. Not particularly.

She tossed her screwdriver into the crowded toolbox, and snatched up her bag and umbrella from the rack by the door, stretching her arms in the spring breeze.

Out on her patio, Ruthenia was halted by a proclamation of her name. “What?” she shouted, turning to the plank bridge between her shed and Tanio’s house, swinging merrily in the blue.

The blond inventor stood in the middle of it, where it sagged the lowest, fingers curled tightly around the rope handholds. He brushed blonde hair out of his eyes, waving a paper packet at her as he crossed. “Lunch!” he sang, setting foot on her wooden patio. Sighing, she held a hand out.

“Lunch” was soggy, as usual, and reeking of the sea. Trying not to wince at the smell, Ruthenia flipped her bag cover open and flung it inside.

“I hear your feedback, Ruth,” said Tanio, “and I assure you, it’s not burnt this time. You’ll know it when you taste it!”

“Thank you,” she answered, waving him away.

It took Ruthenia a solid minute of scrabbling at the air before she finally managed to get her grip on a bundle of Thread. She gritted her teeth as she did, wondering if they were right, if the reason she was having so much trouble was that she wasn’t praying hard enough to Ihir. Then she sniffed. As if she’d ever pray to that awful bird for anything.

It was another full minute before Ruthenia managed to get her umbrella levitating stably—which she celebrated with a pump of her fist. Leaping aboard, she gave the adjacent Threads a sharp tug—and off she shot into the cloud-speckled blueness, leaving the smallest home on Beacon Way behind.

The mile between home and the gate road was all green farmland, rippling on in endless lines across the tiny countryside between here and Baytown. She’d seen the workers before, leading plough cows across the earth, ever flightless.

The floating houses cast their shadows across the fields of young stalks as she passed; watermills rattled in the temperate current, their tall windy counterparts creaking songs.

Ruthenia soared past the mills and ploughs, skimming low over the wheat fields to watch her own shadow dance across them. Far ahead, the entrance to the gate road resolved into visibility, a circular hole that gaped at the intersection of four fields, marked by a daffodil-yellow signpost.

GATE 28 (WEST WIND TUNNEL)

Suddenly the gate roared wide beneath Ruthenia, howling with wind. With a yell she snapped a bundle of Threads so her flight swung into a dive through the mouth.

The sunlight lifted from her skin. Cold Thread light swallowed her whole. With the fright stoking her, she managed to tangle the Threads back about her mount just in time to swerve into straight flight again. She breathed a long sigh of relief, though her tongue quickly grew dry. One of these days that dive would kill her.

As the granite tunnel reached level, a distant loud howl entered earshot. Ruthenia felt the thrill run across her skin while the pressure built up behind her.

The twin rows of Thread lights in the ceiling ended just a few yards ahead. Hunching low, she gripped her umbrella tight and hurtled down the remaining length of the gate.

She shot into the West Wind Tunnel perpendicular to the current. At once a sharp gush of wind slapped her side, tossing her like a limp paper doll into the flow of the underground airway. Air roaring about her ears, she clung on with all her might, pulling her body as close to her fluttering umbrella as she could while the whooshing air continued to throttle her.

The Astran Wind Tunnels were as wide as a cathedral was tall, arching overhead and curving below, cradling a thin river in its base. Tarnished pipes striped the walls, among which other gates intermittently opened, pouring other commuters into the stream. Empty round windows passed overhead, through which circular beams of light streamed, setting the stream below aglitter.

The trickle was low today, but when summer bloomed in full vengeance, she knew it would flood to at least quarter the tunnel’s height. On good summer days, she sometimes verged the surface, watching the koi swirl among the reflections, in their own secret city, foraging amid discarded metal and lost jewellery.

The gale took her westward, and her watch ticked where it hung from her neck, welcoming the balm of the afternoon.

She eventually landed on the eighteenth level of the Central Circle School’s northern tower about twenty-five minutes past noon. At the marble archway, she was greeted by Mr. Nychus, who only shook his head, as he always did, baton slung over his shoulder, and gestured for her to enter. With a nod and a “good day”, she dashed off down the staircase.

The staircase plunged into a vast hallway that echoed her footsteps back to her, and the shadow brought on a chill. She watched the marble pillars flicker by as she ran, the chill deepening.

Ruthenia burst into the classroom as Mrs. Ariera was reaching the climax of another scolding, looking as irate as a raptor ready to rip its prey in two. The blackboard was a mess, and at the centre of the battlefield of white chalk numbers was scrawled a question on lift and drag calculations.

The woman’s hand hung in midair. “Miss Cendina,” she said, dangerously soft.

“Good afternoon,” Ruthenia answered. “May I sit?”

“No,” the Physics teacher said. “Do you have any idea how late you are?”

“Half an hour.”

“And do you know why that is a problem?” she said.

Ruthenia shrugged. “I don’t need to be here.”

A mutter had started up. She caught glares from the right side of the classroom. Ms. Ariera seemed to reel momentarily with rage, struggling to keep it caged inside her. “You think yourself quite capable of managing the Flight Physics syllabus without me, don’t you? You think your intelligence exempts you of having to show me some basic respect?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry for my lateness, then.”

“You’re sixteen, Miss Cendina. How do you expect to survive and flourish in Astran society, the filthy scrap you are? Did your parents never educate you in good conduct?”

Oh, Ihir, now she’d done it. “My—parents?” shouted Ruthenia, a hot lump of anger rising in her throat. “No, they never did!”

Every conversation in the room was simultaneously extinguished.

The two stood, glaring and bristling as if they might pounce any moment.

Then Mrs. Ariera clenched a fist, and let both hands fall. “Alright, I forgot. I’m sorry.” She jabbed the stick of chalk at the board. “You are excused if you can solve the question on the board.” She held the chalk out for her.

Stepping forward to take it, Ruthenia’s eyes leapt to the question at the centre of the swirl of numbers. Consider a glider with trapezoidal wings, of the dimensions shown in the diagram...

Rolling the chalk between her fingers, she bit her lip, memorising and manipulating the numbers in her head. Then she stepped up to the board and wiped a section of the scribbles away with her palm, coughing at the dust.

As she wrote, the stick of chalk clicked and scraped, suddenly the sole noise in the room. Then, with a final flourish, she drew the double-underscore marking the end of her solution, and caught Ms. Ariera’s eye again. “Am I excused?”

Her pause ended with the inevitable. “Well, yes,” she murmured, looking at least somewhat appeased. “Back to your seat, Miss Cendina. Now, do the rest of you understand the solution?”

While the class gave a collective murmur of “no”, Ruthenia sank into her chair and shoved her bag under her table with her foot.

“Great work,” said Alacero from her left, making a fist in encouragement.

On her other side, Calan only groaned. “Talent is wasted on people like you,” he said.

“I’m glad you think I’m talented,” she replied, upending the contents of her bag onto her desk.

---

Chapter 2: The Pride and Folly of Swans

Preface 01: The Story of Lilin, Goddess of the Horizon, author unknown.

Ihir has many sons and daughters. They were born of His love for the land and the sea, but this love is not of the form to which humanity is familiar. They are to Him as subordinates, and love, as in the eyes of all gods, was obligation.

Of all his sons and daughters, Lilin was the first to learn the rules. Whenever the palace was quiet and the sky still, she peered through the gaps of heaven’s floorboards, and saw the humans on their fields below. She watched them race through the stalks and join hands on the barren land, lighting flames and laughing in circles.

Laughing. Lilin wondered at this odd sound. Why did she never laugh? She thought, perhaps, that heaven did not know what laughter was, not Father Ihir and not the gods of old.

So she made a promise to see this world for herself, and when Kala and Hela of the Gates were looking the other way, she slipped down the marble stairway, and soared away upon her wings to the land below.

It didn’t take long for her absence to be discovered. In His horror, Ihir sent His guards out to search for her—and when they reported that they had seen her flying in the world of mortals, He was furious.

After her He flew himself—catching her in midair in His merciless beak. She screamed to be released, but He did not relent.

“I gave you a home, and a world—and yet you would deceive me to flee it!” bellowed He. “Since you love this world so much, you shall never leave it again! Creature of the ocean, I chain you to the sea forever—and may these chains never release you for the rest of eternity!”

He did not consider a more merciful sentence, not even for His daughter, and she did not think of pleading for one.

And so chained she was, to a rock in the sea. And Lilin cried but a single tear, for she did not understand the word “forever”. She only knew the humans, who were temporary, who rose and fell like spring and winter. She believed that there would be an end to it, because there was always an end.

---

The sun rays began to slant, and the clock-tower clanged out everyone’s favourite melody, welcoming the most anticipated period of the day: tea break.

Ruthenia woke from her Literature nap just in time to see the last of Mr. Caldero’s grey coattails vanish through the door. She blinked the haze of sleep from her eyes as a rumble of wooden chairs began on cue, a thunderstorm of voices thickening around her.

It was five minutes before the classroom emptied out. Only then did she sweep her crumpled notes onto Alacero’s desk and unearth Tanio’s sandwich from beneath them, now squashed beyond recognition.

She glanced about the classroom: not much of interest was taking place, particularly in the absence of half the class, except on the right side of the classroom where the Arcanes sat. That side of the room was awash with polite chatter while a single person amid it—a person whom she saw to be the Arcane Prince—shielded himself from the attention with a book.

Ruthenia laughed out loud. “You certainly seek fun in the filthiest of places, Your Highness!” A surge of laughter answered, most from her side of the classroom.

She strolled breezily to the desk by the door as the laughter died down behind her. She could only see the back of Hollia’s head from here, her silken blonde hair draped over one shoulder.

She found the girl poring over a particularly thick stack of notes, so engrossed that she did not clock the newcomer’s presence until Ruthenia smacked the tabletop with her palm, startling her out of her reading.

“Ruth!” she gasped, before her face brightened. “I thought Miss Ariera would write you a slip for sure!”

“You know that won’t happen.” Ruthenia fired her a grin, but lost it when she realised that Hollia was not smiling back. “What, do you think she will?”

“Aren't you scared it'll come back to bite you?” said Hollia, weaving her fingers together with a self-conscious glance to the side.

Ruthenia frowned. “Oh, come on. She's just a teacher. She exists to make our lives hard.” Hollia did not answer. Ruthenia drew back, frowning. “How’s the aviary?”

The girl’s gaze grew distant. “It’s spring migration soon.”

“I...hope this one goes better than last year’s.” Ruthenia attempted an earnest smile. Hollia could only purse her lips and nod mutely. She felt a lump grow in her throat. “Well, um, take care, I'll see you around.”

Before she could make things any worse, Ruthenia exited the classroom, heaving a sigh. As she strolled down the length of the corridor, she wove between other students, staring absently over their heads at the curling relief patterns in the ceiling. The sun glowed through the arching windows, setting flecks in the granite aflame.

“Ruthenia!”

She straightened and blinked the glare of the far window out of her eyes, turning to find four figures behind her. The one at the front of the group, red hair blazing, she instantly recognised.

“Hello, Orrem,” she said.

He beamed as he approached, the way racers did at the stands before the start of the flight. “Good job,” he said, his voice like the sun, and his friends nodded and grinned in assent. “How’d you get so good at math?”

“I traded my flight skills for it,” Ruthenia replied with a small smirk.

A laugh passed among his entourage. “Care to join us for the break, genius?” called the brunet beside Orrem, shooting her a smile she registered as wanting something more.

“Not really, no.”

“Why not?” The brazen boy's grin retreated into a dazed stare.

Just then, the tower swayed. She felt the floor swing beneath her. Around her, classmates stumbled and yelped, grabbing at pillars and window sills for balance; a couple were bowled over and cried out as they fell to their knees. Ruthenia crouched low and watched Orrem do the same, waiting for the tremor to pass.

It did, half a minute later, and as it subsided they began glancing at each other. “Earthquakes don’t do that, do they?” she heard one mutter, hand to his chest.

No, earthquakes didn't shake airborne buildings. Other things did, however.

There were unsettled looks all around, and then the clique lost interest in Ruthenia, resuming conversations about recreational flight and their weekend plans as they departed, disquieted by the interruption. Orrem was last to leave; he took one last look at her, before shrugging and joining the rest of his crew.

---

Soaring through orange sky, Ruthenia swerved clumsily into a landing at the platform before the milkshake stand, skidding a few feet and ramming into the counter. The stand-keeper smiled patiently, sweet as spring, brown curls fluttering in the wind.

“You’re getting better,” she laughed.

Ruthenia made an exaggerated pout. “Don’t tease me,” she said, frown giving way to a grin.

“Honey milkshake?” asked the lady, already arranging the ingredients on her table before she had nodded. “How were your classes?”

“Dull,” she answered, folding her arms on the countertop. “I was half an hour late. Ariera was snarly as a naga about it. Then she asked me about my parents.”

The woman placed a full glass of milkshake on the countertop. “That’s rough.”

While Ruthenia gulped the honey milkshake down, the stand-keeper capped her bottle of syrup and slid it into its compartment in the storage chest. She cast a glance at the setting sun. “Slow day,” she said. “I almost lost this bottle when the tremor hit.”

At this, Ruthenia’s head perked up, the rim of her glass encircling her nose and upper lip. “You felt it too?” she said, voice echoing inside the near-empty glass.

The woman nodded as she tossed the remaining water inside her jug out over the fence behind her, onto the field below. “The whole stand swung,” she replied. “Things rattled. Good thing I’ve made sure to tie it down tight.”

Ruthenia put the empty glass on the counter and approached the island’s edge, opening her umbrella and overturning it for a makeshift boat. The meadows below shimmered with golden sun as she climbed into it.

With a sigh she made off. She sailed across the brilliant sky, which glowed bright as a pool, the bellies of the clouds the bright orange of carps. Her eyelids drooped in the balmy air as she caught the gentle breeze, drifting over an ocean of grass.

She stopped by the news stand for a copy of the Helika Afternoon Herald, paying her three cupres and snatching one off the rack while moor birds squawked behind her. Once she had rejoined the lazy aboveground traffic, she flipped it open. Sure enough, there it was, in a tall, thin article on the front page.

Meteorological Disturbance Detected: an impending catastrophe?

Ruthenia frowned. If the Afternoon Herald already knew about the problem then the scientists must have detected it at least a day ago.

[...] The Central Circle Library was among the worst-affected by the phenomenon. An assistant sustained head injury from a falling encyclopedia. Thousands of books fell from their shelves and several important books were damaged.

Theologists have confirmed that the source of the disturbance is a large gust propagated through ether, affecting only the Threads. Discussions are already being conducted with Bel experts.

This event follows several reports of inexplicable sounds in the Deeps, from which these ethereal gusts originated. The sounds are said to resemble the bowing of a large, untuned chordophone.

Over the past week, at least three ships have been reported to have vanished in the same area.

Such activity has not been charted for thirty years. Authorities warn that a disaster might be forthcoming, and that all should prepare to enter precautionary flight until the situation improves.

Ruthenia could barely ignore the trembling of her hands. Threads weren’t usually affected by natural phenomena. It was what made the country so safe.

She flipped through a few more pages, before flinging the papers into the canopy of her umbrella and steering homewards.

---

“Ruth! You’re late!”

Tanio's greetIng to Ruthenia was to wave a hissing gas lamp at her face. “Stop that!” she yelled, swinging her arms at the blinding light.

“Well, why so late?” her boss repeated, extinguishing the lamp so the only light in the vicinity was the faint glow of the first level windows. “I don’t fancy my only assistant crashing into an unmarked island and losing use of her arms. Especially considering she’s such a terrible flier—”

Leaping out of her umbrella, Ruthenia shoved him aside with a hand. She unlocked her work shed and found the lever switch on the inner wall with her fingers, slamming it down with a fist. A stream of light blazed across her patio planks.

The shed’s red wood walls glowed cosily in the light of the single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Her desk stood beneath the right-hand window, and her messenger lay on it, glowing dim blue to indicate an absence of new messages. On the left was a cluttering of storage shelves and stacked boxes, the other window obscured behind them.

She tossed her bag onto the rack and kicked her shoes off, before heading to her wardrobe to excavate a good set of clothes. Unfortunately for her, the only shower on the premises was on the second floor of Tanio’s home.

The inventor’s house was everything one might expect an inventor’s house to be. It was top-heavy, the second floor overhanging the first in a physical feat made possible by Thread. The shingled slopes of the roof culminated in a gigantic turbine that creaked back and forth on the windiest days.

The bathroom was a terrifying place, full of rattling pipes and hissing joints, with a drain that gurgled like a sea monster every time it was fed. The centrepiece was the shower tank: a converted engine boiler fixed to the wall by means of metal strips, beneath it a furnace and a bag of coal behind a pair of hatches. And naturally, temperature calibration was a nightmare.

On occasion, showering became a barbaric torture routine involving nakedness and near-boiling water. Tonight was one of those nights.

After her bath, Ruthenia dressed up in the bathroom and stepped out in a cloud of steam, standing at the top of the stairs with her towel about her neck, hair cooling in the air. The dining room was empty and the lone lightbulb glowed down on a single roll on a plate.

She soon found Tanio out on the porch with a roll in hand, legs dangling over the edge of the platform where it plunged into the darkness, one arm curled around a railing baluster. He sat hunched, face hidden from view. The back of his cotton shirt was lit by the glow from his living room window.

Ruthenia joined him at the porch’s edge, beef-and-lettuce roll in a plate on her lap. They gazed out at the world beyond, lost in the night breeze, inky black save for the thin golden light of Helika City on the horizon. The roar of the river below the house was the only audible sound.

She took a bite out of her roll, staring on at the dim reflection of Tanio’s porch light on the river’s surface. “Get a cookbook,” she muttered, before spitting a chunk of charred tendon out over the rails. “Charcoal isn’t exactly delicious.”

Her boss laughed. “Only idiots need cookbooks,” he replied. “I’ll perfect the recipe soon enough.”

Ruthenia groaned. “Could you perfect it faster? You’re gonna kill me someday.”

“You’re not dead.”

“Give it a month, and we’ll see.”

Tanio’s laugh was claimed by the gales. They resigned themselves to the silence, briefly.

“Heard the news?” he said then.

“About the Deeps? It all sounds mighty strange. What’s happening out there?” Ruthenia glanced towards the east, but the eastern coast was too far to be seen from Beacon Way.

“I feel the cause is something living.”

Ruthenia raised an eyebrow. “There’s not much living out there,” she murmured.

For another fifteen minutes or so, they sat there eating, exchanging casual conversation on the topic of work, then of her poor conduct in school. Tanio left soon after; he claimed to have a design to finish—most certainly the meat grinder he’d been rambling on about at the dinner table all week.

The girl was left watching Helika’s blinking lights alone. She prayed he knew what he was doing. She would be the first to find out.

---

Chapter 3: Astra the Beautiful, Astra the Ugly

When she entered Tanio’s house for breakfast the next morning, Ruthenia found her boss in his favourite armchair, feet up on the coffee table, face buried in the pages of the Helika Morning Herald. She passed him by without so much as a greeting.

The man had left her some eggs on the dining table. It was one of the only dishes he wasn’t utterly inept at preparing, but she seasoned it with copious amounts of pepper and sauce just to be sure.

Then followed bath time. It seemed Tanio had lit the coals a while ago, and with just the dying embers to heat the tank, the bath was only slightly too cold.

Tanio was reading something else by the time she returned: she quickly recognised it as a copy of Internal Systems, authored by the one and only T. Calied. The aforementioned T. Calied happened to have three books out in print, and they were selling better in Sonora.

“I hate this bleeding country,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

The man did not offer Ruthenia so much as a glance as she slipped out of the house and across the bridge barefoot in the cool morning air. Frogs croaked by the river, and the wheat rustled.

With a hand on her doorway she reached for her umbrella where it hung from the bars of her all-purpose rack.

A gift and a message, her mother had called it, the day she had given it to  her. What kind of message? That she shouldn’t get caught in the rain?

Unhooking it, Ruthenia stepped back out onto her patio, raising her gaze to the green hills in the distance, and the faraway houses peppering the air above it. Clouds bloomed across the sky like ripples on a pond.

She lifted her umbrella so the Threads could catch hold of it, and it barely took half a minute this time. It was easier when she felt this excited to leave and the destination didn’t matter. She slipped on and adjusted herself—then, swinging forward,  she thrust herself into the air, towards the clouds above.

Sky gave way to emptier sky, cornfields to rivers and scatterings of old ground houses. Astra was half meadows and hills, and for a distance this was all she saw. These grew in frequency and number as Ruthenia passed from the outskirts into the New Town proper, where the houses stood packed together on criss-crossing roads, smoke rising in black columns from their chimneys.

A train whistled far beneath her, the chug of its engine joining the melange of noises that characterised the New Town. Half a mile to her right ran the tracks of the Transnational Railway, which left Astra on bridges to Sonora in the west and Aora in the east. A green train was thundering towards the station, gleaming in the morning sun amid a veil of clouds.

Descending through the soot and smoke, she hurtled down the carriage road with eyes narrowed against the wind. The drivers peered out of their windows as she flew; she dodged between shophouses and swerved around the street corner where the Union Bank stood. The Threads began to snap as she made the turn, and she felt her heart leap into her throat, hands grasping frantically at the wind until they tangled in a bundle of Threads and she could pull herself steady again.

On the other side of the bank lay the alley. It looked so different from above; the crates and piles of scrap wood lost their meaning. It stank of acrid chemical ash and rubbish piles. Her friends, who had set up a makeshift table from planks and scraps for a board game, noticed her before she had landed, abandoning their pieces of stone on the chalk grid to greet her.

Ruthenia tipped and arced downward in an ungraceful landing; Tante was there to greet her with a cigarette-blackened grin, arms behind his back, a telltale trail of smoke wafting from behind him.

“Glad you came!” he said. “You just never know with Ruthenia, these days.”

“Hey, I’ve been terribly busy,” she answered.

“Oh, no, I’m not blaming you,” said the knifeman with a twitch of his eye. “Hyder’s the one who cares, anyhow. He’s got a gift for you.”

Ruthenia’s brow furrowed as she turned to Hyder. His head perked up, and his mouth opened. Then he raced off to his corner of the alley and began rummaging through his crate. When he returned, he was holding something awfully familiar in his outstretched hand.

It was an Ordiva revolver, of the same manufacturer as the one she’d been threatened with just a couple of days ago. The wood was branded, as with that one, and there was a noticeable kink in its barrel.

“Think you could fix this?” said Hyder.

She snatched him by the shoulders and shook him. “Don’t even think about it!” she yelled.

The boy stared with wide grey eyes. “But—it’s a—what’s stopping us from—”

Ruthenia wrenched the revolver out of his hand. “I’m stopping us, that’s who!” she snapped. She stared at the object in her hand. Where were these New Towners getting these accursed things?

“Look who’s been eating up all that Arcane anti-gun nonsense,” drawled Tante, licking his lips. “Two years gone, and—”

“That’s not it!” she shouted. “Do you know what a gun is?”

“It’s power,” answered the knifeman, watching the Ordiva like a snake waiting to strike. “Power that the Arcanes want taken from us.”

“If this had been working, Hyder could’ve killed me if he’d so much as wanted—”

Tante narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you trust us at all?”

“That’s not what I mean—” Ruthenia bristled. “It just never really sat right with me, your obsession with guns—”

“—if you don’t want it, that’s your business. But don’t go telling us what to do!”

“They were designed to kill, Tante, and I don’t want to enable you—”

“—‘Cause that’s what Arcanes do, ya know? They take your things and tell you it’s for your own good—”

“Well, if heeding them will help me not die then maybe I would, maybe I would listen—”

“—You’re not siding with them, now, are you?”

“Of course not!”

“The New Town will bite back. Like a hungry naga it will bite back. And the kings will bleed.”

“They're not the ones who will bleed.”

“Not without guns, they won't.”

They stood glaring at each other for many uncomfortable seconds. Then she sighed. “Fine, Lord Tante. I’ll see what I can do,” she growled. It couldn’t do a thing as long as it wasn’t loaded. “But don’t forget that I warned you.”

Tante sniffed. “I won’t have to remember.” Den shook his head. Hyder stood wide-eyed and mute. Gordo had long retreated to his corner.

Gingerly, she brought the gun’s grip up to eye level. The brand on the wood showed its company and specifics, but not the factory where it had been made. Its barrel had been bent out of shape by either a rather aggressive assailant, or the blunt force of being flung at some hard surface. Not just terrible engineering, but terrible metal as well.

“Well, it looks like something I can hammer back into shape. We’ll see how long it lasts.”

Tante grunted in satisfaction. “Always knew you could be counted on,” said Hyder, with an appeasing grin. But she was long past the age when that smile would’ve assuaged her annoyance. Instead, she yanked at the grip until it popped off, and began shaking  the black powder out onto the stones.

“Ruth, stop that,” Tante growled, reaching out to catch the powder as it fell out. “Do you have any idea how many argents you’re pouring away?”

“Good luck trying to sell this much,” she answered, letting the rest sift into his hands.

The five proceeded to enjoy lunch under a bridge over the River Colura, the very same one that ran under her home. Lying a couple of streets from their usual hideout, the river split the New Town in two and wound across half the island, emptying into the Aora Strait at Baytown.

Sitting in the muddy grit beneath the bridge, they chomped away at their breaded chicken salads, passing stolen packets of herbs between themselves.

Then, with a quiet, rusty creak, the bridge began to sway.

Tante’s head perked up. “Is this what they were talking about?” he said. “Den said there were...Thread-quakes.”

“They were mentioned in the Herald,” answered Den, glancing at Tante. “I felt nothing.”

“You never feel anythin’,” answered Gordo, and Hyder laughed. Tante was too busy staring at the structure overhead, every muscle pulled taut as if he expected it to come alive and pounce.

Ruthenia finally tore her gaze from the railings of the drawbridge. “You’ll be fine as long as it’s just Threads,” she said. “It’s those pompous moneybags who should be worried.” There were nods and self-satisfied grins all around. Then they went back to their salads, considerably less talkative than before.

---

“Have fun today!” Ruthenia almost missed Gordo's shout while she fought to set her umbrella levitating on the Threads.

Rising out of the alley, out of the smoke and noise of the New Town, Ruthenia gulped in a breath of fresh air. The sunlight burned on her face, and she shot off towards the nearest gate, one hand on her umbrella, the other shielding her eyes against the light.

Sailing through the traffic of the West Wind Tunnel, she stared into the stream at the bottom, watching the circles of light ripple in the reflections below. Beneath the glittering surface, one could make out the rusting remains of objects that had fallen from the belts and pockets of commuters. There were shattered watches, cogs and hands spilling across the stone bed, rust-eaten wheels, and chains. Then there were pieces of what could have been jewellery, and cupre coins glinting. Between them swam the Wind Tunnel koi, pushing the bits about, their bodies glittering.

“This is a strange place for you to be, isn’t it?” she whispered. The carp’s eyes darted about as it drifted between the knobs and chains, but never once to her.

She raised her gaze from the water, feeling the wind howling through the tunnel, echoing overhead like the sound of a choir through a cathedral. It brought a pleasant chill.

She rose again and caught the wind, rejoining the rest of the Wind Tunnel traffic. Windows whizzed past her in flashes of light. She gripped her umbrella tighter and shot off into the blue.

Her detour back to her shed on Beacon Way was for one purpose only: she tossed the gun out of her bag and buried it under wrenches in her toolbox, glancing about to check for incoming blond inventors and blowing out a sigh of relief when none came to catch her red-handed.

Now, with all her daily errands run and no other busines to attend to, Ruthenia figured there would be no harm in attending her classes. She returned to the air upon her umbrella, still suspended from before, and because the wind was in the opposite direction from her destination, she took the aboveground route, floating over the fields and then in and out of the shelter of Tunnel gates as soon as she reached it. Out of gate 53 she shot at last, and with the school on the horizon, she ventured to check her watch.

Ruthenia grimaced. It was one of those days. She was almost forty-five minutes early.

With a shrug, she let her flight turn northeast, towards the centre of the Central Circle, where an inverted granite cone levitated, rotating so slowly the motion was almost imperceptible. Leaping off onto the rooftop right by the entrance ladder, she snatched the umbrella out of the air and clambered down the ladder, hooking it on her elbow.

The dim cold enveloped her, and with it the scent of old paper and mildew. Inside the great cone was a smaller one, almost perfectly slotted into it—a stack of balconies that did not move, upon which the browsers stood, reaching for the books on the shelves of the rotating outer structure. 

Or at least, that’s how things typically looked. Today, entire shelves on the uppermost tier were empty. She saw a library assistant scurrying by with a stack of books in her hands, newly-bound. The tremors had certainly done a number on their collection. She strolled on towards the next ladder down.

Being a protected building, the Science and Engineering collection continued to thrive in the third-bottommost tier, despite the religious Ihirin nuts’ most furious lobbying efforts. Ruthenia scoured every shelf of the tier for books on compact engines, and came away with a bounty of just three. Not that that came as much of a surprise: they were a relatively new innovation from Cin, only just touching Astran shores to the protesting voices of the devout.

Never too early to learn how to build them, however. Ruthenia gave each of the stodgy volumes a quick flip before selecting the one with the best diagrams. She clambered back up the steep staircases, to find the librarian-in-residence shelving new books in the Ancient History section on the fifth tier.

“Could you register this?” she asked, lobbing the book at him.

The librarian let out a strangled cry, tripping over his robes as he dove for it. For some seconds he clutched it close like an infant, eyes wide behind his glasses. With a deep sigh, he opened the borrowing registry along the seam of a bookmark, and copied the title of her book into it. “Name?” he said. She furnished it. “Ruthenia Cendina. I know that name.”

She froze and turned to him, but he didn't seem interested enough in this thought to chase it. Snatching the book out of the petite man’s grip, Ruthenia exited the library the way she’d entered, lifting off into the blue noon like a dandelion parachute sailing between chains of Central Circle sky houses.

---

Chapter 4: The Eagle Takes Flight

“Put away your books. I have a treat for you today!"

A quiet conversation bloomed in the corner as Ms. Arina strode into the stifling classroom and set down her books.

Ruthenia knew what those classmates knew: that a treat, in Ms. Arina's parlance, was never a good thing.

“Quiet when I talk!" she snapped. "Now, over the next four weeks, to account for a third of your grade, you will all be completing a practical Weaving assignment." The disappointment was palpable in the silence—the surprise, none. "Mind that this is no ordinary assignment. You will work together, in pairs of your choosing, to craft a performance. That performance will involve the movement of a sheet of paper through the air in precise patterns, by means of Weaving. Through investigation and cross-reference with the appropriate literature, you..."

The class was swept up in a high-strung mutter before Arina had completed her current sentence. “Calan! Psst!” Alacero called sharply across Ruthenia's desk, and her two seatmates were instantly embroiled in a whispered discussion.

Ruthenia already knew who she would be working with. It had never been anyone else. Drumming her fingers, she turned to stare at the back of Hollia’s head, willing her to look this way.

When a few seconds had gone by and the girl hadn't yet noticed, her shoulders grew rigid. She began clawing at the back of her left palm, grinding her teeth. Had Hollia known before the class? Had she already agreed to do the project with someone else? Had she been waiting for this chance to leave Ruthenia? But it couldn't be—what did Hollia stand to gain? She was the best student in this class—

She leapt in her seat when her friend finally turned to wave, obliviously beaming. Ruthenia let her shoulders sag, gesturing at herself and then at Hollia, to which the girl nodded.

"In addition to this performance, you will each return a report," Arina's shrillness cut through their wordless exchange. Hollia perked up, attention usurped by the teacher once more. Bowing her head to make way for Alacero and Calan's conversation, Ruthenia began sketching solutions to their paper problem, Arina's voice a buzz in the back of her thoughts. "This report will describe, in detail, the problems you encountered and how you went about solving them with Weaving. You may only solve your problem with Weaving—"

She rolled her eyes, drawing resolutely. It was always about this, Weaving, Weaving, Weaving with these Flight Physics classes, as if that were all there was to flight.

But she knew what they were dodging around, the buried sin—the sin so great it couldn't even be spoken of.

A twinge pierced her. She swiped her pencil across her sketch, trying to gash the paper. The tip of the lead cracked off. But no one seemed to notice, and they continued to listen and write.

It was hard to keep her eyes on any one spot in this afternoon heat. Ruthenia couldn't be bothered with paying the teachers and the school more thought than they deserved, so she let the broken pencil tip drop to the paper again.

She came here for Tanio's sake. It was Tanio's money that had put her here in this school for snobs, and she would honour his efforts by attending her classes. But every minute here, she came so much closer to cracking, to spilling over.

"You will spend the rest of today's class forming pairs and creating a list of possible solutions to the assignment problem. Please, begin." At long last, the teacher released them from her lecture, though it would be a while yet before they were truly freed from her. Chairs rumbled across the floor even as she spoke, and the classroom was swept up in a furor of discussion and argument.

From her seat, Ruthenia stared at the back of Hollia's head, but Hollia was already talking to Telis. Her stomach clenched. But then Telis stood up and left, and Hollia turned to wave at her. Only then did Ruthenia shuffle out of her seat.

She dropped into the now-deserted chair, slapping her sketched plans onto the desk. “So, how about, you do the Weaving,” she said, “and I do everything else?”

“I'm fine with that, if you are,” Hollia answered with a polite smile. “When will we meet to work on it?”

“How about this Sunday, in my shed?” Ruthenia answered.

“Sunday? I can do it.”

While Hollia bowed her head to scribble the details of the arrangement in her organiser, Ruthenia swung her legs up onto Telis' desk and closed her eyes. The class continued to bustle with chatter around her, lulling her to sleep.

---

For every Astran student, Practical Flight was either one’s favourite subject, or the most painful.

For Ruthenia, it was both. Today they would begin learning the most dangerous beginner's skill—the roll—and as dangerous skills went, those with unstable mounts found them five times as painful to learn; those who could barely Weave, ten times.

This would be a long class.

The only consolation was the evening that set the backdrop for this lesson. Drops of gold and orange had begun to seep into the sky as the class commenced, the garden around them abloom in rainbow shades upon the first swell of spring. Gripping her glinting bicycle by the handles, Ms. Decanda wheeled it out onto the lawn, all smiles.

It wasn't that Ruthenia couldn't demand to sit it out; Decanda had no qualms about students making their own decisions about their ability. It was that she was alright with it, that she didn't care for the pretence of obedience. Her earnestness was like a dare.

“Mister Delor,” Ms. Decanda said, pointing at the student who had long become her honorary demonstration partner.

"Yes, ma'am!" Orrem lifted his head with a grin. His racing eagle, Astero, beat his wings out across the grass.

“I take it you’ve done this before?”

“A number of times, ma’am,” answered Orrem.

"Well, show us!" she declared, waving for him to rise.

Orrem leapt onto his eagle's back and gave him a practised heel-spur, as he had a thousand times. His experience showed as they ascended, amid twenty gazes, a single roaring beat of Astero's expansive wings, sending a breeze blustering in the crowd's direction. Ms. Decanda pedalled with similar ease, gaining momentum till her bicycle lurched into the sky after her student. She shot to the other end of the courtyard, swerving around to face her class.

“Now, as with every other technique!” she shouted down at the rest of the gathering, “everyone will discover their own unique method of rolling on their mount! It is a reflective process, one that will be expedited by sincere attention to your mount’s strengths and weaknesses!”

“My mount has nothing but weaknesses,” Ruthenia muttered.

“Now, you will see the differences between the way I roll, and how your classmate does. Alright, Mister Delor, fly at me, as fast as you can.”

Orrem’s eagle made a final loop around the courtyard, passing each tower in turn. In a clean swerve, it broke from that arc, hurtling straight at the flight instructor in a blur. Around Ruthenia, classmates raised their voices in cries of alarm.

Those shouts turned to cheers as Ms. Decanda’s bicycle lurched into a steep angle and Orrem’s eagle gusted past, feathers brushing the wheels, setting them spinning. Even Ruthenia found herself quietly clapping. She was hard-pressed to hate him. He was, at the very least, very good at what he did, and if he was well-to-do it was because he had earned it.

One of the few who did.

The sun glared through the gap on the clock-tower side and lit the courtyard orange, turning the two fliers into silhouettes. The bicycle swung straight, and before Orrem had turned back, Ms. Decanda was shooting like an arrow in his direction.

He gave a shout, but threw himself bodily to his right, arms looping about Astero's neck as his wings folded and he twisted, going horizontal while the teacher streaked past in a gleam of metal.

The eagle plummeted a foot before his wings unfurled once more, completing his spin and righting himself. The entire class erupted into applause while they made a final lap and swooped back down towards the field.

“Your rolling needs a bit of work,” admitted Ms. Decanda with a slap on the boy’s back, “by professional standards, that is. But a roll like that will earn you top marks from me, if that’s all that matters.” Nodding to send him back, the flight instructor turned to the rest of her class. “The rest of you—practise for ten minutes, and then find yourself a partner to practice with. Sooner if you’re confident.”

Ruthenia felt her stomach twist itself into knots as the class scattered across the field, all grins and whoops. She glanced down at the umbrella curled tightly in her fist. "Stupid umbrella," she growled.

Not ten minutes into the class, Ruthenia was twenty bruises bluer than before. She’d lost count of the number of times Ms. Decanda had had to Weave her to safety, each time with an increasingly furrowed brow.

“I shan’t hold your hand through this, Miss Cendina,” she said. “You must learn to cooperate with your umbrella.”

“But—it’s an umbrella, I can’t roll on this—”

The teacher gave her withering look. “I’ve seen students roll on tree branches,” she said.

“Maybe they weren’t useless Weavers—”

“No excuses now, Miss Cendina. I want to see you work hard.” The woman gave her two ineffectual pats on the shoulder, before steering her back towards the rest of the class.

Sulking as she trudged through the rustling grass, she quickly sought Hollia out from amidst the crowd and snagged her as her practice partner, though she almost relinquished her out of guilt when she noticed Telis right beside her, mouth open mid-invitation.

That guilt only worsened as practice proceeded. Hollia failed half the time to even roll, and not due to a lack of skill on her part: her pigeon Phore seemed to prefer roosting on a tower parapet to throwing itself at Ruthenia, particularly given how she’d crashed right into him on their very first attempt.

They didn’t do much better on switching roles, either. Three crashes meant Hollia ended the day almost as bruised as she.

The shame was thick enough that Ms. Decanda's call for the end of lesson brought no relief, even. She slunk back for the debrief, and sulked up at the vermilion sky as they were dismissed.

Ruthenia began to think, as the umbrella clattered to the ground for the fourth time, that going home would not be possible today. Her arms were too sore to even hold the umbrella up, let alone find some Thread that would take it. It fell for a fifth time, and she gave a yell of frustration, flinging her umbrella at the ground. Stooping to pick it up, she picked it up and began dusting the broken grass blades off its fabric.

“Miss Cendina,” the voice almost did not register at first. “I would like to speak to you.”

“Me?” Ruthenia sprang to her feet and turned, letting her arms drop to her sides when she found the Arcane Prince standing beside her. A chill of dread swept her as their gazes connected.

She had seen this face up close not too long ago, in Hyder's disguise, but the real thing frightened her more. He was like many Arcane nobles, pale face, golden hair tied in a ribbon, eyes glaring at her like week-old dirty laundry.

A bitter taste came to her mouth. “What can sorry little me do for Your Highness?” she spat.

“I would appreciate a more clement tone,” he said. “Could we speak elsewhere?”

By now, the entire meadow was washed vivid orange. “Why can't you tell me here?” she said.

He drew his lips into a line. “Are you defying me?”

“Do you think I care about your authority?” she shot back.

He seemed to toy with the idea of spitting a retort of equal acerbity, before pulling back. “We have a...situation that requires immediate attention of a machinist,” he said. “An acquaintance of ours recommended you to us, and we would hereby like to enlist your help.”

The wind whirled across the field, stirring their hair.

Ruthenia’s brow furrowed. “And? What’s the problem?”

“I cannot disclose its nature until you pledge your service to us.”

She folded her arms. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if Arcanes do it differently, but I don’t agree to do jobs without knowing what they involve.”

“As a matter of security, I cannot disclose such sensitive information until you have made a binding pledge,” he replied curtly.

"Security?" she sputtered.

“You must understand our privacy is of utmost importance. Is the opportunity to furnish your services to the Arcane royal family not enough?”

“That's it, that's enough,” she snarled. “I don’t care what help you need. Maybe you're used to everyone forgetting themselves at the very sight of you, but I'm not just doing whatever you and your pompous lot want of me!”

She busied herself with her umbrella once more. A breeze filled the silence while she scrabbled at the threads with her fingers. She gritted her teeth as the orange umbrella tumbled to the ground at her feet, aware that the Arcane Prince was still watching her fumble with her flight mount.

Stooping to pick it up, she turned to flick an arm at him. “Go away!”

Ruthenia finally succeeded in yanking the Threads from the air as the last word left her mouth. She barely heard the first word of the Arcane Prince’s response before she had shot off into the sky.

---

Chapter 5: The Science of Disobedience

Ruthenia didn't bother picking up her usual fix of honey milkshake on her way home. She was too busy trying to get her thoughts to sit right in her head. From the canopy of her umbrella, she frowned and watched the scenery pass a hundred feet below, listening to the frogs croaking in the River Colura as she followed it.

How had the Arcane royal family found out about her work? Questions buzzed in her mind like hornets as she drifted on homeward. This was too close for comfort. They were one step from uncovering the nest. The unspeakable thing.

Downstream, the banks of the watercourses grew more crowded with marsh birds, squawking into the evening among the bobbing reeds, but even their piercing shrieks could not break through her thoughts. She was almost thankful for the distraction of Tanio, awaiting her on her patio as the last of the light slipping beneath the horizon.

“Sonna needs that engine by Friday!” was his singsong greeting as she landed. Ruthenia was no longer thankful for the distraction. She glared as she went inside her shed, slamming the door shut between him and herself.

Still, she found herself at her workbench after dinner, hammering the last rivets into the engine's chassis plates. By eight o’clock that night, it was ready to be sent back to Mr. Sonna, and she only need shoot a message to his private courier. She flung her plasma welder and wrenches into her toolbox with a loud jangle, pushing it under her shelves with a foot, then stood and stretched, working the knots out of her shoulder muscles.

Ruthenia was launched out of her stretching exercises by a monstrous, watery gurgling. She glanced about for a beast before realising it came from beneath her feet, rattling her floorboards. She flung her doors open and dashed out into the night and to the edge of her patio, leaning over the rails.

Her mouth fell open. Down beneath her shed, the River Colura had been conquered by a never-ending chain of whirlpools—like mouths gaping in the surface, sucking the currents and the plant debris in. Every inch of the river frothed white in the moonlight, and the marsh birds flew in frantic circles over the banks, shrieking.

“What’s going on—” she breathed as she stumbled across the bridge to Tanio’s house, tripping on the gaps between the planks and yelling her boss’ name.

Within a minute, Tanio was out on his front porch with her, notebook and pencil in hand, glasses perched on his nose. 

“What d’you reckon is going on down there?” she asked.

“I don’t know!” the man exclaimed, flipping his notebook open. “But it must have to do with everything else! The swaying buildings. The ships and the sounds in the Deeps. Something beautiful, something amazing!” He stared as if hypnotised, eyes wide as the full moon. 

“There’s nothing beautiful about what I’m seeing here,” she muttered, drawing away from the rails. 

They took in the bizarre moonlit spectacle for a while, but the man continued to stare at the currents long after Ruthenia had lost interest, flipping through his notebook and jotting frantic notes in its pages.

Ruthenia crossed the bridge beneath the heavy grey morning sky, canvas bag full of notebooks, rolled blueprints beneath her arm, her umbrella on her elbow. She stumbled to a stop on Tanio’s porch. The man was already waiting for her, arms crossed on his porch railings.

“Well, that’s an improvement for punctuality,” he said with a smirk, before turning once again to the grey horizon where a speck was soaring towards them—one that slowly grew into the shape of a man atop a large wooden rectangle.

It was the job of Sharmon Aldo, their chemist friend and resident fuel expert, to ferry Titanio and Ruthenia to Eldon’s mansion every Saturday. He had the largest flight mount among them: a priceless Onao table, its ornate legs sawed off.

He waved from the distance as he hurtled towards them. “Hedgehog Head!” Tanio shouted. The chemist was built like a beer barrel, and his rosy face was topped by a crop of brown hair that frequently matted into spikes thanks to his overtures in the laboratory. His brown coat, stained by various chemicals and reagents, fluttered out behind him like a cape.

“No time to waste now, the rain’s about to start!” he shouted, gesturing for them to board.

Once seated comfortably, the two men burst into animated conversation about the great amount of work to come. "How are the purification studies coming along?"

"The last trial with fractionation gave me some potion half clean, but half isn't much good, now!"

Over the farmland they coursed. Fields of wheat, barley and corn passed beneath them, small squares coming together in a huge tapestry. All the colours were muted beneath the blackening blanket of clouds above.

Sharmon and Tanio’s conversation at the front of the table was rapid and brash; they passed jokes about work life and appeasing sponsors and assistants who refused to listen. Ruthenia sighed and curled her arm around one table-leg stump, letting her legs hang over the edge and watching the fields slip by beneath her soles.

Thunder clapped. All three looked up. “Ihir blessing us with haste,” Sharmon said under his breath. He put his hands out on either side and swept them through the air. Their speed doubled.

The first sprinkling of rain began as they came flying past the Royal Palace of Helika. Ruthenia stared at the serene estate’s floating mansions and side houses through the thin misty drizzle. It wasn't a building complex so much as a small airborne town on its own, stretching a mile in the direction they flew. The wings and blocks and side-houses were centred around the main tower, whose gilded doors stood shut, its interior a mystery to all but the Arcane and Ordinary royal families.

She had heard wild stories about their grotesque wealth. Five attendants to a person. An equine for every resident. Breakfast in bed! It wasn’t hard to see how the old Arcane Kings had so quickly lost sight of the country they had meant to serve.

What was the difference, anyway, between the Kings and she? Resolving diplomatic issues couldn’t be any harder than building a train engine from scraps, or fixing a backed-up valve.

She wrinkled her nose at the gleaming walls as they passed, the drizzle beginning to grow a little less friendly.

“You daydreaming about the palace life?” said Sharmon, turning briefly to her.

Ruthenia scrunched up her face. “Why would I?” she growled. “That place rots people’s souls, that’s what it does.”

The palace vanished behind them, and all the mysteries cloistered within it. The drizzle swelled into a downpour.

*

While it wasn't the palace exactly, the Legars Manor would steal a breath or two yet. It was as much as one could expect of the abode of a royal secretary: the houses didn't hire anyone without a respectable estate of their own. One of the remaining ground mansions left in Astra, this fine specimen had been renovated a dozen times over, but never relocated to the air.

By the time they skidded to a stop over the Legars landing balcony, all three were soaked and shivering. Ruthenia grimaced at every squelch of her socks in her shoes, her shirt clinging damply to her back. They tumbled off Sharmon's table, dripping, and scurried down the stairs into the shelter to be halted by Eldon Legars himself in the hallway.

“Good to see you! Your shirts have certainly seen better days.” Eldon, a bespectacled man of forty or so, smiled at the three sodden messes on his front step with both hands tucked behind his back. Brown hair combed over his scalp, he wore a pressed green tweed sweater-vest, not a fold out of place. “You will be pleased to know that the interns have made remarkable progress since last week.”

“Oh, very nice!” answered Sharmon.

Eldon watched them the way a supervisor might watch a team of bumbling workers. He welcomed each of them in turn with a perfunctory handshake, each returning it with a different degree of enthusiasm. Then he waved them along down the corridor, and like a huddle of ducklings they followed.

Rounding the curve of the staircase, they glided into a hall of gilded chandeliers and marble floors. Ruthenia stared at the golden floral designs in the carpet as they passed beneath her feet. Halfway down the hall, where they passed a cosy sitting room populated with ornate chairs, Eldon paused and glanced about for incoming attendants. Then he began towards his study door in a brisk walk, gesturing for them to follow.

As Ruthenia had found out on the day she had first met Eldon, building a secret basement in your own home was not the simple matter of hiding a doorway behind a bookcase. There were all sorts of giveaways one had to account for: friction marks, telltale seams, thin walls.

So instead of resorting to the designs of predecessors, the four of them had designed their own door mechanism together, from wood and carpets and a system of Threaded pulleys.

“You’d better not let anyone discover it, Moneypants,” Tanio had warned as he had signed off on the blueprint, “or it’s straight to the slammer with you.”

Eldon had smiled in response. “If we were discovered, you’d have only yourself to blame.”

The door was still here, and it had proven its usefulness against the countless attendants residing within this house. One by one, they slipped into the carpeted study. Once all four were in, Eldon shut the door quietly behind them. It was ordinary, if opulent: the walls were towering bookcases, and a single ancient desk stood against the far wall, with a drawer locked by a key.

Fishing it from his pants pocket, the man slid the key into the lock, and turned it one full round clockwise.

“Here we go!” Sharmon whooped like a child, grabbing the study chair. Ruthenia simply sat down on the carpet. With a quiet hiss, the floor began to descend, leaving the desk and the shelves behind. The ceiling shifted upward, blank walls streaking upward around them. From below, a doorway slid into view and beyond it, the basement where everything happened.

They stumbled out  of the dimness into the bright hall, two stories tall and almost as sprawling as the mansion above it. Their steps echoed as they entered, Ruthenia's heart swelling at the sight of this great secret of theirs, the thing that had necessitated all this hiding, raised on props in the middle of the room.

Modeled after the bird for which it was named, the Swift was Tanio’s blueprint given life: the slender scaffolding of a steel skeleton, thrice as long as she was tall, the beginnings of canvas wings stretched out on either side of it. They were not the first ones here: two young men worked away beneath the incomplete skeleton of the machine, wrenching and welding atop a pair of stepladders.

Both auburn heads whipped around at the sound of the newcomers, their faces similar enough that Ruthenia was certain they were siblings.

“Excellent work, boys!” announced Tanio, pushing ahead to meet the two interns. “Your names?”

“You must be Mister Calied! I'm Sandro,” said the slightly taller of the two with a grin, reaching a gloved hand out to shake the inventor's.

"The one and only," he answered with a little bow.

“My name is Sef.” The other boy waved cautiously with the hand not holding the welder.

Eldon hastened towards the newly-met boss and intern. “These two have been unusually industrious today,” he said with a chuckle. “Rather nervous about their first inspection, I imagine.”

“We’re no monsters! Nothing to be nervous about,” Ruthenia said, marching up to the gathering.

Seph turned. "Who's that?"

"Just my rather hotheaded assistant," Tanio murmured. "I'm pleased to hear that you've been hard at work!"

While the man and the newfound interns meandered into a conversation about the work they had done this week so far, Ruthenia was startled by a call of her last name. She turned to find that Eldon, the issuer, had already retreated back to the doorway and was waving her towards himself.

"Wait, but, inspections—"

Ruthenia glanced over at Tanio, but the man was busy guffawing at a joke he had just made, while the brothers returned his laughter sheepishly. Sighing, she walked away from the gathering.

Eldon waited till she had come to a stop. “I presume," he said, "that you've been in contact with a member of the Arcane royal family."

Her mouth gaped. “It was you!”

“Why, yes, Miss Cendina,” the royal secretary replied. “It was at a council meeting three nights ago that the Arcane King put forth a most curious request, for help of a mechanical nature. I hope you do not mind that I offered your name, I do think you fit their needs perfectly." He pushed up his glasses. "But I am told you..." he cleared his throat, "rejected their offer of work.”

Ruthenia let out a voiced sighed. "Yeah, why would I want to work for that Arcane Priss?"

"Surely you would!" Eldon's brow furrowed. She drew her lips into a line. Here it came. “Young lady, you're lucky they have decided to persist with their request; I spoke well of you and I insisted upon it. Play along and you’ll be rewarded handsomely."

She shrugged. “Thank you. For thinking that highly of me, I mean.”

“There's no need to thank me,” he replied with an earnest grimace. "The best thanks you could pay me would be to accept their job. I assure you they are in great need of you. And besides..." Here he tipped his glasses and raised an eyebrow. "If you do well, you would improve their opinion of my advice, too."

This, she gave a little thought. “Well, if he wants my service, he’d better be ready to fork out more aurs. And three favours. At the very least.”

“More aurs. And three favours. I'll mention it.”

Engine work concluded three hours later, whereupon Eldon obliged to take them to the dining room for a sumptuous dinner like nothing Tanio could never dream of whipping up. Even then, the inventor managed to slip in some ill warranted allusions to his cookery, which the secretary entertained with polite chuckles. Oh, if you only knew, thought Ruthenia, but she had a feeling that he did, and was merely too genteel to be honest.

*

The next day's tea of unseasoned waterfowl was far cry from lunch the day before. Ruthenia came back to the classroom to a note on her desk, written on a folded piece of white card.

She already knew who its writer must be before she had picked it up, but she flipped it open to be sure. Sure enough, she found the signature of one Aleigh Luzerno, Arcane Prince of Astra.

She contemplated crumpling it up without reading its contents, but even as she held it, she found herself wrestling with, and then succumbing to, curiosity.

So it was that, at the end of the last class, Ruthenia marched along the corridor towards the menagerie, preparing a scowl.

The Arcane Prince awaited her where he said he would, by the gate, the dull light throwing streaks of shadows across everything.

“Thank you for your time, Miss Cendina,” he said, as she burst through the gates into the dim, hay-scented hall. “I would like to entreat again for your help.”

She folded her arms and pretended disinterest. Beyond the gates, a bird squawked. “You don't have anyone else in your list of contacts?”

“Yours is a rare profession,” he said again. “And your skills are the kind we need right now.”

She paused, lowering her umbrella. “I don't buy it,” she said. “There are plenty of skilled machinists.”

“No, it is not just your skills with machines that we would like to enlist, even if they are important.”

“What else? Is it my hatred for your entire family?”

“No, it is your ability to keep a secret.”

Now, she whirled around to face him, gaping. Had Eldon hinted at it? The secret they were all keeping? “Alright, tell me more.”

“Once again, I cannot reveal the nature of the task before you have agreed. But if you do choose to render your services to us, we shall be indebted to you—a hundred aurs indebted. Once agreed to, you shall be bound by your word to complete the task to the letter. You will receive your payment of a hundred aurs after. Do you agree?”

Ruthenia hated binding words, but at the mention of a hundred aurs, she suddenly felt very much less resistant to the thought of helping them. “Put another fifty aurs in and you have my word.”

He nodded. Her eyes widened. “I shall have a hundred and fifty aurs delivered personally to you. What do you have to offer me as security?”

She frowned in puzzlement. “Security?”

“I must have some way of ensuring that you see the task through to the end, and not take the cargo hostage.”

“Take it hostage? No, you're just spewing Arcane nonsense! I'm not giving you one of my belongings!”

He sighed. “Please, Miss Cendina. This is a singularly sensitive project—surely you must understand that by now.” He curled the fingers of his right hand. “If you must know, a person's life—the life of someone important—hangs in the balance here. I cannot reiterate how important it is to us that this transaction be completed without incident and without disclosure, and that we be sure of that.”

Whatever protest had been forthcoming, Ruthenia smothered it out. "Alright. Alright. I get it." She sucked in a breath between her teeth. "How about—" Casting her gaze down, she reached for the only object that would be worth anything to his fancy Arcane eyes: the watch on her neck. She unlooped its chain, frowned, and planted it in his outstretched palm. "Take care of it."

Aleigh seemed briefly surprised, though she could not tell why that might be. His fingers curled around the device. “Thank you, Miss Cendina. I shall have the package delivered to you tomorrow morning. You will know what to do with it then.” He blinked. “That is all; you are dismissed.”

She held up a finger. “I am not dismissed, Arcane Priss! Don't you dismiss me! Who d'you think you are, my mother?”

“I am the—” He broke off as she shoved a hand in his face.

“You’re the one who needs my help,” Ruthenia shouted. “Now act like you actually want it.”

With an obscene gesture, she left him, silent as stone. She sprinted up the staircase into the sunlight, then let out a roar at the sky. Who did these Arcane royals think they were?

---

Chapter 6: A Seed Sown in the Heart

“Ruth.” Ruthenia broke her gaze away from her plate. When her eyes met his, Tanio lowered his sandwich. "Could I ask you something?”

Her eyes darted away again. “What?”

“Are you lonely?” he said.

“Bit rude, don't you think?” Ruthenia muttered, propping her chin up on her elbows. “With you bugging me day and night, I couldn't possibly be.”

“No, in school I mean. You don't seem to have a lot of company there, other than that nice birdkeeper girl.”

It took her a moment to process the question, and another to feel the ache in her throat.  “Doesn’t matter,” she replied, casting her gaze to the side.

"Could I do anything for you?"

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.

“Sorry, I’m not good at this,” he muttered hastily. “But I just want to know. I know we don't talk about it much, but I would love to help. I’d hate to be a bad guardian.”

Ruthenia rolled her eyes. “You don't have to be my guardian,” she said, staring at her own plate. “I'm here to work for you. You don’t have to do everything the contract says, it’s not as if I'd ever sue you for it.”

“But I want to. As your legal guardian, it would be most morally reprehensible of me not to help solve—”

“Stop trying to replace them!” she burst out, then recoiled, surprised at herself, and even more, that her eyes were wet.

“I'm...I’m not,” Tanio said, trailing off. His face was taut with some emotion she had never seen before, and could not place, through the rippling refractions of her tears.

Ruthenia felt like everything might fall out of her. She curled her hands into fists and drew her limbs closer to hold it in. “You don't have to fix anything! I don’t want you to care so much,” she said, lower lip quivering. “I know you want to do this. I'm trying to be grateful. I'm trying to like this. But it never feels—the same—”

A tide of sadness choked her. Titanio Calied was invisible. She took a huge bite out of her sandwich with numbing determination, drowning her thoughts in the preoccupations of homework and school and the work to come—everything that didn’t, that couldn’t, remind her of the life before.

When she finally left Tanio's house, Ruthenia stood for a while at the front door, face to face with the dark. The cold wind blasted her face, carrying the scent of rain.

She walked slowly across the planks of the swaying bridge as the rain began to fall, a step and then another, each one harder than the last. She stopped in the middle, the wind ruffling her hair and clothes as she swung aimlessly in the rain. It drenched her, from her face down to her toes. If only it could wash her memory clean. But she only reached her door rain-soaked, and feeling no lighter.

---

The next morning came at the end of a series of dreams about the ground shaking and turning into water. Three loud knocks shoved Ruthenia right out of her dreams, and she woke up sliding off her hammock.

She winced as her side rolled on the floorboards, feeling the bruises from the disastrous flight class throb again.

“Who...who’s there,” Ruthenia mumbled, nursing a bruise on her knee as her eyelids unglued themselves from each other. She dragged herself out of her old hammock—another loud knock startled her to her feet.

Pulling the front door open, she found herself staring at the face of Titanio Calied.

“Good morning, Ruth!” he chirped.

“What?” she muttered, rubbing her bleary eyes as the morning breeze gushed into the room. All across the sky behind him, the storm clouds were thickening.

“A package for you. It says 'fragile,'” he said, extending his hands, upon which sat a medium-sized parcel wrapped in dark paper, its wrapping sealed with red stamped wax. “It’s from the house of the Arcane royal family. What exactly have you been up to now?”

At once, every ounce of Ruthenia’s morning grogginess had evaporated.

“Thanks, Tanio,” she said hastily, snatching the package off his palmtop. “I can’t tell you what it is, but thank you.”

Before he got another word in, she dashed back to her desk, heart pounding in her head.

Ruthenia flung her stationery drawer open in a rattling of rulers and pens, rummaging about for her paper knife. Laying the package on the table under the light of her window, she unsheathed the blade, watching her reflection gleam in it. 

She stood the package up, gingerly, so that the blood-red wax seal faced upward. “Alright, then, let's see what all that kerfuffle was about,” she whispered, sliding the tip of her knife under its edge.

The paper wrapping came easily undone. She crumpled the sheet into a ball and flung it into the box of scraps under her desk. From the wrapping she had unearthed a black box, about a foot wide and equally wide. A letter rested atop it, folded thrice. Unfolding it, she found a lengthy message inscribed in a trained cursive that she had seen before:

Ruthenia Cendina,

Thank you, firstly, for rendering your services to the Arcane royal family, and secondly, for bearing the risk in accepting this assignment despite not knowing what it entailed.

Enclosed here is the item of critical importance. I ask that you treat it with impeccable care. If you were to open the box, you would find a clock inside.

You may have heard of the dangerous and somewhat illegal procedure known as intersplicing. It is a delicate process by which the Thread of a human soul is unwound from their heart and woven to power a machine, in order that it may be maintained and repaired as a means of prolonging life.

By a series of events in a decade ago that I shall spare you the details of, my mother bound her soul to with this clock.

"Your what?" Ruthenia let the sheet flutter onto her tabletop. She had only ever heard stories about intersplices, had only ever scoffed at the notion that some people believed they worked.

It has functioned flawlessly for almost a decade, until now. It seems to be malfunctioning, and she has begun to ail. We cannot entrust this task to anyone with even a remote interest in the politics of nobility. Eldon has been emphatic that you are trustworthy like no other, and I have seen from your repeated refusals that you are not a person swayed by the temptation of scandal.

So, I hereby implore you to do whatever you can to save my mother, and that you take the secret of what you have seen and done here to your grave.

This will be in return for the agreed price of a hundred and fifty aurs. But know that a hundred and fifty aurs could only signify a minuscule fraction of my gratitude, should you succeed without incident.

Please write me personally when you are finished, so I may send a courier to fetch it, carrying your reward. Use the messenger signature given below.

Aleigh Luzerno

Arcane Prince of Astra

Ruthenia stared spent a minute staring at the symbol, tracing its loops dumbly with her eyes. She had worked with clockwork frequently enough that she didn't think the task beyond her. But she had not expected this.

This was somehow infinitely more horrifying than anything she had imagined.

Shaking her head, she turned to the box, where the sound of ticking now rose to her attention. With a thumb on its edge, she lifted the lid a crack as if there were an ancient artifact inside. As it came away, her hand froze, and her breath caught in her throat. It was less clock and more trophy, styled like a house, with crystals laid into the windows, and birds carved into the topmost rim. It was so bright with gold leaf that it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine it was worth as much in aurs as the human soul it substituted.

She lowered the lid back into place and leaned away as if the box contained a curse.

Instead she picked up her messenger device and its stylus, and on its glowing blue screen, began writing with a brief, neatly-inscribed:

Hello,

The singular word glowed in the gleaming surface of her messenger, and she sat staring at it for a while.

It wasn't Tanio’s favourite device, the Thread messenger, considering its creator being was Aena Cerr. She gave the business a bad name, that was what Tanio would tell you. Barely months after a popularity explosion had made it a household item, Aena had sold her message-recording technology to the Astran government for hundreds of thousands of aurs, and now there was no way to be sure if your words were being traced.

Immediately, Tanio had set about disassembling and rebuilding his messenger, and hers, so that the signals were propagated by transmitters through the air rather than on the Threads, leaving no traces on the filograms. There was little they could do for the rest of its users that would not land them in a lawsuit.

Hello, this is Ruthenia. Did I draw the code right?

Scribbling the rest of her message on its glass surface, she twisted the right dial one click clockwise to indicate the destination, Helika City, and watched the message melt into the glass. Glancing at the note lying on her lap, she copied the code to the now-empty display, before depressing a spring-loaded switch at the top of its circular brass frame.

She breathed a sigh, turning to stare at the open box and the clock inside, glittering blue with myriad broken images of the sky through her window. What had she gotten herself into?

Turning once again to the black box, Ruthenia slid the lid off again, and regarded the clock that sat ticking in its velvet nest. Leaning over to hold her ear against it, she found that the ticks were slow and juddering, stopping far too long each time, then ticking twice in rapid succession. Gingerly, she lowered the lid back on it.

She puffed up her cheeks and blew out, covering the box again. "Alright, then."

She stood up and reached for her umbrella, marching to the doorway. A machine was a machine: cogs, axles, ratchets, and a power source to drive the whole thing, like a pulse. But she was no watch expert, and she was not about to risk the life of the Arcane King's mother just because he had not . She could do this; she would simply need some help. At the door she picked up her bag and flung it over her shoulder.

Off across the fields and back to the library it was, a twenty-minute flight that passed quietly amidst her furious pondering. She dove into the gullet of the conical structure, and descended back into the company of the country's best engineering collection. There was no shortage of books on clockwork machinery, including of the Thread-powered kind. She quickly found a manual published by the very brand that she had seen on the clock face: Equere. With a breezy goodbye to the librarian, she was off homeward again with barely a second to spare.

*

By the time she returned, Ruthenia's screen was glowing blue with a new message.

Yes, it is the correct one.

read the succinct reply, every letter meticulously formed.

After a minute rummaging through her drawers and the toolboxes on her shelves, Ruthenia prepared on her desk three small screwdrivers. She shut her window and propped the book up on the stand beside her, flipping to its contents page. She snatched a sheet of felt out of her drawer and unrolled it on her desk.

Lifting the device gently out of its box, she turned it over on the felt and began, ever so carefully, to drive out the screws holding the clock face in place.

The clock lay like an animal on the operation table, its every cog clicking and glinting beneath the balance cock, like pulsing organs. They shivered before each tick, then twitched uncannily, teeth clenching against each other.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the collection of cogs struggle, as if fighting to breathe. “Alright, let's not mess this up,” she muttered. Flicking again through pages of innumerable diagrams, she paused on a series that appeared similar to hers, comparing the details until her finger landed upon the one: a Equere Wall Horologue from the Year of 470.

The balance cock could be removed without compromising operation. Licking her lips, Ruthenia unscrewed and displaced it, flicking it off with her screwdriver. Naked to her gaze, the labyrinth of mechanical architecture scraped back and forth, the ratchet swinging sluggishly.

That was where she saw it. Right beneath the edge of the balance wheel was lodged a little speck of grit.

No—not grit. It had an abraded skin. It was a seed.

"How'd you get in there?" she murmured. All this trouble and strife, for something so tiny.

By now Ruthenia's neck was aching with craning it so much, so she rested it on the table to ease the pain. From here she could see it much better than before, lodged under the metal.

She placed her current screwdriver on the tabletop, and then reached for her smallest one, its head so tiny it might as well have been a meat skewer from afar. Someone with less steady hands might have flubbed this move. She gently slid the tool under the wheel, behind the tiny fleck of grit. Then she flicked it backward.

The seed sprang out onto her lap. She held her breath. The cogs clicked, and resumed their quiet ticking.

Ruthenia did not breathe again until she had screwed the balance cock back into place. By then, the blood was rushing in her ears, and she could barely hear her heartbeat.

For a minute after the job was done, she sat in her stool, catching her breath as if she had been a second from death herself while the buzz of anxiety faded from her limbs. Then she righted the clock once more, and Talia’s heart ticked on,glinting with a thousand reflections of her face. She finally let her shoulders slacken.

Picking up the messenger pen with trembling fingers, she wrote:

It is done. The clock is ready for collection.

Five minutes later, the reply was equally succinct:

Wonderful. I could not possibly thank you enough.

---

Chapter 7: Spring Tide

A downpour began that lasted through the night, the pitter-patter lulling Ruthenia gently to sleep. By the next morning, the rain had cleared, leaving a fresh mist on the fields below. The clouds parted to reveal a clear blue dawn. Out on the patio, shimmering puddles caught the sun. The wind carried the scent of storm’s end, of grass ruffled by the rain, petals and twigs.

On the dining table she found a note from Tanio, in his favourite eye-catching yellow: Pick up fish from Baytown. She scrunched it under her fist. After downing her breakfast of bread and jam, Ruthenia snatched the straw fish basket off the coat rack and looped it around her arm, going back for her umbrella.

On her patio, she shut her squeaky wooden double doors behind her, and pulled her umbrella open over the rail. Today, the Threads took it more easily than usual, and her heart leapt when they caught. She tumbled into the canopy and soared away with a kick at the balustrade, staring upward between the white clouds as the sky turned a deeper shade of blue around her.

Ruthenia flew westward through the airborne suburbs. The River Colura passed beneath her as she followed its glittering current, lowering her course to shout and wave at the children swimming in it. She flew for twenty minutes southwest, till the fields became sand and the river fanned out in a broad estuary flowing into the sea.

The buildings of the Bollard District hung around her like paper ornaments, white and weightless, all poles and canvas. Out in the bay, the bells of trawlers chimed as they raised their nets to the calls of gulls. The steam vessels rode the swells of the tide, billows of condensed steam blooming from their chimneys. The shimmering expanse rippled on to the edge of visibility.

Down to the bay Ruthenia flew. She landed on the grey rock pier in front of a fish stall that overlooked the bay, the stench of fish hitting her before the sight of a dozen full bins, the fishes' silver flanks still writhing inside. She leaned to pick out fish and drop them into the basket inside her overturned umbrella, floating beside her.

Beside her, the shopkeeper was engrossed in a conversation. “Been like this a week or so,” said a scraggly man, beard brushing his tarnished uniform buttons. “Whirlpools and glitter on the waves, all that damned glitter. It clings to our hulls. The Argenta Sea's off limits now, but taking the long way 'round is costing us!”

“Oh, its driving the fish mad, too,” answered the keeper. “Plenty of fish in our nets, plenty of silver scum too.”

“The world's gone mad. I saw a boat get pulled in with my own eyes,” the sailor answered. “Dragged bow-first into the sea, I could hear their screams from a mile out, poor souls.”

“Ihir help them.”

“I say the whirlpools are Ihir's will, it is hebis loricoda anew.”

The captain and the stall owner launched into a debate on theology and scripture, and that was when Ruthenia knew it was time for her to buy and make her departure. “Just the lot,” she said, showing the keeper the basket.

“Twelve argents,” he answered, counting off the fish in a glance. She paid as asked, then pushed her floating umbrella just off the edge of the pier, before leaping in after the fish basket.

*

Ruthenia dropped off the basket on Tanio's porch, then crossed to her patio, whose wooden boards were now dry and warm against her soles. She returned her umbrella to the rack and dropped into her desk chair, where her messenger's glass was glowing.

Thank you most kindly. A courier will arrive at ten o’clock today.

“Er, what was this a reply to again?” she thought aloud.

It occurred to her then that it was Sunday, and Hollia meant to be visiting to complete the Flight Physics task they had been assigned. If she had sent a message about it, it was too bad about the timing, as the Arcane Priss' message would have replaced it.

But either way, Hollia would not be here till the afternoon. Picking up the book on her desk, she found her way to her hammock and, for the next hour or so, absorbed herself in the inner workings of clockwork devices. 

There was a flutter of wings, and at the knock on her door, she leapt from the hammock.

There was a brown-haired woman lurking by her open door. “Come in,” she shouted.

She watched as the stranger pushed the door open and entered haltingly, as if afraid the shed might devour her. She was pale-skinned with her long mouse-brown hair in a braid, hanging to the woven silver chain belt girding her waist. A messenger bag hung upon her shoulder, the edges trimmed in gold.

“Good morning, Miss Cendina,” she said with a practiced smile. “I was sent by His Highness, the Arcane Prince, to—”

“Oh, yes, I know,” answered Ruthenia, racing to pick up the heavy black box. Once it was in her hands, her steps slowed. She handed it to the visitor.

“Thank you,” she replied, gripping the box tightly enough to dent it. Flipping the cover of her woven bag open, she fished out a brown parcel tied up in a red ribbon, and offered it to Ruthenia.

“What’s this?” she said, hands sinking with its unexpected weight. She put it on her tabletop with a telltale clink, and tugged the ribbon loose.

“Payment, and your security,” the courier replied.

Sure enough, as soon as the wrapping came undone, she found herself gaping at a wooden case of stacked aur coins—more than enough to pay off her expenses for the next three months. She spent the next five minutes shuffling the coins around, and then began to unload them from the box into the drawer.

---

It was midway through slurping up her beef noodle lunch that a knock resounded from Tanio's landing platform. The man himself shouted down the stairwell. “Ruthenia, I think you have a visitor.”

Ruthenia abandoned the last dregs of noodles on the table and leapt from her seat, sprinting up the uneven stairs while she straightened her soup-drenched shirt. Skidding to a stop on the narrow sunlit landing, Ruthenia spotted Hollia’s head through the colourful semicircle of glass. She leapt over the squeaky floorboard and called out her name, throwing the door open.

Hollia flew in with the biggest smile. "Ruthenia!" She wore a sleeveless blouse and loose grey dress that billowed in the breeze

"Thanks for coming," Ruthenia answered, dodging a hug. She glimpsed Phore filling half the balcony outside, feathers fluffed up in the sun.

When they returned to the stairs, they found Tanio standing at the landing with a grin. “Good to see you again!” he declared. “I was worried for a bit that Ruth had fallen out with you.”

Ruthenia began steering Hollia towards the stairs. “Mister Calied, thanks for having me over,” answered Hollia nevertheless. “How's work treating you?”

Tanio beamed. “Oh, busy as always, I'm just in such high demand. So many messages and letters, I can barely get through them fast enough.”

“Hollia, we have work to do!” she growled, tugging on her elbow.

They crossed the plank bridge in the beating sun, then were relieved by the shelter of Ruthenia's shed. She kicked the door shut behind them and appraised her room. Something about the sight of Hollia in here was always just a little jarring, the poorly-sawed shelves and homemade desk stool not worthy of her guest. But her friend's eyes in wonder only widened at all the parts on haphazard display across the floor.

Ruthenia leaned over her desk and threw her window open. She pulled a stack of paper, a pair of scissors and some industrial grade liquid adhesives from her drawer, and laid them out on her workbench. Beside them she placed her sketch. “Let’s get this over with.”

Through the long, lazy hours of the afternoon, the air was idle, and the motes of sawdust caught the light from the window. Ruthenia paused to lift her face to the window every time a soft breeze blew through. Ruthenia quickly came to the conclusion, upon a close reading of the assessment details, that there was nothing preventing them from folding the sheet of paper into any structure they pleased, as long as they were able to do it during the performance itself.

On this front, Hollia had the perfect knowledge to contribute—that is, the knowledge of how to fold paper into a glider. While they worked together on the design and calculations, they chattered: about the class, and their classmates. When Hollia began about her social life, there was no end to what she could say. 

“Just last week, I went out with Telis and Lora in Candelabra Town and took tea together in this really cute teashop that Lora likes. I didn't even know it was there!”

“You're getting really close to them.” Ruthenia murmured, then added a laugh as an afterthought. “They seem like be better company than me.”

“Huh? No, Ruth, of course not. They have their heads all in the clouds, and it's nice to be part of their caprices. But you're proper company. I can always trust you to be honest, and that means a lot.”

“That's nice of you to say,” she murmured, heart unclenching. “But how’s work treating you?”

“Just as well as always,” Hollia said. “Every time migration season comes round, I can’t stop wondering if I should just open the doors and set them free.”

“But they’ll die if you do, won't they?”

Hollia nodded, her voice clouded. “Some of them are the last families of their kind. Like the mourning doves. I can’t risk it.” Her brow was furrowed with a frown that looked wrong on her face. “Does it ever bother you? That the work you’re doing might be wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean...” She put the glue bottle down. “Believing that your work needs to be done is why you strive to do it the best you can, right? But what if that’s not true? If what you’re doing isn’t...right?”

“I doubt Arcanes indulge in their business-making because they think it’s morally right.”

“But I keep thinking about the birds, wondering if they don’t need to be cared for.”

“You don’t think it’s right?”

“I think—I sometimes feel like I’m just hurting them. Maybe we aren’t meant to keep them caged. Maybe we’ve been wrong...I don’t know. It keeps me awake at night, when I can hear them biting at the wires.” Hollia was gazing past Ruthenia, at the clouds in the window.

“I don’t think what you're doing is wrong. Some humans put them in a cage a hundred years ago. And now they can't live in the wild anymore, so someone has to take care of them.” She sighed. “As for me...I don’t know if any of what you said applies exactly.” She realised then that she was no longer working. “I’m in the trade because it was all I heard about from the moment I was born. I’ve never thought of becoming anything else. And these days it feels like I'm just honouring my parents' memory.”

“That's noble of you.”

“It’s like I never actually got to decide. I don’t know if that counts as being noble.”

Sitting in a corner of her shed, soaking in the afternoon warmth, the paper glider took twice as long to finish as it should have. It was not until the sky turned orange in the windows that Ruthenia picked up pace, apologising for having kept Hollia so long. Hollia tied the Threads quickly and exactly as instructed. Ruthenia gave it a toss across the room. It shot off through the shadows, path undulating as it soared from the desk to the front door, bobbing up and down like a grasshopper across a field. Then it struck the door with a thud, and collapsed to the planks of the floor. Ruthenia punched the air, and Hollia clapped.

“And we’re done,” announced Ruthenia, dusting her hands together. “That’s as much work as I want to do today, anyway. Let’s finish the report some other time.”

“Thank you,” Hollia murmured. The sun glowed hot vermilion, and the fields were stained orange all the way to the horizon, a few lone houses swaying back and forth on invisible tethers. She lifted her head to whistle a three-note tune, and was answered by a flutter of wings from Tanio's rooftop. Ruthenia waved as she clambered onto Phore and lifted into the red.

---

Chapter 8: Arcane/Ordinary

Preface 02: Learning Hate

It was first said by Maril Ocama at the Opening of Gates that flight was the one true expression of Ihir's benevolence. It was from the blood of the Father of Freedom that all birds had taken form; their songs and cries were their exultations.

To the people who had made His nests their home, he gave the Threads, on which His kingdom hung, so that they too may fly as He did. He asked nothing but love in return, though love, in the eyes of all the gods, is synonymous to obligation.

The Threads lifted the people out of drudgery in mud and stone, turning labour and toil into a distant memory. But these Threads shifted in the wind, sturdy on some days and frail on others, and when they snapped, they flung people to their deaths.

The people grew certain the power of the Threads ebbed and flowed with their devotion and servitude, and that death by fall was merely punishment for wavering. So they loved Ihir ever deeper, for He had raised them from the mud, and flight was His to give and take.

They constructed monuments to His name, vast floating chambers where the Threads hummed with power, where one could walk without touching the ground and ornaments could be suspended in the air, gifts to their god. They knelt three hours a day beneath the sky with their eyes cast upward, crying out for His blessing, and they scrubbed grime from the granite once every three days. Those who failed their duties were cast out to walk in the mud, and if ever they were seen flying, they were castigated, or stones were thrown at them.

Years became centuries, and routines became traditions. Traditions were inherited without the knowledge of why they were performed. As the buildings lost their foundations, so did their rituals, and there came doubt. Some lived without prayer. Some sang the praises of other deities instead.

The people remembered that this was sin, though they had begun to forget why, and they cast the doubters out onto the mud, as they always had. The sky continued to be theirs, and they thanked Ihir for it every day.

Light glowed through arches of the Central Circle School. The wind could not diffuse the heat, upon which the first scent of plum blossoms floated. The sun set the desks aflame, long shadows falling at their feet.

Ruthenia didn’t hate Mondays the way her classmates did. Today the class sat perfectly still, Ms. Kelde in her shimmering gown appearing as if she might spring like a snake at the slightest provocation. Ruthenia herself was more absorbed in erasing her notebook doodles than in anything she had to say on the subject of Etiquette (or, Pretending To Be An Arcane For Your Personal Benefit).

The classroom still stood divided cleanly down the middle, the Arcane on the left and the ordinary on the right. She intermittently watched her classmates—Vesta shaking herself awake every few minutes, Dariano struggling to keep his back as straight as Ms. Kelde would have liked, and Orrem clenching his fists under his desk, as if he would punch the teacher if that wouldn’t immediately land him an expulsion and ruin his racing career. On the left, His Highness watched the etiquette tutor with his back straight and gaze level from years of practice.

The moment the clock-tower began to chime and Ms. Kelde left the room with a clicking of heels, it was as if a cork had been loosened, and everyone spilled over with suppressed conversation. Ruthenia sprawled herself out on her tabletop, yawning as she stretched. She glared down at Tanio’s beef patty before stuffing it all in her mouth.

Mr. Caldero shuffled in as the three-thirty bell chimed to mark the end of the break. He straightened his coat. “Assignments?” he announced, rapping the board with his knuckles. The air grew thick with rustles as everyone else began pulling ruled sheets of finished essays from their bags. Ruthenia found her own, shrugged, and passed it down the row, along with everyone else’s.

“Good essay,” said Alacero as it entered his hands, and she heard many successive bouts of giggling as the piece of paper made its way down. 

Mr. Caldero riffled through his own copy of The Legend of Helika Laceld while the essay pile grew on his table. He gave the class a minute to finish, before finally picking up a stick of chalk and writing three words on the board: “Chapter Seven symbolism”.

That was exactly what he spent the next twenty minutes describing in grotesque detail. Amid his ramble about butterflies and mayflies, Ruthenia laid her head on her arms and closed her eyes, drifts of his monologue skimming her consciousness every now and then.

“Psst, this could be useful,” whispered Calan from her right.

“Literature isn't useful.” She let her head drop back to the table.

“Now,” concluded the man, beginning to scrub text from the blackboard, “I would like each of you to spend the next ten minutes writing a paragraph about the use of symbolism in this chapter.”

The scribbling of pencils swept all conversation away. Ruthenia sighed, then picked up her own pencil and a scrap of paper. She stared at her sheet, shrugged and began writing.

Ten minutes elapsed. Caldero gestured for them to stop, and there was a clatter of numerous pencils meeting desks.

The professor’s eyes crossed the classroom, pausing on each member of the notorious middle row in turn, until they came upon Ruthenia herself.

“Miss Cendina,” he said. “Would you read your answer to the class?”

Ruthenia glanced down at her sheet, then back at the teacher. “Me?” she said, pointing at herself.

“I am sure we can all learn from your answer, whatever it be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure. ‘Insects are mentioned.’”

Mr Caldero raised a wrinkled hand. “Do not state the obvious,” he said, and was answered with laughter. “Carry on.”

“That’s all I have.”

“That’s all you have? ‘Insects are mentioned’? That is not an analysis.”

“Sorry, I wish I cared about some insects in some story.”

The Literature teacher heaved a sigh. “Sit.” He turned, then, to the left side of the classroom. “Mister Luzerno, could you give us a critique of Miss Cendina’s response?”

“I do not know where to begin,” he replied. A gust of giggling crossed the room, and smirks were fired at her. “Her answer lacks depth and substance completely. I'm surprised she got as far as spelling the words right.”

As laughter swept the left side of the room, Ruthenia felt her face blaze. She only barely hung onto the expletives on her tongue, and fumed silently at her desk instead.

Mr. Caldero appeared to be politely suppressing laughter. “Could you read us your answer?” he said.

The Arcane Prince nodded. “‘Several entomological symbols are employed in Chapter Seven, the most pertinent of those being the mayfly and the beetle,’” he read. “‘The mayfly appears wherever death is foreshadowed; one "lands upon Helika's brow" as she receives the envelope containing her death sentence, and yet—’” 

“Very good, very good,” Caldero cut in. “Why don’t you write the paragraph on the board so we may study and critique it? You in particular, Miss Cendina. Take your head off your desk.”

“Gladly.” He cast Ruthenia a glare. At the board, he began his paragraph in the same meticulous cursive that she'd come to recognise, the loops of f's drawn the opposite way from what you'd expect. She grimaced and stuck out her tongue at his back.

As the class drew to its close, the room was consumed by a melange chattering and paper-shuffling and clock-tower-chiming. With the steady trickle of students into the hallway, the classroom grew quieter.

Ruthenia stopped by the door with as foul a grimace as she could manage. She watched, through the bustle of gossip and dinner plans, as Aleigh stacked his books on his desk.

He made no sign of having seen her—but once he had stowed all his books away in his leather briefcase, he looked up, and met her eye in full earnest for the first time since she had accepted his job.

As he passed, she stuck out a hand to halt him.

The Arcane Prince regarded her hand for a while. “Excuse me,” he said, making to circumnavigate it.

“Look here! What was all that about? Why are you being like this after I helped you?”

He narrowed her eyes at her. “I must be on my way, goodbye.” Without so much as another glance, he strode out the door.

“Hey—come back!” Flying out the doorway, through the golden light, Ruthenia intercepted Aleigh midway down the corridor. “I just saved your bleeding mother! And you repay me by making fun of me?”

“As you mocked me a week ago.” He shifted his briefcase to his other hand.

Ruthenia balled her fists. “Oh, so the literal Arcane Prince wants to lecture me about who's allowed to mock whom.”

He sighed. “This was a mistake,” he said. “Having you fix the watch was a mistake. I should have known incurring a debt with you would backfire.”

Her lips curled into a grimace. “I can see why you have no friends.”

“Because I do not seek friends.”

Without another word, Aleigh strode right past her, and Ruthenia turned a little too late, mouth open for a retort that never came. She snarled, took her umbrella in hand, and marched off towards the exit on her own.

---

Chapter 9: Foreshadowing

Ruthenia was not given a warm welcome in the alley the next day.

“Where’ve you been?” said Hyder, face lighting up at the very sight of her descending from the sky. “Den and Gordo are on money duty—”

“I don’t care where you’ve been, where’s the gun?” snarled Tante, bursting in on the greetings, shoving the two apart by the shoulders. “You can’t show up five days late and not’ve done the thing we asked you to!”

“Tante, don’t be mean,” said Hyder with an appeasing smile.

“I don’t need you do defend me,” Ruthenia said. “I don’t have the gun, Tante. And I haven’t done anything about it. What are you going to do?”

“Things you wouldn’t like,” he replied.

She squared her shoulders. “Try it,” she answered, raising her fists. “And see if I want to fix guns for you after that.”

“I won’t need you to fix them soon. We’ll just find some of our own. Reida thinks she’s seen some gun-toters around town, and we’ll have some cornered soon enough.”

Ruthenia was too surprised to begin on a tirade. “Who—who has she seen? What sort of people?”

“And give away my advantage?” answered Tante, with a smirk that twisted her wrong. “I’m not telling you. Thought you were smart, Ruth. Smart enough for some bloody thieving inventor to want you in the fold—”

“Oh, did I mention? We’ve got a prank ready for next month!” Hyder burst in suddenly, forcing a smile.

Prepared up till then to spit a retort, she turned instead to Hyder and lost her scowl. “What sort?” she said.

“It’ll be huge,” he replied. “We really worked up an appetite for the royals last time. So we’re targeting the palace next! It’ll involve several barrels of cloth dye, and my Weaving!”

“The palace—do you want to die?” Ruthenia shouted. “They have guards, what are you thinking?”

“I want to advance,” he answered almost hungrily. “Pranks are fun and all, but we must  draw blood someday. We must bite back. Start somewhere!”

“Besides, Ruthenia, the risk isn’t nearly as great as you seem to think,” added Tante. “Hyder has discovered a useful new Thread talent, which you’d know about if you came more often.” He turned smartly to the Masker. “Show her.”

“Of course!” With a smile and a flourish of his hands, Hyder began to pull and twist Threads about himself, almost as if Weaving a cocoon. Ruthenia stood transfixed; even with her poor sense for Threads, she could feel the ether rippling.

Then Hyder was no longer there.

Ruthenia stared at the space before her. “That’s...that’s a new one,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips. “I’ve never seen anyone do that. That’s impressive.”

“That’s flattering to hear,” answered the air before her in a distinctly Hyder-like voice. The blur of a ghostly hand to her right immediately dispelled the illusion to reveal that the brown-haired Masker had moved some ways to her right, and was beaming brightly at her.

“You know, you could really benefit from lessons,” she mused. “That’s no trivial level of skill you have on your hands.”

“Lessons? No thank you,” Hyder answered, face flushing. “Speaking of lessons, don’t you think you should be heading off?” He looked upward, beyond the gutters, and she followed suit, but the sun was not within the bounds of the blue-white rectangle of sky overhead.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, raising her umbrella horizontally. “It’s a pity, though. I’m sure you’d have no trouble learning to fly.”

Hyder shook his head. “Maybe, but Weaving doesn’t work like that,” he replied. “I haven’t a sense for the air. Pictures are what I’m good at.”

Ruthenia’s umbrella dropped from its place in the air. “That’s more than I’ll ever have,” she said, bending to pick it up.

“That’s more than you’ll ever need,” muttered Tante.

“You’re just jealous,” she growled back, letting go of the umbrella: this time, it stayed put, suspended in the air beside her waist. She gave Tante a smirk as she slid on. “Catch me if you can.”

---

Shadows In The Sea: there could be supernatural forces at work, say surveyors

Helika Morning Herald, 22nd July, 491.

More than a hundred abnormal occurrences have been reported in the Deeps in the past two weeks, and experts are only just beginning to comprehend the nature of the situation.

Lying thirty miles east of Astra, the region known as the Deeps has long been a subject of curiosity and fear among Astrans, being its nearest open-class Empire relic site and the source of majority of Astra’s supernatural happenings in the past four centuries.

While such events are not unheard of in the region, the frequency of incidents has reached levels the likes of which Astra has never seen in its entire history.

Among the newly-reported events are the appearance of glitter on the water surface, the excitement of fish to the surface, and the gathering of seabirds in thick flocks at coasts, damaging property and interfering with the conduction of business.

This has led to numerous speculations, by the public and experts alike, that the cause of these events is an abnormally potent force emerging from within the Deeps.

Experts of various fields are still investigating the issue. Journeys bound eastward have been cancelled temporarily in view of the growing risk, and suspension Threads are being reinforced across the nation. Those living in Threadborne buildings are advised to reinforce suspension.

Ruthenia was so busy brooding over the morning news that she did not notice she was on a straight course for Caela until she had almost stepped on the girl’s toes.

“Watch your step!” she exclaimed, swinging her palm in front of Ruthenia’s eyes.

She backed away with a jolt, lifting her eyes from the speckled grey floor. “Hey, Caela,” she answered, slowly leaving her daze. “Sorry, I was thinking too hard.”

“What has you so occupied?”

“The news about the Deeps.”

Caela folded her arms. “The Deeps? I didn't know it mattered to you.”

Ruthenia’s mouth hung open. “Well, of course I care about something that affects us all.”

“I-I did not mean to offend,” the girl leapt to her own defence, clasping her hands together. “It is troubling news indeed. There are scientists operating on the seas without permit, trying to come to damning conclusions about the whole thing. The government has to take a stand on them.”

“What? It has nothing to do with messaging. They should do what’s good for Astra.”

“Ruthenia,” said Caela with the sweetest smile, “I don’t think you understand.”

It was five seconds of clenched-jaw trembling before the words finally came. “I think you're the one who doesn't care!” Ruthenia spat.

Before the girl could reply, she had marched off into the western tower lift, fists balled. She flung herself into a tiny grey corner while the operator cranked the door shut.

---

“And the death of the rhododendron,” said Mr. Caldero, the light in the window turning the colour of daffodils, “is what we refer to as foreshadowing. As we all know—having read the book in its entirety—Helika Laceld will later opt to die, in order to save the life of the young hero she has come to regard as her worthy successor.”

“Foreshadowing,” Ruthenia repeated idly, drawing a hypothetical steam circuit layout on the ruled lines of her notebook.

“Helika does not know this yet—nor does the first-time reader—but the clues are laid out early, so what might have initially appeared surprising—” he pointed to the words “sacrifice” with a stick of chalk—”is rendered seemingly inevitable, in retrospect. The prescience of the environment is simply one of many tools by which the literary work is made cohesive, the temporally- and spatially-disparate plot elements bound together.”

---

Chapter 10: The Game

Saturday was begun on the alley in the New Town. Tante greeted her in usual fashion, folded arms and dark scowl, reclining in the crate-chair Ruthenia had made for him.

“Updates,” said Den matter-of-factly, more dressed up than he ever had been; his coat was twilight, his boots polished to a shine. For some reason, he had taken the care to comb every strand of his jet-black hair into place, which was more effort than even he typically put into his attire. “We have finalised our plan for the interception of the dye shipment, which Tante and Gordo are in charge of.”

“It’s not some dumb foolhardy plan, I hope?” she said, glancing from one face to another.s

“Definitely not,” Den replied. “I designed it.” He accompanied this with a cattish smile and a casual brush of his hair, to which Ruthenia rolled her eyes. “I recommend you return this Friday, to find out how we fared in this carriage-sabotage quest.”

“Alright, noted. One more question: why are you dressed up?”

To that, he shrugged. “Well, I pickpocketed a businessman in the area last week,” he said. “He had the heaviest pouch I’d ever held, and I now have the most beautiful coat I’ve ever worn.”

“No, but why are you wearing it?”

*

They escorted the boy to the town square, the sun beating down on the bustling cobblestone streets while they wove between parked steam carriages. Hyder brushed hands with a girl with bright brown eyes, smiling coyly, and she lifted her lacy skirts, allowing him no more than a sight of their polished black boots. Tante averted his eyes as if from a bad road accident.

They came to a stop where the newsstand was just beginning to close for lunch. The stand runner, a young woman with dark brown hair and Solan brown skin pulled the cap off her head. She lowered her bell with a clang, head turning at the sound of their arrival.

“Reida,” Den called. “How are you today, my fair lady?”

Reida grinned, wiping the bell on the pleats of her dark blouse. “About to end work for the morning, thank you!” she replied, curtseying.

“How’s business today?” Den swept her a small bow; she folded her arms with a smile, not all convinced.

From the corner of her eye, Ruthenia noticed her companions pulling away. Then she felt a pair of hands snatch her shoulders, and drag her away from the newsstand.

“Leave ‘em to it,” whispered Gordo from above them, and the other two sniggered.

Ruthenia’s brow furrowed. “Is this why he’s dressed like some faux-Arcane Central Circle socialite?”

“Reida does have a taste for the learned,” Hyder replied. “Or that’s what it seems like.”

“Why do you all get up to so much when I’m gone?”

They played the parts of the nosy onlookers for a while, until Ruthenia remembered the secret stashed in her bag, and slid her hand into it.

“Oh, yes, Tante,” she said under her breath, patting around inside her sling-bag while the knifeman regarded her with an arched eyebrow.

Finding her fingers on the cold brass barrel, she slowly slid the entire gun out, barrel-first, and pushed it into the bewildered man’s hand. “You’ll have to source the ammunition yourself,” she said, “but don’t say I didn’t help you when you needed it.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered, studying the device in his hand as if expecting it to turn into something else. With a nod and a smile that made his scars furrow, he slid it into his belt.

Ruthenia opened her mouth, then shut it and turned away, shaking her head. If he enjoyed the risk of blowing his nether regions off then by Ihir, was he welcome to indulge himself.

*

“Hey, Reida.”

Closing time coincided with the boys’ departure. They ran off towards the marketplace for lunch ten minutes off one o’clock, leaving Ruthenia—who refused to follow them despite some attempted guilt trips—with Reida in the middle of that sunny street.

The news girl spent a moment smiling down the street, before turning at the call of her name. “Ruth!” she said, beaming. “How’s your work treating you, lovely?”

“Tanio’s the same as always,” she answered, smiling back despite herself. “Do you have a moment?”

“More than that,” Reida said, lifting the newsstand hatch and sliding the key into the lock. Her tone growing serious to match Ruthenia’s. “Are you in need of help of any sort?”

Ruthenia nodded. “There’s something I must ask you.”

“Oh?” She began buckling her pouch about her waist, but her eyes did not leave Ruthenia’s face. “What might that be?”

“Tante says you mentioned seeing some firearms holders about.”

At once Reida’s head perked up. “Oh, yes, I did, indeed,” she said. “It frightened me a touch.”

“Let’s walk to the station,” Ruthenia replied.

Ruthenia glanced both ways down the moderately-populated street. Carriages and pedestrians milled about beneath shop house windows. Here and there, Reida caught a lustful look, at which Ruthenia bared her teeth and glared till they left.

The ferry station was two streets from the town square, a sheltered platform looming over the smoke and houses below that received four ships every hour. Connected to the closest street by a floating flight of stairs, it was busy at all times of the day, especially after dark.

They were greeted by every pedestrian as they traversed the avenues and even, on one occasion, by a carriage driver, who tipped his hat at them while they coughed in the choking smoke of his rattling steam carriage. A nearby clock chimed one across the district.

“So, who were they?” asked Ruthenia as they went. “The people you saw.”

“A few groups of three,” Reida replied. “Each time, it looked like they were operating in concert. All with Ordives on their belts or hidden in their sleeves.”

Ruthenia’s eyes widened. “Where?”

“Near the grocery store, near where I work.” The wind from a passing carriage blew hair into Reida’s eyes; she brushed it out nonchalantly. “A good place to snatch some argents off some belts, if you know who’s carrying them.” She paused. “I doubt they’re legal.”

“How many New Town residents d’you think can afford a licence? Of course they’re illegal.”

"Where are they getting them?"

"That's what I'm wondering,"

Reida turned to her, and Ruthenia noticed she was frowning. "I know what you’re thinking, don't put yourself in danger because of some small-time gangsters,” she said.

“It isn’t the guns I care about, it’s the suppliers.”

They walked the remaining distance in silence, and stopped at the foot of the long flight of stairs to the station, where Reida turned to Ruthenia with an earnest look.

"Ruth," she said. "Do you reckon Den is interested in me? He is frustratingly hard to read."

“He could well be,” she replied. “I swear the bastard’s being difficult on purpose. It's one of his stupid mind games.” She clapped Reida on the shoulder. “He’s not cruel, though. You'll figure things out soon enough.”

With a short goodbye, Reida left for the station above, and Ruthenia expanded her umbrella, raising it over her head.

---

Tanio stopped Ruthenia on her porch, smiling a smile that could only mean more work. “Could you do me a favour?” he said, hands clasped together.

She felt her shoulders sag. “Will I be fetching sewing pins from Linterna again?” she growled.

“No, no, it’ll be a lot simpler than that,” he replied. “I’m in need of some spooled Thread. You know what that is?”

Ruthenia folded her arms. “No, I do not.”

“That’s fine, I’m sure you’ll find it anyway. I trust you.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t dally though; every hour is an argent spent.”

“Anything else besides?”

About to leave till then, her boss turned around. “Oh, yes, new supplies arrived,” he answered, kicking a crate by her door that had, till then, escaped her notice. “And one more thing. I’ll need you to answer some questions over dinner, so don’t be late.”

*

“So, Ruthenia, mind explaining the sealed package from last week?"

An acrid smell filled the entire first floor, telling of unspeakable disaster, the aftermath of which sat on Ruthenia’s plate.

Tanio’s eyes were so bright with interest, she knew at once that there would be no purpose in feigning ignorance. “Too bad I can’t tell you,” she said, picking at the blackened slab of beef. “I’m under an oath of secrecy.”

“Fair enough, I guessed as much anyway,” he answered, then steepled his fingers, bringing his piercing gaze back to hers. “But pray tell, how did you come by such an assignment?”

Ruthenia shrugged. "Eldon told the royals about me.”

“Oh, that's lucky!” exclaimed Tanio, beaming all of a sudden. “I hope you know how to make use of so valuable an acquaintance.”

“Make use of him? That’s Arcane talk.”

“You see, that’s the trouble with you. The scope of your understanding is so unbelievably tiny.”

“Hey—what?”

“You know the gears but you can’t comprehend the machinery,” he went on. A breeze stirred the curtains behind him. Her beef sat in her plate, growing cold. “You want some part of this to change, don’t you? Some part, however small, of the broken machine that is the Astran theocracy? You said as much on your first day of work. If they’ve decided to trap us in this game, then we can only play it.”

“Game? What are you talking about?” she replied.

“The game of images. The game of knowing when to shut up. It's not just about yelling till you get what you want. Sometimes you keep quiet. Sometimes you do them favours. Then, once they've welcomed you into the inner sanctum, and toasted to each other, you show yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ruthenia muttered. “What makes you think you can change the rules by playing by them?”

“Well, this is my entire life’s work—and you became a part of it as soon as you signed yourself under my roof. Just get me that spooled Thread, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

With a swipe of his finger, Tanio cleaned his plate of the last crumbs, and licked them off. A gust howled; she heard the turbine whir, saw the lights momentarily brighten upon the narrow dining room, before the wind once again subsided.

“So, did the Arcane Prince pay you well?” said Tanio simply.

Ruthenia stared at the beef and carrots in her own plate. “Quite,” she replied. She barely knew what to do with so much money. Or with the debt, which, as it was starting to dawn on her, might prove more profitable than she’d bothered considering before.

---

Chapter 11: Divine Right of Highborn Nobodies

 Ruthenia sat staring at her desk through all of Geography the next day. Hundreds of thoughts swirled furiously in her head. Surprisingly, none of those thoughts involved wrecking the Arcane Prince’s face with her fist.

In the midst of her vacant staring she felt a tap on her right shoulder. “Why the glum look?” came Calan’s voice, startling her straight.

Ruthenia turned to the brown-haired boy, and sighed. “Am I a bad person?” she said.

His mouth hung open for a couple of seconds. "Well..."

She groaned. "Just tell me."

“Well—I wouldn’t be so quick to call you bad, but you’re not nice, either.”

Her brow furrowed. “How am I not nice?”

“I thought you did it on purpose,” he said, frowning. “Being awful to teachers and classmates. If I were a teacher I’d want you out of my class for good.”

She laid her head on the table. “I get it,” she sighed. “I thought everyone else hated them too. Don’t you?”

Calan heaved a sigh. “Ruth, you’re only making life difficult for no reason. If you don’t want to learn, then why do you attend school at all?”

“Because my boss sent me,” she muttered, propping her head up on her elbows.

“Boss?” Now Calan was blinking at her like part of her face had changed.

“He’s also my legal guardian.”

“You don’t live with your parents?”

“They’re not around anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” He gaped like he’d thrust a knife in her gut.

Ruthenia shook her head. She clenched her fists; the pain of her nails digging into her palms made her forget every other ache. “It's no big deal,” she said.

---

At the first chime of the final bell at the end of the day, Ruthenia slipped out of the classroom on her own, before anyone else had begun to pack. She raced along the corridors with her umbrella on her hand and her bag bumping on her waist.

A strange drive had come over her right then—a stone cold determination, fashioned to dispel her confusion. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps she had been a little over-the-top.

As Ruthenia climbed through the afternoon air upon her umbrella, the golden light widened to swallow the island. The Central Circle passed behind her as she shot through the sky, farmland beginning where the gold-washed meadows ended.

Helika City passed to her right fifteen minutes later, the highest lights already beginning to glow, like stars, through the ember clouds drowning in the orange. She passed newsstands and police posts with chains of red lights on the edges of the roofs, and Candelabra Town followed, shophouses glittering like lights on a lake.

The town welcomed her with open arms, all dressed in dusky pink. Lights were strung like banners between lampposts across the flight-ways, gleaming in the countless glass facades around her. She saw every manner of souvenir as her umbrella carried her past: crystal sculptures, animal skeletons in jars, masks on stands.

True to the town’s reputation, a cheap bookshop presented itself barely five minutes later. It stood at the top of a stack of three shops, name glowing on a billboard, outlined in gold: Berin’s Books and Curios. She slowed to a stop by its landing platform and slid off the umbrella onto the platform, which creaked with her weight. Shuddering, she pushed the door open in a jangle of bells.

At once, Ruthenia found herself face to face with a towering shelf. Every spine was lit by failing kerosene lamps, the scent of mildewed pages clouding up the air. A rank of shelves formed the inner wall of a corridor that stretched both ways, barely wide enough for two. The books had been shoved into the bookcases with no attention to author or title, dictionaries slotted in beside children’s novels.

A paper sheet was pinned to the second shelf above, a notice inked upon it:

⇐ Counter This Way

Shrugging, she strolled down the corridor in the direction indicated, growing cautious when the air changed, the noise falling away as if the world outside had vanished from existence.

Many yards along, the book corridor turned right, and, passing the bend, she finally laid eyes upon the glimmering shop counter.

Ruthenia would originally have put the shop down as an heirloom far older than its owner, but now she wasn’t sure. She was beginning question whether the shop was older than he at all. He sat amid a makeshift mobile of levitating watches and feathers. Whatever hair remained on his scalp was snowy white and combed to hide balding. He did not respond when she arrived at the counter, continuing instead to squint at the music box in his hand.

Ruthenia cleared her throat. “Excuse me!” She tapped the counter.

The man finally lowered the box, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. “Welcome, Miss,” he murmured. “How may I help you?”

“I’m looking for a book titled The Legend of Helika Laceld?”

“Ah, the supreme work of Astran literature of the decade,” he murmured, stroking his chin. “A charming legend, that.”

“Where can I find a copy?” she said impatiently.

“Upon the shelf of classics, over there.” He pointed her in the direction she had come, so there she trudged, through the scent of mildew.

A tarnished plaque inscribed with “Classics” was nailed to the relevant shelf, which she approached with a sigh. Even so, being deep maroon and much smaller than its reputation, the book took her a good ten minutes to locate.

The faint sound of tinkling music began from around the bend of the corridor as she teased it out with her index finger. She rolled her eyes, walking briskly to the counter while she searched her pocket for the book’s price of five argents.

Her arm knocked one of the shopkeeper’s hanging watches out of place as she was paying; she apologised, but he seemed not to mind as he claimed the money.

The clockwork music continued uninterrupted, carrying a melody almost too grand to fit inside that tiny box. It was the Helika Waltz, whose melody had been hammered into every child’s head from birth.

“Thank you for buying, Miss,” he said, then lost interest in Ruthenia as he began humming along to the tune. With an unheeded gesture of thanks, she picked the book up and left him to sing to his heart’s content.

At the commencement of Literature lesson the very next afternoon, Ruthenia was more than pleased to reached into her bag and conjure the maroon book from inside it. Alacero gaped, making a show of rubbing his eyes, while Calan applauded as if she’d scaled Calmen Ihira in a day.

Nevertheless it was barely ten minutes before she began nodding off to the sound of Mr. Caldero’s droning. And so the natural order of things was preserved.

The day was, ultimately, an uneventful one, as Astran days tended to be. Ruthenia took her notes when she deemed it necessary, and did her best not to fall asleep. At the end of school, she took her sweet time travelling homeward, stopping by at her favourite stand for a glass of milkshake, which she savoured in the breezy quietude. The stand owner was her usual smiley self, although she looked as exhausted as she usually did at five o’clock, even with the wind all about them.

When Ruthenia arrived for dinner later that day, Tanio greeted her with a small, prodding “where’s my spooled Thread?” to which she could only answer, in a drawn-out groan, that he should throw himself into the river.

“What is spooled Thread, anyway?” she asked as she entered the house after him.

“It’s a product that’s never there when you need it,” he replied.

She kicked the door shut behind her. “Well, if it’s never there, then how would I ever find it?”

“I have to keep you busy,” her boss answered with a shrug. He left for the dining table before she could demand an explanation—just your typical Titanio Calied tactic, but one she often found herself unable to counter.

She surrendered herself to eating her raw fish paste sandwich without getting another peep out of him.

***

Thursday’s history lesson began as it always did.

The class received Mr. Caeben with a lukewarm greeting, one that he did not bother returning before resuming his lecture on the Astran bicameral legislature. The man was in the habit of tying students’ minds into knots with infuriating contrivances of terminology, and Ruthenia let her head drop to her desk with a frustrated groan midway, but the incisive rattle of the teacher’s voice in the afternoon air could not lull anyone to sleep, not even she.

At least History was—unlike the meaningless fishwater of literary discourse—grounded in real things and real people. It was even occasionally interesting. Just not today.

The tutor ended the topic in the middle of the hour, which, as always, prompted a swell of hopeful conversation—but then he opened the other textbook on his table, and sent the class into a clamour of groans and mutters as the lecture resumed.

“I take it each one of you has heard at least a thing or two about governmental checks and balances,” said Mr. Caeben, eyes sweeping the class. “Can anyone explain their importance? You, Mister Medale?”

Dariano, even prepared as he always was to be called upon, shot up in his seat with a start and dusted out his notes; in the silence, the rustle of pages was audible. “They—they prevent abuses of power,” he said hastily, “by distributing it among multiple people, Sir.”

Mr. Caeben nodded. “That is a simplification,” he said, “but you have the right idea. Separation of power is, indeed, a mechanism by which governments prevent particular individuals or groups from wielding sole authority over state legislation and its enforcement. In Astra, power is divided between the heads of state, namely the Arcane and Ordinary Kings, the advisory councils, and the Helika Court. Each—”

“And the clergy,” Ruthenia interjected, just loudly enough for Caeben to hear.

The man paused to look at her. “Excuse me?”

She did not, at that point, realise that this was a decision she would regret. “The clergy?” she repeated. “Are you telling me the clergy isn’t counted? Well, it’s no wonder they’ve gone unchecked so long! The clergy wields at least as much power as all those things you listed!”

Mr. Caeben was mute for a while. Around them the chatter grew uncomfortable. Some classmates on the left side of the room glared like she’d just called for the Archbishop’s death, but she wasn’t interested in their annoyance. She met the tutor’s eye.

The man cleared his throat, gaze stone-cold. “It would be wise of you to avoid speaking of our clergy in such a disrespectful tone,” he said with narrowed eyes, amid a crescendo of voices. “We will discuss the clergy at a later date, but not in the context of separation of powers.” With one last scathing look, he lifted his chalk again. “Let us continue.”

She felt her fists ball up. “Sure, go on and pretend it isn’t true!” she snarled, but the man had returned to the blackboard, leaving behind an unsettled muttering.

“Just accept it,” gasped Calan, and for once Alacero seemed to agree. She growled but he pressed on. “He knows history.”

“He doesn’t know being personally offended by history,” she answered darkly, but said nothing else, because she knew where things would go if she did.

Alacero sighed from her left. “I know you’re all about taking things personally,” he said, “but you’ve got to cool down.”

“I don’t care, he thinks he can tell me what to think. They all do. They’re feeding us nonsense. Is this what we get for paying them so much?”

At the chime of the clock tower bell, Ruthenia dashed out of the classroom. She thundered onto the elevator before the tea break rush had begun, descending soundlessly inside the granite chamber while the first of the chatter awakened in the levels above. She ate all alone in a corner of the cafeteria, refusing to meet anyone’s eye.

The feeling something was amiss began to creep over her as she passed the doorway to the smoking room on her way back for Geography. A gaggle of vacuous students, both Arcane and not, stood about the doorway mid-departure. At the centre of the huddle was Iurita, whom they were all humouring with their chatter.

Ruthenia held her gaze away as she passed. But the Arcane lady held up a hand to stop her, and clicked her tongue when she attempted to ignore it. “In a foul mood, little rebel?” she cooed, and her entourage snorted and cackled on cue.

Ruthenia stopped, fingers curling. It took every fibre of her self-control not to pounce and wrangle the life out of her right there. “I don’t see you caring any about Astra, Mayoress in Training,” she spat instead.

She strode away, leaving a chorus of horrified exclamations in her wake, cold dread creeping up her back.

There was a figure near the 2-I door when she arrived. It was Orrem, leaning on a windowsill, arms folded, the back of his head to the sky.

“Ruth? Careful,” he remarked as she approached. The casualness of his posture belay the tension that emerged in his voice. “You should avoid expressing the wrong political opinions in front of them. I don’t think they liked the things you said. They think you were kicking up a big fuss over nothing during history.”

She bristled. Hot liquid hatred flooded her gut. “It’s just an opinion. It doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt them.”

“It does if they want it to. You should know the Astran upperclass.”

“They can hate me all they want. They’ve suffered so little that this is the only thing they think worth fighting for.”

Orrem sighed with a sag of his shoulders. “It must be nice not caring about class politics,” he said, staring down the corridor beyond her.

“Class politics? You don’t have to bother with it.”

He shakes his head. “Caela's father is on my team's board of sponsors.”

“Oh. I guess that would be a spanner in the works.”

Some distance behind, the lift doors hissed open, inviting the shuffle of footsteps into earshot.

Orrem's head turned. “Hey, take care,” he said over his shoulder. “You're fun to be around, but not everyone can see past your temper.”

“If they can't take the heat, then they can't take the rest of me, either,” Ruthenia answered, with a smirk despite herself.

---

That night, there began a howling wind-storm, one that flung the bridge into a wild dance as Ruthenia inched along it, gripping the ropes so tight that her fingers burned.

She found Tanio sprawled out on his smaller couch, face buried in the creased pages of the Helika Afternoon Herald. An electric lamp glowed on the coffee table beside him, as it did every evening he spent reading on the couch after dark.

Today, he was the very image of unruliness, his top button loose and not a strand of hair in the right place. Papers were strewn across the living room floor, gathering around the legs of tables, each sheet covered end to end in his spidery scrawl. A sculpted mass of wire sat on the coffee table, like a bird’s nest, gleaming in the lamplight.

The kitchen windowpanes rattled to welcome her, and between the walls the place seemed to shrink in on itself, cowering from the raging sky. With the muted chatter of rain all about her, Ruthenia picked the lone plate up off the counter, a loaf of bread and three of what might be Tanio’s very first meat patties cradled inside. She snatched a couple of utensils out of the drying basket and a bottle of oyster sauce out of the pantry.

Her first mouthful made her eyes widen. All at once, she found her appetite renewed, and as she ate she calculated on the likelihood that her boss had kidnapped a school cafeteria cook.

Gobbling down the last of her dinner, Ruthenia wiped the crumbs from her mouth with her wrist and dumped the plate into the basin with a splash.

By the time she returned, the boss had abandoned the newspapers to the coffee table and was once again fiddling with the wire mesh with a pair of pliers. The arrival of her footsteps made him look up.

“What did you think?” he said.

“Don’t cook anything else ever again,” she answered, then flung the main door open.

A howl of storm wind exploded into the living room and engulfed her, slamming the door into the wall. She stumbled outside and turned to drag the door shut with both hands while hair pricked at her eyes.

Plank by rocking plank, she crossed the swinging bridge. The wind reared up and crashed down in dark majestic tides around her while the ropes creaked to the rhythm of the frenzied roaring wind.

She faltered to a stop at the very centre, as the sky began to rumble all around her. The bridge swung, and she swung with it, helpless and free, like a child flying for the first time. She laughed.

Out on the northeastern horizon, Helika’s light was marred by rain, millions of falling drops capturing the glow of the houses below. She could smell the downpour approaching, echoed in the clatter of neighbours closing their windows.

She turned briefly to take in the sight of Tanio’s house, which swayed ever so gently, straining at its Threading while the turbine swung with mewling creaks. Tanio probably couldn’t feel a thing. Not now, now that his mind was captive to a grand new undertaking. The light filtered through the first level windows, diluting the dark.

The flash of a white-hot spear of lightning announced the arrival of the curtain of rain at Beacon Way. Only then did Ruthenia begin to scramble up the remaining length of the bridge, but too late, finding herself drenched before she’d made it to the end.

The gush of rain stung her eyes, clouding up her view of the patio ahead. She gasped out as her foot lost purchase on the wood and slid. She choked on the rain as her knees met the bridge and her hands snatched for the ropes.

…free me! Please!

A torrent of horror and inexplicable sadness startled Ruthenia back upright. Her grip tightened on the handholds. She scurried over to her patio and flung herself back into her shed, slamming the door shut behind her.

There she stood, waiting till the sound of rain had drained from her ears, and all she heard were the rattling of her trapdoor and the drip-drop of water at her feet.

She shivered at the memory of the soundless voice that had rattled her insides, wringing the water out of her hair. A dark puddle was pooling at her feet. With a toss of her soggy pony-tail, she made for her wardrobe, a trail of raindrops following her.

Ruthenia tore off her rain-heavy clothes and flung them at her chair, but they landed with a soggy plop on the ground a few inches away from the target. With a groan, she turned back to her wardrobe and tugged a shirt out through a gap in her clothes drawer. Then she unbuckled her pants and kicked them off, yanking a fresh pair of slacks off a hanger.

The comfort of dry, warm cotton helped to ease the vestiges of terror away. She spent the evening sorting screws and bolts in the corner, wind whistling on the outside of the shed with every swell of the storm. The ceiling lamp did not wink out as it usually did at ten o’clock, and she worked half an hour past her bedtime.

She rose from her hunch with a stretch and a yawn amid the waning pitter-patter of the drizzle. Then she craned her neck to peer out the rain-stained window. Across the gap, Tanio’s windows were still glowing, hazily.

Crossing the shed floor, Ruthenia shut off the light with a resigned click. Then in the darkness she forged her route back, and swung into her hammock, all thought deserting her the moment her eyes had closed.

---

Chapter 12: Declarations

Ruthenia was woken by the glow of the early sun through the eastern window, to the muffled noise of the river through the morning mist.

Crossing for her morning duties, she paused at the centre of the bridge beneath the quiet grey sky to glance over its edge, feet cold on the damp planks. Thin mist sat upon the wheat fields, rifted by the River Colura.

Tanio’s living room was empty. Some papers remained, evidence of its previous occupant. In the silence, the light filtered blue through the windows, and the tiniest sounds sifted into prominence: the rustle of the curtains, the chatter of grassland cicadas in the dew.

Ruthenia found her boss asleep at his study table upstairs, head in a nest of paper scraps, a lamp burning low with a secretive hiss. She passed the door by without uttering a word.

Although she spent breakfast alone, Tanio did eventually show up, emerging at the stairwell as she was leaving, with a nag about the spooled Thread.

“Will you tell me where to find it already?” she said.

“Well, uh, you see, Ruth—I don’t actually know.”

Her hand paused on the door handle.“You don’t know?”

He shrugged. “Well, I did, at a point,” he replied, “but I don’t any longer. My primary retailer left to hawk the wares in Sonora. It’s not every day one finds a cheap spinner with stock.”

“What will you have me do, then?”

“I assumed, with you being in the company of people who might have access to products of the sort...”

“Oh, alright, so you want me to convince someone in 2-I to give me access to a priceless resource. Sure, that'll be so easy and not cause me endless trouble.”

“I will reimburse you for your troubles.”

“I'll see what I can do.” She shut the door behind her with a clattering bang.

---

When Ruthenia landed in the New Town alley, she was stunned to find it stuffed right to its mouth with crates. “Guys!” she shouted, weaving around them to the alley, only to find a maze of stacks blocking her way. “Do you want the police smoking us out? What’s happening, and what’s with this junk?”

“She’s ‘ere!” Gordo’s head peeked out from behind a stack of crates. “This junk, it’s our fake blood.”

“Fake...what?”

“Yes, Ruthenia,” answered a calmer voice from behind her. She turned. Den had emerged from the street, boots gleaming beneath the hem of a dark longcoat, his gaze pierced hers. “We succeeded in our ambush, and intend to decorate the palace in very befitting style. In commemoration of the lives they have so lovingly dispatched over the years, one could say.”

Ruthenia stared, brow furrowing. “Well, the symbolism won’t go missed,” she replied, then turned to resume her inspection—only to be interrupted again.

“Ruth!” Not five seconds after the exclamation did Hyder leap from hiding, grinning as if he’d found treasure. He slowed to a nimble tip-toe as he approached the village of crates, unlacing the bag in his hand. “Just in time for our breakfast. Care to join us?”

“Yeah, I have the morning to spare.”

They exchanged greetings and jabs as Hyder passed bread and butter around, which did not smell nearly as fresh as the boy was insisting. Tante was nowhere to be seen, which brought a smile mid-conversation.

“How’s your work treating you, Ruth?” asked Hyder between indulgent mouthfuls. When she turned, his eyes were almost too bright to bear. A hand was cupped below his chin to catch the falling crumbs. “Good?”

Glancing at the crates beyond him, Ruthenia shrugged. “Not much is happening,” she said. “Tanio is as infuriating as ever. I helped fix a clock yesterday.”

“That's amazing.” He grinned. “I'm just glad you aren't starving anymore.” The words twanged her heart. She wished they weren't starving, either.

As they talked about their plans, she stared absently at the crates, wondering how they had transported so many at once. She wished them luck, and when she departed, their faces were glowing with excitement.

Ruthenia took the usual route southward, meeting the River Colura mid-meander and following it home. When she arrived at Tanio’s porch, only his study light glowed through the twilight murk. The creak of the door resounded through the blue shadows. Patting the surface of the dining table, she found no dinner.

She tiptoed gingerly into the kitchen, paused at the counter and lowered the electric switch, waiting as the stove light flickered, its blaze twinkling upon the racks of utensils.

She found raw meat in the pantry, a few eggs, well-used butter, and a packet of stale bread. Then she yanked the groaning stove lid open and got her hands sooty searching for the matches.

As it turned out, cooking was not the simple matter of dumping food on the grill and applying heat to it. She could not prevent the melting butter dripping between the bars, sending a huge flare up that threw her sprawling backward on the floor.

Within the minute, her dinner was as burnt as any of Tanio’s daily presentations, and she fished the pieces out with the tongs, sweating and swearing in the heat.

Retreating to her shed with her dinner, all covered in the stench of soot, Ruthenia lit the kerosene lamp and settled herself into her chair with her library book.

The lights blinked out a few minutes after eleven o’clock. She glanced out the window, and saw the faint shimmer of lamplight in Tanio’s study. By then she had passed the two-hundred-page mark of Constructing Compact Engines, and yet another of her dog-eared notebooks was beginning to fall apart at the spine.

---

The Saturday sky fluttered pink overhead, morning cold pierced by the shrieks of river birds on their morning hunts. The river rustled; the reeds were just beginning to sprout out tall, lining the banks with thickening olive-green borders.

The ocean was swinging, the river with it, churning a guttural tune. High in the mauve, Tanio paced stormily across his porch, one hand cupping the top of his head. “I’m sorry about dinner,” he muttered as he passed his assistant, meeting her eye so she could not ignore the bruise-black rings around them. “I’m sorry, I was occupied, I forgot.”

“It’s nothing to me,” Ruthenia answered with a shrug. She occupied herself with staring at her umbrella, point pivoting on the porch’s granite floor.

Sharmon emerged after  ten minutes from the grey distance, his messy coat fluttering behind him. He hurtled to a stop beside the porch with a cheerful “hello there”, waving them aboard—but his geniality went unappreciated, for Tanio merely nodded dully, retreating to the back-left corner of the table without so much as a greeting.

“Don’t mind him,” murmured Ruthenia as she stepped aboard after him. “He was up all night designing some contraption or other.”

“Oh, no, don’t you worry,” he answered with a grin.

They commenced their flight, although it quickly became obvious that Sharmon wasn’t doing all that well at the head of the table. Ruthenia braced herself against the wind, clinging to its edges as it swerved wildly through the grey. “Sharmon!” she yelled. “What’s happened to your flying?”

The man shouted something about the Threads, but she was far too busy trying not to roll off the side to catch his exact words.

Eldon welcomed them at his balcony door, as was his routine, escorting them to the basement where the clangs of iron against steel alerted them to the mechanic intern brothers’ presence long before they had left the study.

Working amid the gurgle and hiss of steam pipes, Ruthenia quickly grew soaked in sweat, her palms callused and red from yanking and wrenching. Work was dull except on the occasions when one of the brothers used the wrong bolt or wrench and she got the chance to deliver a good, full-voiced scolding. By the end of the session, she had successfully established a hierarchy in the room—one that the mechanic brothers sat squarely at the bottom of.

She caught snatches of the conversation between Tanio and Sharmon. None of it held her  long, until the chemist chimed in with a revelation most bewildering.

“Ah, did I mention? The Chemistry labs have determined the origin of the ocean glitter,” he said. “Despite the clergy trying to lock down the case.”

Tanio’s answer was the same as Ruthenia’s would have been. “Really?”

Sharmon nodded, voice dropping to a whisper. “Some of them ran tests that we’re better off not discussing in the open. It was the Candelabra biochemistry lab that first confirmed the identity of the glittery silt: they’re fragmented fish scales.”

“Fish scales!” Tanio exclaimed. By then, his gape had transformed into a grin. “Solid, examinable fish scales!”

“They have yet to identify the species,” added Sharmon. “Their chemical composition is novel. Our catalogues yield no answers…” All the same, he folded his arms with a self-satisfied smile. “We’ll see how the clergy likes that.”

---

A windless, lazy afternoon settled upon Beacon Way that Sunday, and with it balmy air and a whole lot of unnecessary sweating.

Even so, Ruthenia failed to change out of her clothes before falling asleep at her desk. She woke feeling filthy, and with a wide yawn, she shuffled to her wardrobe and took her pick of clothes, watching the sun filter through the dust inside the shed.

It was impossible to miss the smell of blooming spring, thick with nectar and pollen; Ruthenia paused momentarily on the far side of the plank bridge and raised her face to the air above Tanio’s porch, taking a good whiff of the heady scent.

After another dinner that wasn’t as outrageously terrible as usual (and another nag about spooled Thread), she returned to her shed and took another stab at the Legend. Her eyes laboured over the text, suddenly so unbearably tiny, and she made it twenty pages before sleep became too heavy on her eyelids.

She turned in at nine-thirty, snuffing out her desk lamp with a snick. The light continued to glow through Tanio’s study window as she drifted into slumber.

---

Chapter 13: Blood Runs Thick

Preface 03: A cage, however large, is still a cage

It was the end of autumn in year 490. Hollia could hear the birds again.

Her heart sank with every chatter and every twang.

Every Sunday morning in autumn, as she crossed from her bedroom to the kitchen, she made every single journey of her lifetime a thousand times over.

Amid the sputter and hiss of the stove, she squatted by the unassuming kitchen cupboard, lacquered beech with rusty handles—one that would typically have held condiments, or utensils.

She pulled it open, and everything within it gleamed. Biting her lip, she picked a glass syringe from the tray. It wobbled in her trembling hands.

She willed herself not to let it slip out, and reached then for the accursed bottle of ghastly white serum beside it.

The aviary of Hollia’s home was divided neatly into two portions. One of the two sections contained the tamer birds—the ones who, over the generations, had lost most of their wild instincts, and spent most of their time roosting and fluttering about for food or new foliage.

The restricted section, scaffolded in thick steel netting, was made for the birds that had not lost the desire to escape. They continued to be ruled by whims of the blood, even though five hundred years of forebears had lived in captivity.

Some birds held clocks and compasses within their minds, natural instruments that called each one to a faraway place, every year at the turn of spring.

Sometimes at night, they threw themselves at the bars of their cages, longing for a land that called from somewhere they couldn’t see but knew existed, burning in their iron blood. Those kept indoors lost hope quickly, but those that had a view of the stars continued relentlessly to pound at the bars and the gates in the direction of south as their parents had—even though the bars did not budge. They knew they had to go somewhere. Their destination, which generations of prisoners had inherited. They would injure themselves against the netting, bleeding as they tore their feathers.

Once upon a time, someone had had an idea, to take birds into captivity and to savour their beauty the way one might a painting or a sculpture. And that idea had created the aviary to which Hollia Canavere owed her livelihood.

The girl slipped through the back door. Brilliant birdsong surrounded her. Feathers fluttered, the tiny bodies of perching birds, like gemstones lining the branches, exploding suddenly into fluttering bursts of red and gold.

She hated the way the new birds screeched, as the needle sank into them for the very first time. But it was only necessary.

She briefly recalled watching their dances deep in the night, from her window—those flitting silhouettes in the indigo, railing against the tight-strung wires of a net that seemed to have trapped the entire sky. The rhythm of twanging, of bodies irrevocably drawn to the magnet-south by a passion without reason.

She injected into each one a moon-clear sickness. It lasted short: the resistance of skin and a smooth jab inwards, the slow pressure of thumb on plunger—the excruciating draw of the needle. Twenty times over.

And as the night fell again, she watched them sink into the silence, forgetting for a week their ties to the sky above, forgetting how to fly.

***

The West Wind Tunnel brought Ruthenia to the New Town on Tuesday morning. She diverged from the early morning flight crowd at gate 85, ascending through the smoggy little tunnel into the midst of pedestrians. Factory steam billowed in towering black bastions over the rooftops, between which she wove, choking on the stench.

“You’re late!” shouted Tante amid a field of gleaming bottles. Ruthenia landed atop a crate and gingerly set her feet down where she couldn’t knock any over. Behind Tante, the other three were hard at work, uncorking the vessels one by one to dump crimson into the empty barrels.

“Mornin’!” called Gordo, and Den offered a casual salute.

Hyder waved her over. “The plan’s been refined,” he explained, waiting for her to arrive at his side before resuming. “We’ll hang the barrels over the drains with Threads. Once we’re far away, the Threads will snap—and splash, we’ve done it!”

Ruthenia squinted at him. “Who’s doing the Weaving?” she said. “You didn’t involve some outsider, did you?”

“No, I will,” he said, grinning and wiggling his fingers. “You’ve inspired me to pick up new tricks! Gordo will be taking them inside, one barrel at a time, and I’ll be hanging them up.”

“Oh—well, I’m...staying out of this,” she muttered.

“Are you?” said Tante, face scars wrinkling. “Long ago, such defiance would have nourished you.”

“That was when we weren’t attacking the bloody palace!” she answered.

“It’s not that big of a risk, Ruth!” Hyder interjected, patting her arm to appease her. “I’ll be safe. I’m good enough, trust me.”

She snatched her arm away. “Fine, just stay alive,” she said.

He grinned, lifting a hand to Weave a veil around it. “Will do, ma’am.” His hand flickered into invisibility, before resolving again from the air.

While they resumed the task at hand, the fear descended upon her, darker than before. When they had poured the last drop of food colouring into the last barrel, and the rest yelled and pumped their fists.

“Skip lessons and come with us, Ruth, yer missin’ out on all the fun,” said Gordo.

“It’s alright,” Hyder answered.

She sighed, staring at the cobblestones beneath her umbrella ferrule. Pouring fake blood in drains wouldn’t change a thing.

***

Two days later, there was an uproar at the Helika Palace.

The city alarms went off all at once, chiming angrily over the hills. The shock of the noise almost sent Ruthenia tumbling off her umbrella and into the corn below.

Squinting at the distance, she felt her stomach clench at the thought of Hyder getting chained up and carted off. “You’d better have run off by now, you idiot,” she growled, then screwed her eyes shut, and diverted her flight around the perimeter of the urban area.

She found herself the target of numerous glares—distinctly more than usual—when she stepped inside the classroom that day, and momentarily considered that her connection to the prank might have been discovered, before realising that the very notion was absurd. Dodging around their poison-tipped stares, she settled herself at her desk and did her best to make herself small.

But worry continued to nag at her as lessons came and went and the sky began to cool to orange.

“Late,” announced Tanio as Ruthenia entered his house. He sat reading cross-legged on his couch, face deep in the Afternoon Herald. She turned to retort, but he did not let her. “Did you hear about the attack on the palace today?”

Ruthenia set her umbrella down on the dining table with a thud. “What happened?”

“Someone poured blood in the palace drains,” he said. “I wager it wasn’t real blood, but it was a ridiculous feat nonetheless.” He clicked his tongue, before lowering his head to resume his read. “Anarchists can be so strange.”

She glanced at the red dye trapped under her nails, and crept away, towards the kitchen. The stove emanated the faint perfume of over-grilled meat.

Ruthenia exited the house quietly through a door almost too narrow. Facing the scintillating night sky, she breathed in and felt the world spiral around her.

All at once she could feel the Threads fluttering angrily, vibrating to the tones of an ethereal scream. It was for brief seconds, and then other thoughts overwhelmed her, but she knew what she had heard.

***

Instead of returning with Tanio on Saturday, Ruthenia took a detour through the New Town in the honey afternoon sun. The factory smokestacks were hunkering down for the day and the worn roads that criss-crossed the town were bare. As she landed, feet skidding over the street, the whoosh of wind was replaced by the grumbling of steam engines in the lazy afternoon still.

Tante, relatively uninterested as usual, sat cleaning a knife on his blackened shirt with a dump of grey banknotes scattered before him. Den and Gordo were having a small chat in a corner beneath a towering, splintering crate. Hyder, who had a half-finished chicken drumstick stuffed up his mouth, was the only one who waved.

Tante kicked a rock over his money to weigh it down. “Oh, hello,” said the knifeman, lowering his knife.

She planted the umbrella ferrule firmly on the ground. “You’re in a good mood.”

He grinned back. “You hear anything about the response we got?”

“Not really.”

Tante raised his eyebrows, glancing meaningfully at Hyder, who turned away and chewed on the bone with renewed determination. The knifeman turned back and bent for something beside his money—a copy of today’s news. Leaping off the crate, he thrust the roll of paper into her palms.

Blood Runs In Palace Drains: Scare sparks fears of a rogue Weaver on the loose

The ancient Helika Palace Complex has always been a place of intrigue. Centuries of diarchs have lived within its walls, and with them centuries of scandal. Needless to say, there is bad blood between the families housed there, but no one ever expected this expression to manifest in a literal sense.

Ten minutes after noon yesterday, canals all across the palace grounds were flooded with a thick red liquid resembling blood. Her Majesty, Ordinary Queen Althea, was one of many royals who discovered it on leaving her abode.

Fearing murder, she raised the security alarm of the palace, and guards were immediately deployed to seek out the cause. Tests were run by the Ercoda laboratory, and the liquid was confirmed not to be blood, though its actual identity is as of yet unknown.

“I was horrified,” says the Ordinary Queen. “Which sick-minded fool thought such a trick amusing? Where were our guards?”

At least six fainting cases were attended by the palace doctor in the next three hours as the spill was cleaned up. Many nobles and administrators suffer from haemophobia, the acute fear of blood.

The source of the “blood” was discovered half an hour after the attack: barrels, numbering twelve in total, had been launched from bridges around and beneath the palace complex, each containing traces of the same red liquid. However, no clues have been found as to the perpetrator’s identity.

Experts have concluded through filography that a single attacker was involved. Some barrels were found half-Masked, pointing to a high likelihood that the culprit possesses advanced skills in Weaving. However, his or her Weaving signature could not be located in the Ministry of Flight’s records, which has sparked fears among experts that a powerful rogue Weaver bearing ill intent towards the government may be on the loose.

Authorities caution against reckless exploration and have issued a statement requiring all advanced Weavers across the nation to update their signatures with the Ihira clergy within the next week.

Lifting her eyes from the papers, Ruthenia proceeded to fix Hyder with the same odd stare as Tante had.

He pulled the bone out of his mouth and flung it aside. “What?”

“You really should be in a Weaving school,” she said.

“I would be, if things were any different,” he answered with a twinge to his voice. He glanced from one to another. Not one gaze left him for the next ten seconds. “Nothing’s different, is it? I’m me! I didn’t do anything special!”

“D’you even know what it all means?” answered Tante. “You’re officially an advanced Weaver! And I reckon they’re getting real scared right now.”

“I reckon they’re searching for me, right now,” answered Hyder, folding his arms.

“You pansy, they don’t know the last thing about you!” Tante laughed and clapped him on the back, to no response; the Masker cast a pleading glance at Ruthenia, but she shrugged. “You’re how we’ll do it. You’re the key, Hyder. This is how we draw blood!”

“Don’t leave traces of your Weaving and you’ll be fine,” she said. “And we’ll just have to get used to you being special.”

He sagged. "But I don’t want to be.”

Ruthenia squinted. “You don’t? To each his own, I suppose,” she said with a shrug.

---

Ruthenia decided to pay the cafeteria a visit during tea break the next day. It was as crowded as it typically was, every table in every quarter seated to its full capacity. Wherever she went, people shifted to obscure seats. It was five minutes of searching before she finally took herself to the edge of the hall and found herself a seat on a windowsill.

There beneath its arch, she found herself watching the comings and goings of the crowd, unfolding the paper bag and pulling the lump of meat out of it. She glanced up at the mezzanine in the western quarter, where the Arcanes dined, and frowned when she noticed, among them, her ungrateful beneficiary and worst enemy at a table by himself, with nothing but a book for company.

As she munched thoughtlessly on Tanio's lunch, Ruthenia watched. Aleigh did not move once, except to turn the page, or to take another forkful of whatever he dined upon. She would have supposed that the Arcane Prince of Astra would see no end to the number of people wanting his attention, and yet, somehow, he was perfectly alone.

Catching sight of her, Aleigh lowered his book. They traded frowns. Before long, he could return to his novel, she wandered over.

“Hey, Aleigh,” she said, reaching out to prod his shoulder.

“What is it this time?” he said testily.

She reached forward and yanked the book out of his hands, before tossing it onto the table. “Hey, I’m sorry you find me so unbearable, but I recall you saying you felt you hadn't fully repaid my favour.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you have something to say to that?”

“Well, now, I need your help, and,” she puffed up and put on the Arcane accent, “I hereby invoke your debt to me.”

His frown deepened. “What sort of help do you need?”

Ruthenia shrugged. “D’you know what spooled Thread is?”

Aleigh raised an eyebrow. “Weaving from the spool should not be attempted by the unskilled.”

“I am not—” She paused; he wasn’t wrong. “Well, it’s not for me. My boss has been nagging me about it all week. He says it’s something expensive, so I assume it’s something you’d know about. Well, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” he said, assuming a businesslike tone. “I know a wholesaler personally.”

Ruthenia straightened. “Could you introduce me?” she said.

Aleigh drew his lips into a line, mulling over the request. “If I do, may we drop all this talk of debts and favours?”

Ruthenia shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. Once this is sorted, that’s the last we’ll ever have to hear of each other.”

Considering the words for a moment, Aleigh nodded. “I'll have to take a look at my schedule, but you may expect a response within the week.”

---

Chapter 14: The Plea

July finally ended, ushering in the First of August in a swell of spring that no one could ignore. All over Astra, the buds were answering to the warmth, turning public parks everywhere into festival grounds. The cherry blossoms were almost done with their season; they made their statements at crossroads near river bridges, flowering a last time before they lost their petals forever.

Tanio was up past ten again; each time Ruthenia attempted to question him, she was asked about the spooled Thread again.

The First of August being widely regarded as the day of spring’s true coming, everyone was busying themselves with welcoming it. All about the Central Circle, the windows glowed in the evening, cooks whipping up dinners from the largest stock they'd had in months.

Every gaze out on the field seemed aglow as they flew between the towers practising the new technique of the day—the drop—although eyes darted every so often to the horizon, anticipating its end. When at last the clanging of chimes announced the close of lessons, a murmur broke out and rippled across the field, bright and loud.

"Back, class!" Ms. Decanda's shout brought students soaring back across the field in droves. Bruises were nursed, stray petals brushed off clothes. “Good work! I saw some excellent dropping today. It’s a useful technique to know, especially if being knocked off your mount poses a serious threat to your safety.”

Hollia let out a short giggle, which made Ruthenia pout. “You’ll get better,” she said, patting her back.

"You don’t know that," answered Ruthenia sulkily. "Flying just doesn't come naturally to me.”

Hollia smiled and shook her head. “You’ve made wonderful progress, for two years.”

The class began to dissipate in a clamour of conversation. Ruthenia turned to Hollia. “Flight classes are so unfair,” she grumbled. “They're rigged against me. I didn't grow up watching others do it.”

Her friend blinked back. “Your parents didn't...?” Then she halted, as if realising she might be treading fragile ground.

But Ruthenia only shook her head. “Why else do you think they were so enthused about their work?” Casting her gaze across the field, she groaned. “Do these people even understand how much easier they have it?”

But no one answered, and Hollia only sighed wordlessly.

Ruthenia sucked in a deep breath and turned to her friend. “Anyway...I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Take care, Ruth. You're doing amazing, given...everything.”

*

The first thing Ruthenia did on entering Tanio’s house was to freeze in place. She sniffed the air.

"Seen the news?" Tanio's greeting was muffled by a mouthful of meat.

"Yes, I've seen the news, but what I want to know is, what did you cook for dinner?" She broke off into a dash, bounding into the kitchen, surveying the spread atop the stove. Tanio had arranged quite a feast (on Calied household standards): a dish of salad with white dressing and a pair of mugs filled with pulpy juice—but the highlight was the centrepiece: a black pan with three chicken patties on fried bread, all steaming hot.

"In memory of the First Coming, of course," said Tanio, following her to the kitchen. "Helemen Loricoda erriona. We can't eat something that belongs in the scrap pile, now, can we?"

"But how did you do this?" she exclaimed, jabbing one patty with a fork. Before he answered, she was already chomping away at it.

"Well, you see, I bought myself the finest cookbook."

"So you admitted defeat!" she shouted, brandishing a fork at him.

"I suppose I did,” answered the boss with a shrug and a smile. While he opened the pantry, Ruthenia began to scarf the sandwich down, carrying her fruit juice to the living room. There, upon Tanio's coffee table, she glimpsed the headline he had left it open on.

Biochemistry laboratory faces lawsuit over illegal experiments

The Candelabra Biochemistry Laboratory has been prosecuted by the government, and its team are awaiting trial, following reports that they had undertaken field research within the disaster exclusion zone.

The government has made clear that these actions are to be condemned, and that no individual or organisation should be travelling through the exclusion zone until the crisis has passed. It assures the public that a task force is being assembled to deal with the matter.

“Make no mistake, it's all clergy-led,” declared Tanio, between crinkles of baking paper. “I have it on good word that they didn't just go out there: they actually solved it. They ascertained, with ninety-nine percent certainty, what the sea glitter is: magical fish scales. It's Lilin. So of course, the government is sparing no expense in suppressing it.”

Ruthenia's brow furrowed. “Lilin? From the legend? I thought they hated her.”

“No. They don't want her involvement known to the public,” Tanio answered. “They don't like what she signifies. Nor the fact she's becoming restless now.”

“And they’d rather the disaster just went on unchecked?”

“Well, you heard them—they're putting together some sort of ‘task force,’” he chuckles.

“What I don't understand is, why now? If she’s been dormant for three hundred years, then why should that be changing now?” Ruthenia frowned. The scales had not come off by themselves. But since Lilin was a deity, she could not possibly be dying, or in a state of infirmity.

She must be struggling to free herself.

It was only when Tanio began waving his hands at her that Ruthenia realised he had sat down in the armchair opposite her, dinner on his lap. “Wakey wakey,” he sang. “School getting to you? Or are you fantasising about some classmate or other?”

“What? Why's that your first thought?” she gasped, trying, and failing, to recall the contents of her prior thought.

“Who has your fancy? The one racer boy who flies on Astero? I’m sure he’s a pleasant fellow, as well as a talented one.”

Ruthenia groaned. “You’re the worst conversationalist.”

“I’m trying, I'm trying,” answered Tanio appeasingly. “After all this time, I still haven't figured out how to ease you into this life.”

“Well, then, don't try,” she snapped. “I'm just here to work for you and stay alive. Are we done talking about this?”

Then they made an unspoken agreement to leave that subject behind. She finished up her dinner quietly but with relish, and this time remembered to thank Tanio for it. He had earned the gratitude.

---

Ruthenia lay awake in the humid night air, staring up at her beechwood ceiling, inky black in the dark of night.

As she closed her eyes, her mind swam through the sludgy darkness. She barely wanted to know where dreaming would take her. But the images grew more viscous, more distinct, each time she closed her eyes, and she finally began to fall asleep.

Silver wings unfurled, splashed through the illusion so it turned into a thrashing sea. From them erupted a roar of storm, crackling and thundering.

She opened her eyes again, breathing deeply, skin cold as if she’d been running all the way from the coast.

A chill pierced her. She closed her eyes again, and, as she fell asleep, began to drift in a haze of images. There was a ringing gush of water in her ears, and the blackness of sleep cracked into pieces in her eyes, like ice struck by lightning, in a spine-tearing burst of light.

Where—

She could hardly think. A black chain burst through the sky, hurtling towards her, like the tip of an arrow.

It dove straight into her abdomen. She felt a great splitting—and screamed, gasped, and her throat was clawed by water; only then was she aware that an ocean was all about her, tugging her feet downward.

She screamed again; it was an unfamiliar sound, almost as if she had forgotten it. Her throat hurt. In a blur of whites and blues, she was dragged, down, down, through a flurry of silver bubbles, away from a sky that was black yet full of light, and lightning netted across the waves again.

She thrashed, limbs breaking into a thousand pieces when they struck the sea—and her heart was seized, suddenly, by a sadness beyond her explaining.

How long is “forever”?

Forever ends, doesn’t it?

The silver wings were there, again—all about her, glinting through the storm—bloodied, featherless wings, beating uselessly against the currents.

She’d seen those wings before. Searching for a light somewhere. A path through the storm.

*

Ruthenia awakened to the sound of rain muttering gently outside. She glanced at the window, but all was a grey blur beyond the rectangle. The world gave a sudden whirl.

She stumbled across the bridge through the drizzle, and its swaying brought on such a wave of vertigo she almost slipped off. She found herself in a seat soon enough, dampening the cushion as she listened to the sloshing of Tanio in the bathing room. It made her think of the tides, and again she felt the world give an enormous lurch.

It was fifteen minutes before she regained enough steadiness to find her breakfast.

“Bad night?” Tanio asked as he reappeared at the foot of the stairs, buttoning his shirt.

Ruthenia paused mid-breakfast, and felt her vision swim again. “Nightmares,” she answered.

“I had those myself. Oceans and storms.” His gaze grew cold. “Well, definitely deity business, then.”

Her palms grew clammy. “Is anyone going to do anything about it?”

Tanio drew his lips into a thin line. “I know it was largely a joke before,” he said, “but I would like you to hurry with that spooled Thread. I need it now, more than ever.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.”

With the end of the drizzle, the morning birds began to call out at each other across the river. Ruthenia returned to the shed, the last of her dizziness slowly deserting her. Ripples swept the wheat stalks that had thrust up from the earth. The colours of the wild grass had changed too—from that insipid green, the strips between agricultural fields had turned into mottled patchworks of flowers.

Without closing the door, Ruthenia noticed the glow of a new message on her messenger. Plucking it from the tabletop, she saw a cursive hand that was starting to grow familiar.

“I would like to request your audience at teatime tomorrow, at the corner of the mezzanine.”

“Request your audience,” she muttered. Nevertheless, the timing was impeccable, so she replied:

I’ll be there.

---

Come the Thursday tea break, Ruthenia made straight to the cafeteria, towards the staircase to the mezzanine, then up the steps two at a time. A platform levitating beside a window nearly two stories tall, the mezzanine level enjoyed a panoramic view of the meadows and hillocks beneath the granite bridges of the Central Circle School.

Ruthenia paused at the top of the staircase, taking a deep breath of the sweet spring air as the wind whipped through her hair. The gentle rustle of grass in the distance accompanied chatter over clinking spoons. Although the crowd was thinner here, every table was fully-occupied, except for the one at the far corner, where a lone figure sat reading. Shaking her head, she wove between the tables.

Only several seconds after she slapped the tabletop did Prince Aleigh finally lift his gaze from the pages of his novel.

“You are two minutes late,” he said in clipped syllables, gesturing at the seat before him. While he shut his novel and laid it on the tabletop, Ruthenia dropped into the seat and began unwrapping Tanio’s soggy pie.

She cast a glance across the table at Aleigh’s own blueberry cake (surely known by a fancier name) and pouted. “Let’s start,” she said.

“Now, regarding the procurement of spooled Thread,” said Aleigh, “I will only be able to meet you on Thursday morning.”

“Thursday morning is good for me,” she said through the chewed remains of an overcooked fish pie. She held her breath and swallowed.

“Perfect. Please meet me at the old palace gates at nine o’clock with at least thirty argents on your person.”

At the mention of the palace, Ruthenia frowned. “No thank you. I don’t want to meet the guards.”

He blinked at her. “I will request that they not bar you from entry.”

Her voice grew insistent. “Let’s meet outside the palace. Please.”

Aleigh must have understood something in her plea that even she did not. He sighed. “We shall meet at Helika Plaza.”

Ruthenia let out the breath she’d been holding. “Nine o’clock on Thursday at Helika Plaza. I’ll be there.”

He nodded. “You may leave,” he said.

“Well, now I don't want to.”

Shaking his head, Aleigh picked up his novel—titled The Temper of Darkness, with a cover to match—and opened it to the page where he had stopped. At once, she ceased to exist to him. Meanwhile, Ruthenia resumed contending with Tanio’s “pie,” gagging with every mouthful. Every minute or so, between mouthfuls of mush, she glanced over at her companion to find him ever more engrossed in his novel.

“You’re not very sociable, are you?” she said.

“Your observation has been noted,” he replied without looking up.

“I’m sure you’d have more friends if you tried not being an arse,” she said. “I mean, you’re the brother of the Arcane King. Classmates should be throwing themselves at you.”

“I have taken deliberate steps to prevent that.”

Ruthenia folded her arms on the tabletop, leaning forward curiously. “Why?”

He paused for several seconds. She thought for a moment that he might answer snappily, or not answer at all, but then he said, “I want nothing to do with sycophants.”

She frowned. “What’s a sycophant?”

“One who courts my goodwill for their benefit and nothing more. I don't like those people. But everyone is greedy, and selfish, and false. So I do not desire any friendship at all.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Everyone, really?”

“It comes with the title.”

“Well, that's just dumb,” she said. “But typical of Central Circle students. Caring so much about some stupid title.”

The Arcane Prince briefly eyed in bewilderment, but seemed to decide against advancing the conversation further. Once again he buried his face inside his novel. Shrugging, she finished the last of her singularly horrible pie, closing her eyes with every breeze as thin clouds crossed the sun, making the light waver.

“What are you eating?” Aleigh finally cut in.

Ruthenia took one glance at the last mottled morsel of her meal. “Honestly, I don't know.”

---

Chapter 15: Clear as Glass

 The plum blossoms had burst into bloom overnight, opened by the touch of spring. They had unfolded in full colour today, every orchard and ever airborne garden blessed by the fragrance of their bowing branches.

Plum blossoms were all they could smell as classes came and passed, as the sun arced across the sky, gleaming white on the marble, pulling the shadows thin.

The very moment Mr. Caeben entered the classroom with a book titled The Purging, Ruthenia felt like she shouldn’t be there.

But it was too late to escape by the time he had reached the desk and parted the book’s pages on the tabletop. Everyone had scrambled to their seats by then, and was awaiting the start of lesson.

“Now that we understand the basics of post-Revolution governance,” said the tutor, “we are ready to discuss the next, and very crucial, stage in Astran and world history: the New Truth and the Science Movement.”

And then began the most excruciating lesson of her life.

Mr. Caeben spoke, as they all did, in abstractions. Of the movement’s philosophical origins, following the New Truth that had swept Bel and Cerdolia in the ten years prior, born of the seeds left by war. He talked, at length, about 470 Petrosa and the loss of romance, the end of wastage, the age of learning—the industrial revolution that followed, and the beginnings of Ihirin resistance.

“History is a series of conspiring events,” said Mr. Caeben. “And as it is, it was the confluence of two events that gave rise to the Purging mandate: the removal of Ceila Derue from the advisory council upon having been found guilty of corruption, and the unveiling of the scientist Lita Kyril’s final project, the flying engine.”

Ruthenia felt her entire body go numb as ice, at the sound of the name.

“The event came with much fanfare, but was also met with intense backlash. It prompted the monarchs—now aligned against the Science Movement following Ceila Derue’s arrest—to draft the Purging mandate.”

“Sir,” Ruthenia interjected suddenly, against her better judgment. Twenty gazes seized her at once. She cleared her throat, fists clenching, though she trembled. “I don’t understand. How could the monarchs have been so fickle as to change their minds about the movement just because their councillor was found guilty of accepting bribes?”

Mr. Caeben squinted at her and shook his head. “Can anyone answer her?” he said. “Miss Litana.”

Caela stood up and turned to regard her. “Certainly, sir,” she said. “Do you know nothing about popularity, Ruthenia?” She was answered by sniggers from the class. “It is very simple. A ruler commands respect through either love or fear. The Arcem-Ayda government sought the former, and would have lost that love much sooner, had they aligned themselves with a criminal and proven themselves as traitorous as she. It was necessary that they opposed everything Derue stood for.”

She clenched her jaw as Caela seated herself. She tried not to answer; the answer came anyway. “Necessary?” she said. “It was wrong! Politicians are disgusting, pretending to care about one thing, then reversing their tune when it suits them!”

“Miss Cendina, we are not interested in examining moral right and wrong in our classes,” Mr. Caeben cut in. “Only in studying cause and effect. In this case, we are discussing the causes of the Purging—which, as we now understand, was inevitable.”

“Well, then, what’s the use?” she snapped. She was boiling over. Ihir, she shouldn’t be. Bad things happened when she did. “What’s the use of learning, if we aren’t interested in fixing it? What’s the use of knowing what happened if—if we aren’t also taught that what happened was wrong, that we can’t let it happen again? Why are you standing there, reading accounts to us? What is the bleeding point?” Too late she felt her voice veer into high pitch, although it did not change her tutor’s tone or expression, only drew more stares.

“Because I am a public tutor,” he replied. “and I am bound by an agreement not to bias my students towards any political stance.”

By now Ruthenia had raised her voice to a yell. “You are biasing them by not telling them the whole truth! By not telling them how it harmed people! Do any of you know what they did to the people they found guilty of these ridiculous crimes?”

An uncomfortable mutter was spreading across the classroom; even the Arcanes were shifting in their seats. “Of course,” replied the man levelly. “They were publicly executed, by firing squad, as a warning to those who might think to flout the holy laws of Ihir. They were dealt with as they deserved to be.”

“Stop—stop it—”

Ruthenia was standing alone at the corner of the square. Blindfolded figures on the stage.

She heard gunshots boom. Wails cut short in blood explosions.

They came over and over and over, resounding over the square. Over and over until they had blown the voices to pieces.

She watched them peeled the limbs off the ground, like carrion, and fling them into the cart, piece by bloody piece.

The scent of plum blossoms awakened her to her senses again. The first thing Ruthenia felt was the pressure of her hands, clutching at her eyes. Tears dripping from her fingers.

She uncurled them, letting them fall away.

Her vision was blurred. Everyone in the seats around her was watching.

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Caeben lowered his textbook. “Is something the matter?” he said, voice soft all at once.

“You think of the poor and the condemned as people you’ll never meet, don't you?” she said, sobbing so hard her throat hurt. The light continued to pulse around her, and everything was muffled.

Damn it, she’d gone and let herself go. She’d let herself boil over.

“Miss Cendina?” he whispered, more to himself than to her. At once his eyes widened, and he seemed so stricken she almost began to forgive him. “I’m very sorry, I was not aware that you were—”

“I’m sure they deserved to be dealt with,” she growled. Another huge tear rolled down her cheek. She was only barely aware of her seatmates reaching out to comfort her, and the rest of the class turning to stare, as she laid her head on the table and fought back tears.

***

Concealed glares became open leers and hisses, and it was largely the Arcanes who gave her wide berth whenever possible. Some rained sympathy on Ruthenia, but she brushed them off, barely managing not to yell at them. Whenever she could she made herself small, pulling her limbs inward on herself, hiding her face in her folded arms on her desk.

Hollia sat down beside her during the break and offered every manner of comforting gesture, but seemed not to know what to say other than that she should ignore the people who dared hurt her over this.

“I’m sorry I never told you,” Ruthenia wanted to respond, but the girl seemed to have forgiven her already.

As the last echoes of the closing bell’s sonorous chime faded from the granite hallways and classrooms, Ruthenia left the classroom with heavy, dragging footsteps. The voices in the hallway faded to meaninglessness and she pointedly ignored calls of her name.

This wasn’t how she’d wanted them to find out. This wasn’t how it was supposed to have gone.

She felt the wind from the fields as she passed by arched windows and stared out each one. The air smelled of wet grass, making her think of stormclouds as they melted in the sunlight into after-rain mist. The air was still heavy with the scent of blossoms waiting to turn to fruit. By the time she arrived at the northern tower, the crowd had almost thinned to nothing. A lone pair of Astran doves sat on a windowsill beside her, preening.

At the staircase she mounted her umbrella, a full two minutes of snatching at slippery Threads and yelling out in frustration before she finally managed to make it stay. She was only barely aware of a set of footsteps coming to a stop behind her, as she climbed on.

“Miss Cendina?” said a familiar voice from some way down the staircase.

Ignoring it, Ruthenia flew up through the gateway and over the arch of her school, up where she could see the entire levitating structure from above, as well as the tiny garden on the grounds, twenty floors below, where the plum trees were pink.

She landed on flat portion of the roof and slid off her umbrella, feet meeting the granite with a thud. The rooftop was a popular tea break haunt for students, but it was typically empty this late in the day.

She clutched at her flight mount, and stared out at the otherworldly red sky, jaw clenching. “Ihir, why do you condemn people for things they can’t help?” she yelled. “I’m sick of this! I’m sick of people hating me! I’m sick of hating them!”

As if in answer, she heard a flutter of wings to her right, then saw a sudden flash of white at the corner of her eye that made her turn, eyes widening. A white equine landed with a thump on the rooftop, hooves clopping.

Ruthenia squinted. “Aleigh?” she said.

He swung onto the horse’s stirrup and leapt off, regarding her quietly from across the space, but without any trace of dismissiveness. “I am sorry about the events that transpired in class, earlier,” he said, coming to a stop several feet away. His hair blazed golden in the late afternoon sunlight.

Ruthenia found herself smiling oddly. “Sorry? You? You didn’t do anything. Mister Caeben should be the one apologising, not you.” She folded her arms. “Even if you are the Arcane Prince.”

“I am sorry that Astra must treat you like this,” Aleigh replied. “I did not know you were Lita Kyril’s daughter.”

“Lita Kyril? Who?” she tried to laugh. “I’ve almost forgotten about her.”

He shook his head. “Your irrational behaviour has become almost comprehensible in light of this fact.”

As the wind blew, shadows swept across the fields below, and the blocks of the Central Circle sparkled as the sun sank through the sky. Ruthenia watched the sky fold and undo itself in the late spring light.

“I wish they’d stop trying to comfort me,” she said, turning to him. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to forget.”

Lifting his gaze, Aleigh fixed her with a serious look. “That does not seem like an entirely healthy response to loss,” he answered.

“What? What do you know?”

He considered her quietly. “Enough to know you are not coping,” he said.

“It’ll stop meaning anything soon. Look, it’s almost gone.” She made an effort to smile.

He nodded noncommittally. “I heard the things you said as I arrived.”

“Oh. You did.” Ruthenia turned to look at the Central Circle once again. “Well, you can imagine how navigating the Central Circle School is for me, seeing as it is full of rich, devout bigots.”

"I'm sorry. I hope you will someday come to be loved, not hated, by the people of this school."

She sniffed. "Never. Not as long as people like you see class and birth before character."

“People like me?” he answered, seeming caught between amusement and indignation. “I can assure you, I would not dare do something so uncouth as to disrespect another for their origins or opinions.”

She folded her arms. “Oh, really?” she said, smiling interrogatively. “You aren't really the Arcane Prince, are you? You must be an impostor. The real Arcane Prince hates the poor.”

“I hate to disappoint, but I am the real Arcane Prince, at least while my brother is the Arcane King,” answered Aleigh.

Ruthenia smiled oddly. “I’m surprised you bothered. Especially considering no one else did.”

“I merely meant to ascertain that you were not as distraught as you seemed,” he replied.

“Does the state of my mind really matter to you?”

“The class has been unnecessarily harsh, and I did not see anyone but your best friend attempting to ameliorate your mood.” He paused for a while, then finally added, "I appreciate the sentiment you expressed at yesterday's tea break."

Now Ruthenia could not say she had expected this answer. She didn’t like it. It made the Arcane Prince seem almost personable. She settled for a bewildered smile in response. “I hope you aren’t doing this just to get me off your back,” she said. “I still need that spooled Thread, so you’re not shaking me off so easily.”

“No, of course not,” he replied. “I will see you on Thursday morning.”

“Could I ask a favour of you?”

“Other than the one you already have?”

“Stop calling me Miss Cendina,” she replied. “You’re not my superior.”

“Technically speaking, I am.” She fired him a glare. “Alright, then. It has been nice talking, Miss Ruthenia.”

***

Thursday morning came soon enough.

Ruthenia scrambled out the bathing room and down the stairs in a chorus of creaks, laundry under arm, towel over shoulder. She picked the lone cinnamon bun up from the basket on the dining table and flung the door open to exit, munching on the confection as she went. Then she leapt into her umbrella and crossed her legs, watching as Beacon Way and its houses shrank from view. The mottled ploughs were at work, engines chugging, great billows of steam blowing.

The city proper emerged at the end of hut-speckled farmland, and with it the first scattering of animal-riders, hurrying about their business. The traffic thickened, its approach preluded by the noise of the city. She peered over the edge of the umbrella as the Helika Plaza slipped into visibility from beyond a flock of buildings. Set into the centre of the ground city, it was a square patchwork of milling pedestrians, enclosed on three sides by rows of shops, among them some of the oldest and best eateries in the country. It was here that the ever-popular Helika toast had first been perfected.

From above, Ruthenia searched for an opening, descending through departing birds and equines to land. In a single practised motion, she leapt from her umbrella and snatched its crook as she went, shutting it above her head. The scent of toast wafted through the crowds as she swung it under her arm.

Glancing about in whatever room she had, she caught sight of a granite wing over the heads of the crowd, and began towards it, elbowing haughty pedestrians aside. She heard the whinnies and flutters of equines and birds in her periphery, and was brushed by wingtips.

Ruthenia squinted about for the Arcane Prince, almost tripping when she arrived at the central monument. The head of a thousand-year-old granite swan stared down at her, its huge head bowing towards the pool. Then a tap on her shoulder made her leap away from it.

“Good day, Miss Ruthenia” came a voice far too familiar. “It is rather rude to keep a benefactor waiting.”

“Benefactor! I’m the one you owe a favour to!” Ruthenia exclaimed, whirling around.

Aleigh Luzerno stood amid the crowd, the usual garb substituted for an outfit including a white shirt and a black lapelled waistcoat. Benedice loomed behind him, his reins in his master’s hand, and a small circle of staring Arcanes surrounded the two. She grinned amid the piercing stares of the onlookers.

“Shall we?” he said. She nodded, and at once he turned to depart, Benedice following.

She scrambled after him, almost tripping over the cobblestones as she followed his equine’s trail through the crowd, the stares continuing to follow them as they walked.

“Do people always stare like that?” she muttered as they pulled out of the crowd, emerging into open air.

“That’s the least of it,” answered Aleigh when she arrived beside him. “People will do much worse when they think they can.”

“That’s such a pain,” she said. “Maybe fame isn’t as nice as I thought.”

“It most certainly is not nice,” he said. He stepped up onto Benedice’s stirrup. Ruthenia came up beside his equine, unhooking her umbrella from her elbow. She climbed onto her umbrella and found a good grip around its ferrule before she sent herself lurching into the sky, chasing the white winged beast before it soared out of sight.

Their flight veered northwest, and it quickly became apparent that they were setting a course for the Linterna district. Aleigh was flying much faster than she usually did, and with a kick she increased her own speed to match his. Fields and houses turned to streaks and the wind began to dry her eyes, but she closed them and sent up a laugh of exhilaration.

The fields ended, and the roar of Swan’s Cross grew louder: the chug of foreign steam carriages rumbling across the cobblestones far below, the hum and hiss of coal black chimneys. Slowing to a leisurely pace, they swooped between a series of Linterna blocks—clusters of houses and shops in paired pyramidal stack, meeting at the tips.

“Here,” said the Arcane Prince, as Benedice glided low and came to land on a pavement that was also the roof of a shop, hooves clattering across the slats.

Ruthenia braked too late, and swerved around the block before looping back towards the pavement, coming in too low so her feet skidded across the ground and threw her into a stumbling run that ended in her colliding with a weight-bearing pillar.

“You certainly seem eager to arrive,” he said, offering her an arm for assistance that she ignored.

“You were the one flying like a maniac,” she answered, gesturing for him to step away. She glanced about. All about them, passers-by and curious shop-owners had lifted their bewildered gazes to watch from tiers below. Some waved and others pointed at the Arcane Prince, offering bows and dips of their heads. “These people sure do adore you.”

A minute’s walking round the rooftop in the blazing sun took them in front of the facade of a brilliantly-lit store that glittered like a large diamond in the side of the block. The entire display was lined with glass jars and bottles of every conceivable size, each one apparently empty, save the metal rod lying inside each one, kinked on both ends. Up above the display, in letters painted in bronze, was the shop name: Rae Threaders.

Aleigh held the door for her as they entered. Leaving the heat behind and entering the carpeted, scintillating interior, she immediately took to gaping at the vessels around them. Her companion had already arrived at the counter by the time she managed to pull her eyes away.

"Good afternoon, Nira,” she heard him say. “Is Mister Rae present to receive us?"

Behind the polished countertop, a girl, barely twelve, dark and lanky with a head of black locks, nodded and slid the backroom door open. "Pa!" she shouted through it.

"Yes, dear," answered a low voice through the crack.

"It's Mister Luzerno’s son, Pa!"

"Which one?"

Nira cast a glance back, then shouted, “The younger one! And there's a lady with him, with nice red hair!”

Ruthenia felt herself flush. “My hair is completely unremarkable!” she retorted.

At last, a tall man emerged from the backroom, dark-haired and bright-eyed as his daughter. To the Arcane Prince he made a bow with both hands clasped.

“Good morning to you, Your Highness—what a surprise to see you today.” Then his gaze came to rest upon her. “And you, miss—a pleasure to meet you! I am Melkior Rae, the owner of this thread boutique. How may I help you both?"

Aleigh gestured at Ruthenia. "Miss Cendina is the one seeking your service; I am only here to introduce you," he answered. “She works under an establishment of great repute, the Calied Company.”

She squinted. How does he know that? Eldon...

Heedless, Mr Rae turned to her and said, “Ah, so you are my customer this time, Miss Cendina."

“Just Ruthenia is fine,” she said.

“Well, please, come inside,” he said, holding the door open for his guest.

Everything on the inside was glassy and bright, and utterly empty. Empty jars stood behind empty bulbs.

Mr Rae slipped in behind the counter, and his daughter followed after. “Forgive me, Ruthenia,” he said then, “but how did you come to be personally acquainted with the Arcane Prince? He doesn't often bring guests here.”

To that, she laughed. “I fixed something for His Highness, and now he’s returning the favour,” she said, casting him a meaningful look that he answered with .

“She is very persistent,” he replied.

“Oh?” Mr. Rae’s eyebrows rose. “I’m impressed. Aleigh is one of the most unrelenting people I know.”

“I appreciate that.”

"Excuse me,” Ruthenia cut in. “I’ll be needing some of that spooled Thread for my boss."

His gaze shot back to her. "Certainly! What length of Thread would you like?"

“How about as-much-as-you-can-fit-on-your-biggest-spool?” Ruthenia said, gesturing out an arbitrarily large length with her hands. “I have no clue how much he wants, but you should give me as much as you can because he can probably use it.”

“We do allow for up to thirty feet. Would you like that much?”

Ruthenia hadn't any clue what difference it made, whether Thread was ten feet long or thirty. “I won't!”

“Could I prepare the thread? Please?” exclaimed Nira, whirling to face her father.

With a full-throated laugh, Mr. Rae patted his daughter’s shoulder. “Of course,” he answered, ruffling her hair. “As long as you don't drop it.”

“I won't!”

In a whirl of black hair, the ever-effervescent girl pushed the swinging door aside and slipped out.

Mr. Rae let out a hearty laugh. “After Nira picks out the raw material,” he said, “the Thread must be prepared, to the length you have requested. Would you like to return in half an hour, or will you wait here?”

“I’ll hardly take fifteen minutes!” exclaimed Nira from the room.

Ruthenia shrugged and laughed. “We can wait,” she said, then retreated to the wood-beamed bench set up amongst the cabinets, seemingly for the very purpose of waiting.

They had a full view of the entire shop. She set herself down in it, smirking at Aleigh’s indignation while he took a seat beside her.

“What a fancy place,” she said. “Imagine if I tripped and fell and knocked a couple of jars from the shelves.”

“That’d be a waste of perfectly good Thread,” answered her companion. “I hope you are not so clumsy as to do that.”

“I wouldn’t be a mechanic if I were clumsy,” she answered, lifting her hands and wriggling her fingers. “I’m the master of precision work.”

“Oh, I know that, Ruthenia,” he replied. “I would not have entrusted my mother’s watch to you if you were not.”

They listened idly to Nira’s muttering at the other end of the store, and the soft clatter of some machinery in the backroom behind the counter.

“How do you normally spend your mornings?” she said. “I mean, when you’re not occupied, like you are today.”

He turned to her. “Five days out of seven, I am occupied,” he replied. “When I am not, I stroll the grounds, or read. There is little else to do within the palace complex.”

“That’s...incredibly boring. But you get to do whatever you please whenever you please, don’t you? I mean, you outrank everyone, so they can’t really tell you what to do.”

“Most definitely not.” He glanced at the shop window. “That life is but a fiction. I do not have nearly as many liberties as the general public likes to imagine.”

“Oh, really? No secret parties? No sneaking off after midnight?”

Aleigh eyed her oddly. “I am expected to register all external appointments a day in advance. All my intended business is reviewed and either approved or rejected.”

Ruthenia grimaced, weaving her fingers together. “The more you tell me about being a royal, the more it sounds like absolute cow dung,” she murmured. “Do you mean to say they know you’re at Rae Threaders right now?”

“They do,” he replied. “I informed them that I left to assist an unnamed associate with business negotiations.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous.”

“It is for my safety.”

“Safety? How does half the palace sticking their noses in your business keep you safe?”

“I cannot think of myself as my own person, when my person may be used as a bargaining piece by political opponents, or kidnappers,” he replied. “Between us, though? I am fairly certain my brother would sooner give me up than cough up a ransom of any size.” He smiled bitterly.

“Eugh. I didn’t think he was the sort. He always seemed so...amiable. And human.”

Aleigh nodded. “His act has everyone convinced.”

“That’s an act?” Ruthenia sagged forward and sighed at her lap, before turning again to meet his eye. “And I guess all your—meanness—that’s your act?”

“Well, with you, it was only partly an act.” The traces of a smile curled the corners of his lips. “I quite enjoyed your reactions.”

“Hey! Well, that’s even worse!” She gave him a shove, although a telltale laugh escaped her. “What if it hurt me? What then, you monster?”

“You simply seemed so determined to irk me, that I could not but repay you in kind. Of course, I now know that you were not merely doing so for your amusement.”

She smiled and shook her head. “And I thought you just didn’t want friends,” she replied.

“I generally do not. But you do not seem like such a terrible person to be friends with.”

“Excuse me, Mister Luzerno? And Ruthenia!” Nira’s voice made them turn in synchrony. “I’m done! You see, Pa?”

Rising, Ruthenia untangled the strings of her money pouch from her belt and pulled it open. When she arrived at the counter, she dumped all thirty of her argents on the countertop, two coins at a time. Again she thanked Nira and Mr. Rae.

With both hands she picked up the lumpy package with a grip less careful than it should have been, feeling the softness of more paper layers beneath the wrapping.

“See you again soon!” called the girl once she had finished counting the coins. “Please do come back. I really like you!”

“It has been a pleasure,” added Mr. Rae.

Ruthenia laughed. “I’ll be sure to visit,” she shouted back. She turned around to find Aleigh already waiting outside.

Out on the deck outside, Ruthenia came to a stop beside the Arcane Prince, regarding the Linterna scenery quietly. The breeze carried the faint perfume of incense and smoke.

“Many thanks for your time,” Ruthenia said. She patted the bulbous package beneath the layers of crinkly paper in her bag. “Tanio hasn’t told me what he wants it for, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon enough.”

Aleigh was unbuckling Benedice’s reins from around the canopy’s slender hardwood pillar. “I am glad to have been of assistance,” he replied with a small bow.

“Since we’re done, do you want to get a drink somewhere?”

He looked oddly at her. “I have other business to attend to.”

“Oh. Of course you do.”

He mounted the equine in the shade and spurred him, offering her a nod in greeting. Then, with a practiced lunge, the beast launched into the air beyond the deck, wings unfurling on both sides.

Ruthenia stood in the shelter while he left, allowing the breeze to cool her for a minute or five.

Tanio was suitably pleased to discover the enormous jar of spooled Thread sitting on the dining table. “And right on time, too!” he exclaimed, giving Ruthenia a hearty pat on the back.

Dinner was a disappointment by every measure. Tanio had apparently not bothered beyond popping a fish into the oven and drizzling the resulting burnt heap it with oyster sauce. She spent the evening spitting bones onto the table and choking on the ones she did not manage to detect.

But her boss was not there for her to skewer with critiques; in fact, he was nowhere to be found for the entire evening following his brief greeting, not even when she had taken her shower and left the house.

Returning to the shed, Ruthenia observed, through her own window, that the man’s study window was once again the lone light across the bridge. And that light did not go out even when she returned to her own hammock.

There were days she longed with every fibre to beat Tanio to a pulp. And there were days she felt unworthy of his guardianship.

---

Chapter 16: Political Politeness

Adjunct 01: The Price of Knowing

They were marched up the square to the sun in the centre, ten riflemen awaiting the ceremonials.

Gunshots rang across the Candle Plaza, and the afternoon was stained red. The stones remembered every single time they had been defiled. The rust stains in their cracks could not be cleansed by a century of rain.

The country of the sky could not forget that it wanted to be shackled.

***

“Ruth. Perhaps you should read today’s news.”

Exiting the stairwell that morning, Ruthenia came to a standstill. Tanio’s tone was one of defeat. “What?” she breathed, walking towards the living room. “What happened?”

He shoved the papers across the dining table, wordlessly.

An Act of Wrath

The Ihira Clergy has ruled that the collective nightmares experienced by the Astran population last week were an act of divine wrath.

Recent events have made it clear that the Candelabra District Biochemical Laboratory is responsible for inciting it.

Coldness gripped her. “This doesn’t make any sense at all!” She felt her throat grow tight. “What did they do to the lab team?”

“It’s bad publicity,” he replied. “Aligon and Hazen can’t afford to remind us of the death sentence, considering their election pledge—”

“The death sentence.” She waited and waited for the surge of fury to consume her. But it came as an awkward sputter. “It was supposed to change. They said they would change it.”

She stared out the dining room window, at the blue morning beyond, and she felt her chest hurt. Dropping into the chair facing him, she lifted her sandwich to her mouth and tried to eat, but her mouth was dry.

“In other news,” said Tanio as he resumed his read, “I sent my prototype to the Ministry of Maritime Defence last night. Now it remains to be seen if they consider that to be grounds on which sentence me.”

Ruthenia straightened. The Thread—the spooled Thread—

“Tanio!” she yelled, slamming a fist on the table so the saucers jangled. “It was a Thread machine, wasn’t it? The spooled Thread—you—you needed it for your machine and you sent it to them!” The first tear spilled from her eye. “Why, why are you so desperate to die? Why are you all like this?”

“Aw, Ruth, I’m not going to die,” he said. “I’m just doing my part to keep Astra safe from total annihilation. It’s worth a shot.”

“I know—but—”

"I’m willing to wager the government will overlook the more dubious qualities of my machine, if it promises incontrovertible evidence for—or against—the Lilin theory. Without evidence of that sort, only guesswork and anxiety can inform their actions, and that is the worst place for any self-respecting government to be. Trust me, Ruth. I’m more intelligent than anyone you’ll likely ever meet."

Ruthenia wiped her face on her sleeve. “You’re also more reckless than any of them.”

He smiled. “Except you.”

She ate and chewed silently, but the lump of unease was stuck fast in her throat, and it did not vanish when she swallowed.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

He lifted his gaze from the papers, watching his assistant over the rim of his glasses. “Of course I am,” he said. “But I have played my move, and I can only wait.” He smiled idly at his breakfast, which sat untouched. “Well, if you are on talking terms with the Arcane Prince, I suppose you could attempt to have him talk sense to his brother. That could help me a speck.”

Ruthenia swirled the idea around in her mind, thinking upon the little she knew about him. “Probably not,” she murmured, staring at her food. “Aligon seems the kind with all his own ideas. The kind to be insensible and cruel in their name.”

“Well, that should not pose you any problems, then,” Tanio chortled. “That sounds just like you.”

With a glare, Ruthenia opened her mouth to retort. Then she closed it as an idea dawned upon her.

“Aleigh. I know I said we were done with this favour business, but I need you to do me another favour.”

Etiquette had only just ended, but half the class had already vanished from the dim, dusty hall, leaving the two alone by the unlit stage.

Aleigh seemed more than a little surprised to find her approaching. “What sort of favour?” he said.

They exited the hall via one of its numerous arches into the adjacent corridor, and found themselves drowning in orange light.

“I want to speak to Aligon,” Ruthenia replied. “Personally.”

"What prompted this?"

“My boss’ life might depend upon it. And, by Ihir, there’s a couple of things the man could stand to hear in any case. I want to speak to him personally. No, I shall. If not by your goodwill then by force!"

He grimaced, but said nothing.

"Can you arrange that for me? Will you?”

“Aligon is not as much of an idiot as you might want to believe,” Aleigh replied. “It also bears remembering that he is not the sole ruler of the nation.”

“I’ll meet both kings, then!” she said, folding her arms. "Come on, tell me the palace accepts visitors."

Like rising water, the evening light flooded the bottommost steps, making the flecks inside glitter like embers of flame from a firework explosion. She paused to glance at the sky, as did her companion, and the background noises of departing footsteps and chatter grew clear.

After turning back to her, and studying her for a number of seconds, Aleigh shook his head. “As reluctant as I am to say it, I cannot allow that,” he said. “Your actions could implicate me, and I’m sorry to say, but your personality does not lend itself easily to being trusted.”

She pouted. “I’ll be as careful as possible!” she exclaimed. “I care about my boss—but don’t tell him I said that—and I care about not letting the clergy kill him for his recklessness. I won’t get that wrong. I can’t afford to.” She snatched his shoulders and shook him. “Let me do this. I need to. I might as well not live if I can’t.”

He narrowed her eyes on her, as if trying to decode her expression. “You have an uphill journey ahead of you, then,” he said. “Now, under any other circumstances it would be troublesome to gain you clearance to an audience with the king. However, an event takes place next Saturday that you might find to suit your purposes, for which approval of your attendance should be trivial.”

“Perfect,” Ruthenia said, eyes widening. “I’ll take it. I’ll go. What sort of event will it be?”

“The wedding of my cousin Anio to his fiancee Cathia Argola,” said Aleigh. “There will be a full ceremony, and your presence, aside from allowing you to fulfill your objectives, would also suit mine.”

“Of course you have ulterior motives.”

“My motives are simple. I find Aligon’s habit of handpicking noblewomen for me irksome, and would like to prevent him from doing so this time.” He paused. “Are you certain? Regardless the course of events, you will never again be invisible to the public.”

Ruthenia breathed in. The world whirled. “What’s some attention to me?” she said. “I know exactly what I want. I’m not scared of the Kings. They can’t do anything to me as long as I don’t do anything to them. And even if I can’t change their minds, I am not letting them walk away guiltless.”

Aleigh shook his head, staring out at the fields outside. “Alright, then, we shall see,” he said. “Ruthenia, you are a uniquely reckless person. I fear you might get yourself killed someday.”

She smiled. “You didn’t call me Miss Ruthenia,” she said.

He looked surprised for a moment. “So I didn't.” Then he said no more, only offered a courteous nod and departed without her.

***

Ruthenia dropped by the street crew’s alley on her way home that evening; they were already preparing their dinner of stale meat and bread on a mock table raised on rocks, huddled in the dark barely touched by the sputtering streetlamps.

“Ruth, just in time!” exclaimed Gordo with a big wave, smile gleaming in the dark.

She picked up an old steel scrap from the pile, snapped a thin plank a shattered crate, and gestured for Tante’s lighter. He offered it grudgingly. Throwing it in the curve of the steel, she lit the wood and put it on the ground a foot away.

“What’s been keeping you?” asked Hyder, grey eyes glimmering in the firelight.

Ruthenia sighed as she lowered herself into a gap in the circle. “I don’t know. Work’s beginning to encroach on my freedom in many things.”

“Not the same work, surely?” Den inquired. “Your employer is not an iron-fisted man.”

She shook her head. “This business of fighting for the things I believe in,” she replied. “It’s all so strange, but I’ve suddenly found myself in a better position than ever to get at the government. And I can’t...not take that opportunity.”

“Well, even a militant anarchist must rest two days a week,” he said.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” said Hyder. “I’m...we’re all as eager as you to get back at the government.” His fingers clasped her forearm, far too gently. She elbowed him away. Four years too late, Hyder.

“It’s not about getting back at anyone. I mean, I want revenge, too. Sometimes, I want to walk up to the kings and snap their necks.” She heaved a sigh. “But it’s...so much more complicated than that, you know? I feel like the clergy is more to blame. Or the people who vote for them. I can’t tell.” She blinked at them. “Let’s not talk about that. How have the rest of you been?”

“More than fine,” said Hyder, chewing on a stick of beef. “Reida’s been donating lately, which is awfully nice of her. I think it’s supposed to mean something?”

Den smiled. “It means she’s warming up to me,” he replied. “As planned, of course.”

“Huh? What?” Ruthenia narrowed her eyes on the dark-haired boy, who shrugged and smiled innocently.

“Her prospects within my father’s news company are looking up,” he said. “She’s all poised to take the reins now. If I could just win her over...”

Tante shook his head. “I’m telling you it’s a terrible idea, getting romance and power play tangled up with each other,” he said. “You’ll wind up losing both.”

Ruthenia frowned. “Even Tante knows it,” she muttered. “What would Reida think if she found out it was all about your ridiculous feud with your father?”

“Oh? I never said I wasn’t interested in her,” answered Den, hands up in an appeasing gesture. “I’m no heartless bastard. It just so happens that a venture with her could yield multiple benefits. Which I’d be loath to pass over.”

“You’d better not toy with her,” replied Ruthenia in a low voice.

“She’s much too clever to be toyed with,” Hyder said with a grin.

“It’ll be a while yet, in any case,” Den went on. “She’s been particularly resistant to my charms, as expected. Perhaps I should redouble my efforts.”

“Or maybe you’re getting too full of yourself,” sniffed Tante. “A pretty face isn’t enough, you know. You’ve got to be good in bed. Give her her money’s worth.”

Ruthenia listened idly as the conversation devolved into a debate about prowess in the bedroom, munching on the stale jerky. She watched Den and Tante exchange increasingly ridiculous quips, like a spectator at a fencing match. The steel-scrap flame began to gutter, and their faces grew increasingly concealed in shadow, but the conversation did not end.

When, on finishing the miserable snack, Ruthenia stood to leave, the two gave disinterested goodbyes. Gordo and Hyder bothered to turn to her and smile when they wished her farewell, at least. Those goodbyes, she returned.

Then, with a kick, she arced out of the alley, and flew away from the New Town through the deep blue night, staring behind her as the bright diamond lights shrank into each other and pulled farther and farther away, until the world was engulfed in darkness.

***

The Physics report was concluded and submitted on Friday. Hollia was less talkative than she ever had been, and although Ruthenia did her best not to ascribe any meaning to the change, she knew why, and the knowledge made her feel sick in the gut.

Come teatime, Ruthenia was stopped midway down the hallway outside by a jostling clique of Arcanes. “She’s here, the rebel’s daughter,” said one, exchanging grins and laughs with the others. Growling in indignation, she began to ram her way through with her shoulder, until from their midst stepped Iurita, shushing them with a smile curling the corners of her lips.

“Ruthenia, lovely to see you,” said Iurita, stopping Ruthenia dead in her tracks. She frowned as the Arcane girl gestured for her to step aside. With a single glance at the rest of her crew, she did as told.

As soon as she’d arrived by the wall, Ruthenia felt a hand clamp down on her wrist. Iurita fixed Ruthenia with a stare. “Don’t you go thinking I have not noticed you cosying up to some of our more powerful classmates,” she drawled, her every syllable manicured to perfection. “I hope you realise that his alliance isn’t going to save you.”

“I’m not trying to save myself, you graceless buzzard,” she growled.

Iurita narrowed her eyes. “I know you fancy yourself some charismatic revolutionary,” she replied, “and I’d let you persist with your ridiculous fantasies, if I could be sure you’d keep on your side of the fence. But you clearly have no intention to.”

“Why do you have to turn everything into a war?” Ruthenia answered in a snarl. She clenched a fist and brought it, shaking, to her face.

“Oh? Are you about to hit me?” Iurita asked, loudly. “I didn’t say anything to warrant you injuring me, now, did I?”

A small mutter of conversation ascended from the crowd. She felt her hand tremble.

“No,” Ruthenia finally said, uncurling her hand. “You keep out of my business, I keep out of yours. Deal?”

“Unfortunately, your friendship with the Arcane Prince is my business,” answered Iurita with an unwavering smile. Her voice dropped to a serpentine whisper. “You represent everything I hate, Miss Cendina. Senseless rebellion and total disregard for the rules. I don’t know what you want with making the Arcane Prince your ally, but know that this transgression will not go unanswered.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” she gasped. “What if there’s nothing political about it? What if that’s all there is to it?”

“That’s the oldest lie that’s ever been told,” Iurita laughed, eyes flashing. “Nothing’s apolitical in the Central Circle School.” Then the girl dropped her hand and turn in a swirl of gowns, waving the rest over to herself. She stood in the empty hallway, staring after, a strange hatred rearing up in her gut.

That evening, Ruthenia made a stop at the milkshake stand. Carving an apple while she drank, the stand lady asked after the state of affairs in school.

“Terrible,” she admitted, lowering her drink. The exhaustion of the afternoon once again descended upon her like a heavy blanket. She frowned at the polished countertop wood. “It’s like they’re looking for reasons to hate me.”

“Well, I don’t see anything to hate about you,” replied the store owner. “I can’t speak for your classmates, but I’m sure they merely misunderstand you. They just don’t know how to accept you yet, because you’re different from them.”

“The thing they can’t accept about me is my opinion.” Ruthenia downed another angry gulp of the milkshake, tipping the glass higher this time.

“Opinions are difficult,” the woman murmured in reply, flicking some peel off the fruit. “But your opinions continue to exist even when no one agrees with them. You can’t help what you believe, and without life-altering experiences to change them, they remain carved deep in you. Don’t you worry.”

“Thanks,” she replied, lowering the glass to the countertop. She continued puzzling over the words as she climbed onto the umbrella and began homeward.

It rained around seven o’clock. Ruthenia almost forgot to shut the windows. Beneath the quiet mumble and whisper of rain outside, she read, and by dinner, The Legend of Helika Laceld lay finished on her desk.

---

Chapter 17: Putting Back Together What Fell Apart

Saturday took her to Eldon’s basement lab. The basement invited them inside with its engines chugging in full force, the boiler and pipes gurgling with heat. Xander and Seph were busy testing the hatch that lidded the sloping runway at the far end of the hall. The ship stood unchanged, majority of its hull complete and the skeletons of the wings just beginning to take shape.

The redhead brothers yelled at each other and yanked levers and chains, and the mechanisms hummed and howled until, with a reluctant, ear-rending groan, the hatch rose to reveal the trimmed hedges of Eldon’s back garden and the grey sky beyond.

“Told ya it needed more oil!” shouted Xander as he cranked it shut. “Bring the oil! Bring it, you blockhead!”

Seph grudgingly snatched the oilcan off the parapet—then let his hand drop to his side when he noticed the newcomers. “Eldon, we’re doing our best!” he shouted back. “We might have to replace a couple of hinges, they’re all rusted up.”

“I thought so,” sighed Eldon, inspecting the runway hatch briefly. “We’ll need this in working order soon; the project’s about two-thirds of the way to completion. There might be a few spares in storage. You want to get them?”

While the two scrambled to retrieve the hinges, Ruthenia began to inspect the work they’d completed over the week. She prodded the rivets on the plates and swung the unfinished door back and forth.

Then she stepped back with folded arms among the stacks of plates, and appraised the thing in its entirety. Behind her, the three men ceased their conversation momentarily.

She grinned. “Is it anything like you pictured, Tanio?” she asked.

“Almost, if a little...clunkier,” he replied. “But that’s your fault.”

“It’s my fault this machine won’t disintegrate in midair,” Ruthenia retorted.

“Well, it won’t be what I envisioned until it leaves the ground,” he said, coming up beside her. “And that’d be when Sharmon works out how to purify his miracle fuel.” He turned. “Hey, hedgehog! When’s that going to be? Have you been skiving off with your paints again?”

Sharmon let out a laugh. “I’m doing my best!” he replied. “Running a business isn’t easy, boy, it’s a cartload of paperwork and no free time to yourself.”

“You know, it’s starting to confuse me. Is the whole paint schtick a front, or do you actually like making pigments with funny names?”

By then, she had returned to the hull of the ship with a rivet gun, a hammer and a new piece of plating, and she set to work like a proper serf as the two men bantered and it became clear that Sharmon was weeks, if not months, from a solution.

***

As she flew homeward, wheat fields became barley fields, then stopped where the old roads connected to the network of the New Town with its afternoon traffic, its smoke and ash. Ruthenia dropped between the station and the bakery on her umbrella and leapt off in a flurry of dust and debris.

Gordo raised his head with a squint, then a smile, dropping his end of a long flower chain. “She’s here!” he exclaimed, turning to Hyder. “Tell her about the bird!”

“Sorry, Ruth,” Hyder put in sheepishly while she walked towards them. “We planned the new prank without you. But this one’s better than the drain, I swear! You heard of the Pteryx?”

If there was any single animal Ruthenia heard too often about, it was the Pteryx. “What, the green chicken?” she said. “Are you going to steal it?”

“And leave it in the royal tower,” he replied, beaming. “Imagine the uproar! If we can get Reida in on this, we could get the Swan’s Post to imply that they stole it. You’re right, we need to take this further, and this is how we’re doing it.”

She held up a hand. “Don’t say you’re doing it because of what I told you last week,” she replied. “I didn’t mean this. This is senseless, and it won’t help none.”

“Well, it’ll make them look stupid,” answered Hyder, pouting up at her.

She folded her arms. “Well, alright, that has its uses. But that bird isn’t exactly the easiest to nab. You’d better not get caught.”

He smiled. “I’m really touched that you care,” he said.

“Of course I care, you idiot! I care about not being responsible for you landing in jail!” Ruthenia glared, and self-consciously he returned to threading flowers onto the ever-growing chain. Watching him hard at work, she sighed. “This is such a waste. We’re making such a waste of you.”

For a moment Hyder stared at the next flower, a forget-me-not, before weaving it onto the chain. Then he looked up to regard Ruthenia. “Me? I don’t think I’m being wasted.”

She came to stand beside the two boys. The flower chain was almost three feet long. “You could be doing something important, you know? With this talent of yours. You aren’t just good. You’re rare.”

He lowered the chain. “They never let me,” he replied with a shrug. “We’re just lost causes. So if that’s what they want me to be, that’s what I’ll be.” He spat at the ground. “Some people have everything from the moment they’re born, and they couldn’t spare a cupre for our lives!”

“I want it to change,” she answered, coming to squat beside him. “Ihir, I’ll be the one to change it, if I must. But I just don’t know if anything I do will ever be enough.”

Hyder shook his head slowly. “I don’t know if anything anyone does ever will.”

In the silence that followed, Ruthenia watched as the boys knotted and slotted flowers onto the chain, stalk by stalk, until the piles ran out and there were colourful petals all over their laps and on the street around them, glowing in the late sunlight.

Hyder tied the two ends together, as deftly as he did Thread. He rose, walking to the other end of the alley to hang it upon the fence.

“Oh, yes, the fourteenth of August,” Ruthenia said, staring beyond the fence at the sleeping smokestacks beyond.

When Hyder turned, his eyes were glistening. “I still miss them,” he replied.

She nodded heavily. “I imagine you would.” She could see that he was growing bonier, with hunger, perhaps. He was following in his parents’ footsteps, towards an inevitable death that wasn’t his fault. “We’ll bite back someday,” she said. “Like a naga, we’ll bite back.”

***

When she arrived home that evening, Ruthenia was greeted by a blue glow on her desk.

The message was short, written in a familiarly immaculate cursive.

“Your request has been approved. Please meet me at the royal tower lobby at five o’clock next Saturday, no later. We shall discuss protocol at tea time on Monday.”

***

Ruthenia had not quite expected Lord Anio’s wedding to haunt her with such constancy. As she lay awake in her hammock, she scripted a dozen versions of the initial greeting she would employ with Aligon—then scrapped them all—and imagined in her head a hundred different dresses, all of which that she could not bear the thought of wearing.

She clutched her head with every terrible idea. “Ihir, this isn’t supposed to be hard!” she snarled as eleven o’clock became midnight. and she turned over in her hammock.

The paper plane was due during Physics on Monday. That was all that Ms. Ariera had planned for the hour—which suited Ruthenia perfectly. As soon as the construction had been submitted, she took Hollia aside and cornered her with a frown.

“Hollia, this is going to start sounding ridiculous real fast,” she said, “but I need you to do me a big favour.”

Her eyes widened, a cocktail of fear and surprise in them. “Yes?”

“You know Lord Anio’s coming wedding?” Hollia nodded, lips drawn tight. “Well, to keep a really long story short, I requested permission to attend it, and I was approved. So, well, that’s what I’ll be doing next weekend.”

For almost a minute, the girl gaped back. “A lord’s wedding?” she finally breathed. “Ruth, how? Why?”

“A diplomatic mission,” she said. “I have to. I’m going to talk to Aligon. Because my boss needs it, and because no one else will. But I don’t want to—you know—to do anything that might make me look like an idiot while I’m at it.” She sighed. “And I’m starting to realise I have no bleeding clue how. You know me, Miss Kelde’s worst student.”

Hollia had grabbed both her hands. “But I don’t understand, how did it happen? Tell me everything!”

“I asked Aleigh to let me speak to Aligon,” she replied, “and he said it wouldn’t usually be easy to get me an audience with the king, but this event is going on next Saturday, at which it’ll be a lot easier to sneak me in, I guess.”

“You’re attending as his partner?”

Ruthenia frowned, brow wrinkling. “Partner? Well—he didn’t say anything about partners, but I guess that...makes an awful lot of sense.” She covered her face with a hand. “Ihir, he played me for a fool! They’d better not start spreading stupid stories about this.”

Hollia giggled. “Ruth, I still barely know what to make of this.”

“Me neither,” she said. “This has my head all in tangles.”

“Don’t you worry, that’s how it always is,” she replied, patting her shoulder. “It’s no small event—of course you’ll be nervous!” Ruthenia bit her lip and nodded. “Well, why don’t you meet me on Sunday? We can get everything done then.”

***

As Ruthenia remembered, she had an appointment with the Arcane Prince in the cafeteria on that very same day.

“It is good to see you,” said Aleigh when she arrived. “Please take a seat.”

“I’ll sit when I want,” she snapped, then sat anyway. “You didn’t say anything about me being some sort of dinner partner!”

“I thought it self-evident. How else would a person from the streets have found a seat at a function for nobles?”

She hmphed. “So, protocol?” she said instead. “What’s it to be? Should I remain seated at all times? Should I answer all questions with a titter and a coy smile?”

“Oh, no, I’d never have you do that, that’d be inhumane,” he answered with a trace of a smile. “My stipulations are simple and few.”

She folded her arms, eyebrows arching. “Alright, state them.”

“First, I must require that you remember at all times that you are attending by my grace. It cannot be helped that your every action will reflect upon me. I know it would very much suit you to ruin my reputation, but I ask that you not do anything that might compromise my public image.”

She grunted indignantly in reply, but said nothing.

“Second, I request that you maintain your distance from me whenever possible. I intend to minimise the complications that could arise from any potential misbehaviour on your part.” He waited for her to stop glaring.

Ruthenia pouted. “Fine,” she said. “But only because you’ve done me two favours in the past week.”

Aleigh shook his head. “I can hardly turn away a person to whom I owe a debt, can I?” he replied. “I have placed myself in quite a predicament, creating a debt I could never repay.” He regarded his unopened tea dish. “A ridiculous situation for a royal to have stumbled into. I should have been more careful.”

Ruthenia frowned, tapping her fingers on the tabletop. “Oh, is that how you see it?” she murmured. “I’d never thought of it that way. I mean, it was fun to kick you around for a while, but I don’t think I want it to go on any longer.” Their eyes met. “She’s your mother. You don’t owe me anything.”

She tried for a genuine smile, and he nodded quietly, the way he always did. The bustle of students rushed to fill the silence, and they watched the other cafeteria-goers cross the mezzanine, or proceed with their meals, barely touching their own.

“How did it feel?” she asked without taking her eyes off them. “To have your brother become the Arcane King?”

“It never came as a surprise,” Aleigh replied. “As members of the Luzerno family, the possibility was kept close in our minds. When Aligon discovered those aspirations, it was not unexpected.” He paused. “It has certainly made me busier, but otherwise, life is as it always was.”

Ruthenia replied with a roll of her eyes. “What’s it like being born into all that surplus?”

“Comfortable.”

“You know, you’re the living embodiment of everything I hate about Astra.”

Unwrapping his tea, Aleigh nodded. “I know, you’ve made that much clear,” he said. “I previously assumed—from your enrollment here at the Central Circle School—that you were of fair economic standing, and had been for majority of your life. I suppose I was wrong.”

“Oh, you have no idea how wrong,” she answered in a soft laugh.

After a long pause in which no one made any attempts to break the silence, he finally began eating, and Ruthenia decided to do the same.

---

Chapter 18: The Second Plea

The afternoons of spring fell into a steady beat. The flowers’ scent had settled itself into the pulse of daily life, and the days were dragged along like the carriages on a grand train. The cicadas’ murmuring, secretive drone drenched the nighttime.

Ruthenia was woken one morning by the sound of the river thundering over its banks. She kicked her doors open and raced out into the spring cold to see it frothing like the sea, gleaming grey in the morning light, swamping the wheat on either side.

Clambering clumsily onto her umbrella, she hovered at the riverside, studying the water’s depths until the waters had receded and she was watching fish flash across the riverbed.

After breakfast, she picked up the copy of the Herald lying on Tanio’s coffee table and kicked back in his couch to read in the dusty brown light.

Lower Centrelight was flooded. Another ship had capsized and vanished last night. Protest signboards had been painted and raised in Candle Plaza. The Pteryx had been stolen and found in a palace courtyard. Lord Anio and Cathia Argola were getting married next Saturday. Race schedules.

She studied the papers, cover to cover, until Tanio returned from the Baytown market, empty-handed.

“The Ministry’s stripping fishermen of their licences,” he said, tossing his money pouch onto the dining table. “Coastal security dragged in a fishing-boat this morning. It’s not pretty at the market.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry, but it’s going to be beef again.”

Aleigh hadn’t spoken for the last ten minutes, save a single statement of his desire not to discuss the issue of the Pteryx.

He was reading intently again, and the blaze of his glare gave Ruthenia the impression that he’d violently attack anyone who dared distract him. She sat watching him from the opposite end of the table, head propped up on her elbows. His eyes were unbelievably green, and he had quite a face, now that she’d let herself notice. She hated it.

“What’s the problem?” she mumbled. “It’s just a bird.”

Her words agitated him out of his quiet read. “It is not the bird that has me upset, Ruthenia,” he replied. “It is knowing there is a rogue Weaver in Astra who has somehow managed to best our every defence. Someone who could kill me whenever he pleased.” He shoved his face back into the book. “Idiotic anarchists are a downright headache. Devoid of any cause outside of senseless troublemaking. We don’t have the time to deal with them when the country is on the brink of what could be a full-scale national disaster. And yet we must.”

Ruthenia pursed her lips. “What’s idiotic about it?”

“We cannot simply give the people what they want—not all at once—but they will not see it! Change does not come without a price. The people will not abide it, and they will oust us before any proper change is made. The sooner these rebels understand that, the sooner we can proceed. But they are deaf to reason.” He heaved a sigh. “And now I feel unsafe in my very own home.”

Her brow furrowed as she mulled over the words. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said all of a sudden, guilt panging her. “We didn’t understand that. We just wanted to be seen and heard, because it feels like we never are.”

He went still. “‘We’?”

“Yes, we,” she said, voice falling as she cast her eyes down. “I have a part in all these things that have been happening to you royals. Well, except for the whole Pteryx prank, and the blood prank, I suppose. But I’m friends with the people who did it.”

Aleigh narrowed his eyes, testing her with his gaze; she stared earnestly back. “You are what?”

She trembled and wove her fingers together. “We’re just a bunch of homeless people in the New Town. Or, we were. We mean no real harm. You’ve been worrying yourself over nothing.”

“Why, I could have you arrested for withholding this information!” he exclaimed. She began to cower away. “Your friend has broken and entered on two occasions, and compromised our safety and peace of mind!”

“Don’t—don’t arrest him! He’s harmless, I promise! I’ll—” she paused to catch her thoughts— “I’ll make them stop. Just don’t hurt them, and don’t report us.”

She met his eye. He glared right back—but eventually broke eye contact first. “We’re even,” he said.

“Even?”

“My debt is paid.”

Ruthenia blinked back. “Oh, yes,” she replied, breathing deeply as she waited for her heartbeat to slow.

“I...am not sure what to make of this,” said Aleigh. “That you’re one of these rabid anarchists. And I suppose Masking is how you managed to create an impostor from thin air? That was very kind of you lot. Even my mother wouldn’t look at me right for a week after that.”

She snorted, trying to hide her grin, though it made her cheeks hurt. “But things have changed since then,” she said. “You were just a sort of symbol to me at the time. Of the Arcanes. All potent and untouchable. It was fun to tear you down, even for a day.”

He sighed. “I understand,” he replied, staring off beyond her. “Having my name smeared before the entire nation is but a part of the game I was born into, isn't it? And I suppose you are a part of it, too.”

She cocked her head to a side. “I guess I am,” she said, shrugging. “Part of a war I didn’t mean to join, but had to, to honour my pacts.”

“An age-old ideological conflict between nations, most definitely,” answered Aleigh. “You seem to enjoy these metaphors as much as I.”

Ruthenia felt head heat up. “No, I do not!” she shouted. “I’m just talking the way you talk, since you seem to like it.”

“I am afraid belligerence is not quite to my taste,” he replied with the beginnings of a smile. “Let us arrange a diplomatic resolution; I am certain it is within our means.”

“Uuuurgh, Aleigh! Stop that!” She kicked his shin under the table.

***

The oat fields that decorated the Candelabra suburbs were as alive as ever, as Ruthenia flew by them, the trees swaying and rustling with wind.

Hollia stood in a grass-green dress, waving up at her friend from the front step of her cottage. She raced down to where Ruthenia landed, calling Phore over with a couple of sharp whistles. "Glad you could come!" she shouted, beginning to ramble heartily about her favourite boutique, even as she mounted the great pigeon and nestled herself among the white feathers.

Ruthenia nodded and did her best to smile, although in her heart she was already sending desperate pleas to every deity in the vicinity.

The empty fields rolled by beneath them as they flew, mottled and green and undulating gently towards the distance. Modest, cubical houses hurtled by them, all their curtains drawn. The field was eventually swallowed by beech woodland, decorated by low hills whose crowns protruded from the young green canopy. Shrill cries ascended every now and then from beyond the blur of leaves.

The forests ended suddenly, held back by a low crenellated wall, and the town of Candelabra came riding forth among the next hills—a haphazard, bustling system of buildings, airborne and grounded, linked through slanting wooden ladders extending in every direction.

"Alright, now, follow me close," announced Hollia as they crossed into the town's borders and the chatter rose up from beneath them with the smoke. "I'll stay above the rooftops till we get there, but it's hard to see the names from up here."

With a swerve, the dove-flier turned south, following the border of the town with an eye out for the rooftops below. Crying out, Ruthenia swung around to follow, gripping her umbrella so tight that her fingers began to cramp. Even in midair the crowd was impressive, the flutter of birds about them, mingling with shouted greetings, skirts and crinolines folded or tucked up high, hats stowed in bags.

Eventually Phore descended loftily to the deck outside a shop. Ladders led upward and down, the entire countryside visible between their rungs. Wind stirred Hollia’s skirt as she slipped off Phore in a gleaming ripple of silk, and Ruthenia followed after, slowing just in time to ease herself to a clumsy stop.

The first thing that struck her as the door swung shut was the scent of silk, alongside all sorts of other strange odours beneath that.

"Ma'am!" Ruthenia recognised Hollia’s voice over the din of the small crowd. "Ma'am, could I have the sample again?"

She passed through a forest of cloth—curtains of gowns hanging on her left, men's wear to the right, upper shelves lined with hats of the very best make, some adorned with feathers and chains. Between them she walked with a hung head, feeling like a chunk of rock among cut diamonds.

At the counter, she froze and cried out in horror. Hollia had stuffed a bold and very ruffly red dress in her face. At the collar, a bloom of red ruffles had been pulled into a rose’s shape, the narrow scarlet bodice tapered to a seam, where it adjoined an appallingly short pleated black skirt enveloped by a lacy, fiery one, parted down the middle, trailing all the way to the ground in ripples.

“This is…this is just…no! I’m not wearing that!”

“But I think you’ll look great in it!” Hollia insisted, beaming. “You know Arcanes—it’s all about the clothing. This one’s the best for you!” Before Ruthenia could protest, Hollia had gripped her by the shoulders, and was steering her towards the fitting area behind the wooden screen.

In the shadow of the screen, the smell of musk and wood filled her nose. A mirror hung on the inside of one of the screen’s pleats; she saw herself in it, somewhat rosy with desperation, her red-brown hair sticking out in spikes everywhere. Forgotten ribbons and bands lay scattered about the floor at her feet.

Hollia hung the bright red abomination over the top of the screen, pulling it shut. Casting a wary glance about in the dimness, Ruthenia unbuttoned her shirt and tugged it off, a small chill racing across the skin of her back. Her pants came off shortly after.

As her head emerged through the ruffles, the clasps scratched her back. She breathed deeply, as if rising for air after a swim. She pulled her arms into the sleeves, and grimaced as she arranged the skirts. Staring down at her feet, and the skirt between, she swallowed.

Pulling the screen aside, she stuck her head through to find Hollia conversing eagerly with the cashier lady. “What now?” she called.

Hollia turned abruptly. “Ooh!” she gasped, slipping through the gap with a wide smile. Her eyes swept her friend top to bottom, and her hands clutched her cheeks. “Ruth, you look lovely!”

Ruthenia turned away, face burning. “I do not, I look ridiculous.”

Without warning Hollia spun her around and began hooking the clasps, bottom to top. The dress’ bodice grew taut and the ruffles encircled her throat, itchy as acid. Then the girl steered her towards the mirror and lifted her chin.

A single eyeful of her reflection was enough to make her stumble away. “Ihir burn me!” A blinding concoction of emotions coursed through her, most of them the strange shades between embarrassment and bewilderment. She watched her own brown eyes stare back, her shoulders almost too wide, the rest of her so beautiful it almost hurt to continue looking. She shielded her eyes and a nervous laugh left her. “I can’t recognise myself. Paint my face a little and I’ll be right at home with the Arcanes.”

Hollia giggled. “Do you like it?” she said. “We’ll have to get you gloves, and leggings to hide the scars, and a pair of boots, too!” She took her by the arm. “Take it off and then we’ll have you measured.”

Suddenly no more than an unquestioning serf next to Hollia’s eagerness, she did as told, stepping outside, only to find herself being shoved into a dank room behind the counter, where the matronly counter woman slammed the door shut and pulled some tape taut between her hands.

It was several minutes of pure torture, as Ruthenia was manhandled and groped and tied up in tape, her every dimension recorded on the seamstress’ sheet. Eventually the table was filled, and Ruthenia signed beneath it before being pushed out of the room. Hollia received her with a smile so bright that she could not refuse to return it.

Back at the doorstep of the aviary cottage, within the narrow shade, Hollia gave Ruthenia a pair of golden-buckled leather sandals.

Hollia’s grandmother had a full meal whipped up within the hour. Ruthenia could barely hold back once the dishes were lain down for her, although Hollia only barely managed to stop her from gobbling the entire feast up, introducing her to the cutlery piece by piece. Ruthenia groaned and nodded, halfheartedly committing the pieces to memory until the girl gave her permission to begin the meal.

Then began the rigorous training programme that would span the entire afternoon. They began to rearrange the living room, pushing the couches to the room's edges, clearing the lone table aside once the glassware was on the chest of drawers. Hollia was amazingly light on her feet—a bird, almost, demonstrating the steps with practiced ease that Ruthenia could only emulate with stumbles and trips.

Her legs were stiff and unfamiliar with this sort of grace, so a good half an hour was spent learning to lose balance and leap and look ridiculous doing it.

She gritted her teeth together, and repeated the move set furiously—step-step, twirl, snatch-shoulder—step-step, let-go, twirl-the-other-way.

Slowly, the four phases of the Helika Waltz engraved themselves in her muscle memory, and the afternoon glowed and faded, and the sun entered the last quarter of the sky. Concurrently, Hollia obliged to teach a little history regarding the dance.

"Somnia describes the beat of Ihir’s own heart in her memoirs—it goes something like this," Hollia said buoyantly, tapping out two four-beat cycles on her lap. "Two eighth-notes and then two quarter notes, like a triple meter dance. The fact got out in publications, and the composer Palla took that rhythm for the first Helika Waltz."

The measures generally followed an alternating two-part cycle—first three beats, forward; next three beats, back—an in-out that emulated the pull of tides, partners taking turns to advance and retreat, pulling the each other along with the pulse of the music.

Arriving at the start point by the end of a phase was not a concern, or so it seemed. Hollia took Ruthenia almost uninhibited about the room, sometimes winding up at walls or corners and having to return to the centre.

"And now you go once around me, clockwise—as far as you want! I'll turn the other way. Make sure you end facing me—then take my right shoulder with your left hand—right shoulder, not left! That's my left."

"And then?" Ruthenia groaned, then they repeated the steps, although she made sure to take the right shoulder this time.

Come five o’clock, Ruthenia was lounging in one of Hollia’s couches, massaging out all the aches in her back—but Hollia, ever a wellspring of eagerness, was far from done.

In the next two hours, Ruthenia learnt many new things. She learnt to walk, to shed her wide step in favour of a stiff, straight gait.  She committed to memory the rules of polite speech. Hollia quizzed her on titles and honorifics and a dozen gestures of courtesy she had never heard of till today.

By dinnertime, they had devoured half the Etiquette syllabus. Neither became aware of the fact till the Thread lamps, resting in old sconces, took over the task of lighting the living room. Ruthenia stood up, head heavy with new knowledge she was barely corralling in her mind.

“There’s a ferry station about five minutes’ walk from here,” Hollia said as they sat down for dinner. “I’ll show you the way there. The southbound ferry passes through your region after Helika and Candle—I’m not sure if that’s anywhere close to your home.”

“That’ll do. Thanks.”

At the end of the meal, Hollia moved to pick a globular Thread bulb up off the closest sconce. She awaited Ruthenia down on her doorstep, then took her down the footpath to the ferry station.

The night was crisp, enwrapping them both in cold that smelt of new dew and fresh grass. The cicada choir was awake for the night, filling the starry night with their vibrating voices. By the warm light of Hollia’s bulb, they braved the darkness. The cicadas conversed over the miles, the crickets playing their tunes, wind howling through far-off branches. Dinner still sat warm in Ruthenia’s stomach, warding off the chill as a breeze curled by, rustling the grass like an ocean around her. All she could see of it was an expanse of blackness, spreading from here to golden-glowing Candelabra, sitting on the hills in the distance.

“Helika’s just south of Candelabra,” answered Hollia, gazing out at the dazzling town. A breeze swept her golden hair back, faintly visible even in the dark. “I see it sometimes, when I’m atop the aviary and the night’s clear and dry. It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? That we can both see the capital.”

Ruthenia nodded. “Astra sure is tiny.”

Three minutes took them to the point right beneath the platform, its lamplight glowing dimly overhead; here the dirt road began fading off, as grass sprouted through the cart-track stripes. Ruthenia felt a pat on her shoulder; the light shifted, and so did her shadow. “Enjoy your trip home,” she said. “Come visit me on morning of the wedding; I’ll collect the dress on your behalf.”

“Thank you for having me over,” answered Ruthenia, lifting her umbrella horizontal. “And thanks for everything else.”

Hollia patted her arm. “Thank you for visiting,” she replied with a gentle giggle. “You’ll do me proud at Lord Anio’s wedding, won’t you?”

Ruthenia laughed as she mounted, swinging herself onto the suspended flight mount. “I can’t be sure of that,” she answered, a flutter of nerves stirring in her stomach. “But I’ll do my best. Wouldn’t want to humiliate His Highness, would I?”

With a final wave, she began to ascend towards the ferry station, watching as the birdkeeper and her little light shrank far, far below, winding its way back up the path it had come.

***

That night, a rainstorm conjured itself out of nowhere. There was no forecast of it, not so much as a whiff of rain for minutes before the storm clouds suddenly began to brew, boiling over from the eastern sea.

Ruthenia heard the rain starting while she attempted to Weave her umbrella into position at the gate 25 station.

She’d watched the lightning streak across the sky as the ferry creaked away, flashing white diamonds across the floor. Mesmerizing and pulsing, the sheets of grey came rushing down.

She flew frantically through the downpour, batted about by the gale. She grew delirious in the flashing rain as a swarm of nondescript voices swallowed her. “Ihir?” she gasped as she coursed forward, towards the light of Beacon Way. Rain splashed her tongue, splashed down her chin. “Lilin? Which of you is it?” She had almost arrived; she could hear the river, roaring twice as loud. The lights bloomed into flowers in her eyes.

A sudden boom of thunder made her yell, and her flight swung out of control. She only barely felt a great spasm wrack her and her legs lose grip of the umbrella as she swung down, wind hissing, the river water shattering as her shoulder met it. She tried to scream but the current pulled her in like the jaws of a beast and her mouth flooded with river water.

The water gushed into her eyes, and suddenly she was seeing. Seeing a great and endless chaos of ocean waves, their crests burning white, breaking, reforming.

…release…I beg of you…

The voice shook her teeth and bones, so vast she felt like nothing. She heard it echo in her skull as if in a cathedral.

…I want it no longer…if pain is all the world is, and if the world is only pain…if forever really doesn’t—

—doesn’t end—

Lilin.

Suddenly, breathless, lying at the bottom of an old seabed cave, Ruthenia knew it beyond a doubt.

Silver wings again, silver wings that linked all her dreams together. Neither a bird’s nor a fish’s—older than bird or fish, older than dread and sorrow; when she beat them against the current, they spewed blood, smoky red streaks spiralling up towards the sun.

Lilin…I know it’s her…

“Lilin!” she yelled, and her breath left her in a trail of bubbles.

Is that you, Father?

In a single thrash, Ruthenia dragged her head out of the current and kicked and gasped and coughed, rain flooding into her mouth. The storm was boiling overhead, the silhouette of her umbrella hanging an indiscernible distance above. “Lilin!” she yelled again, but to no avail, sadness clawing away at her chest.

She kicked and thrashed with all the strength in her frigid limbs until she had made it to the bank, and climbed out, coughing and gasping as the rain pattered on her skin, washing the memory of Lilin and of almost-drowning away. There she stood, staring and shivering.

Her umbrella swung in the wind, too far from the bank to be reached. “I’ll get you later, don’t you worry,” she muttered, raising her head and cupping her hands around her mouth. “Tanio! Tanio! I’m stuck!”

It was a number of miserable minutes before Tanio finally heard her yelling and came floating down on his surfboard, reaching out to pluck her umbrella from the air on his way.

She sat hunched and groaning as her boss offered every manner of jibe and admonishment on their way up.

“What are you doing out this late in the rain?” he asked eventually. “Trying to fall sick?”

She shivered, coughing up more water, which she spat over the edge of the surfboard. “It came without warning,” she said. “I heard something in the water. I think it was Lilin. And I think she replied.”

“Oh look, now you’re babbling like a madwoman. Maybe a fever’s coming on. Do you need a physician?” She made a grumbling noise in her throat and did not dignify him with a response.

He landed at his porch, half-drenched himself, although the storm had thinned to a drizzle by then. She raced off to her own shed, shaking with cold as the water sloshed inside her shoes and dripped from her fingers.

Once she was safe inside her shed, she hung her umbrella up and stripped herself of her soggy, scummy clothes. All she could think of while she pulled a new shirt on was the haunting sound of Lilin’s voice inside her bones, booming and ragged and thin.

---

Chapter 19: In the Light

Ruthenia presently stood in the strangest-smelling of places: a hair saloon near the northwest border of bustling Candelabra Town. The scents of shampoos, tonics and sliced hair threatened to suffocate her. There were mirrors everywhere, capturing all sorts of faces—the picturesque blonde lady two seats away, the brown-haired child who’d been throwing tantrums just minutes ago; the hairdresser behind her.

She saw Hollia, too—rosy and pretty, a hand upon the chair in which she sat. She was radiant with pride, two hands clasping her best friend’s shoulders.

And of course—face decorated, lashes darkened, cheeks smoothed and then daubed to a more agreeable rosiness—she saw herself. Or at least she had to believe it was, for she barely looked like herself.

“You look breathtaking,” whispered Hollia into her ear, patting her arm the way she always did. Ruthenia pulled her arms towards herself, heart booming in her ears.

There was one part she still recognized: the colour of her hair. Fiery auburn—her father’s auburn. But even that, the hairdresser had pulled up in an unfamiliar style: a ponytail springing from the top of her head, caught in a band of dark lace ruffles. She continued to stare at herself, trying to comprehend what she saw.

“Let’s get to the ferry station,” Hollia said, tapping her shoulder. Ruthenia picked up her umbrella, hanging from the chair, and started in a little stumbling hurry towards the door after Hollia, tottering in her unfamiliar sandals.

Hollia seemed to know northwestern Candelabra by heart. She led Ruthenia along the pathways, climbing ladders and scurrying across bridges. The shops were lit above and below, shophouses holding their doors open to the sky for the evening crowd. The central ferry station of Candelabra loomed overhead, and birdcalls and flutters drowned out even the chatter of pedestrians and fliers.

The evening had begun to fall, bringing a blanket of stars from the far horizon. The sun set red, then twilight-purple, sinking through a brilliant swath of sky. The wind had grown chilly. Shop signs creaked, smoky columns tilting from the chimneys. Thread lamps were glowing to life on storefronts.

“You’ll be taking the southbound ferry,” said Hollia as they arrived at an open balcony. “It’s the one headed for the Bollard District. The trip from here to Helika takes about fifteen minutes, but at this time there are usually delays.”

“Sure,” Ruthenia’s reply came unexpectedly loud—only then did she notice how rapid her heartbeat had grown. Her hands had gone cold, too, and she gripped her umbrella tighter in the evening wind, watching as the town lit up around her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Hollia extended her arms for a gentle embrace. Her warmth melted a little of the chill away. “It’s not going to hurt,” she whispered, and the mellowness of her voice reminded Ruthenia of happy things—warm nights, the colour of the classroom when the sun was setting. “And at the very least, all you need to do is keep quiet and do exactly as everyone else is doing.”

“Hah, that’d sure be easy,” she laughed. Turning from the wind, she began up the staircase towards the station, hands clasped together.

***

The southbound ferry cast its shadow over the mess of shophouses below. Around Ruthenia, merchants sat with suitcases on their laps, studying account books or drafting letters even as the wind beat at the paper in their hands. Children raced back and forth across the deck.

She sat at the deck’s edge, staring at the horizon. Her fingers were numb, her throat begging to be quenched by a drink. Her heartbeat intruded on her every thought. In this last hour, she recited greetings and honorifics in her head, but none of it seemed to stick.

In ten minutes, the ferry had pulled past the border of Candelabra into Helika. Orange roofs became white walls, all tinted brilliant pink by the sunset. She watched as the ferry’s shadow rippled over the walls and rooftops, and fancy houses gave way to administrative buildings.

Even those, they eventually left  behind, as the ferry came rounding the palace lake at last. The great sparkling body of water sat glittering upon the field, holding the sky, thousands of pink sunlight sparks dancing across it. On its far bank, the spires and floating towers of the palace complex stood silhouetted in the flaming light.

She rose as the ship braked, coasting slowly into the station. The conductor looped the ropes on bollards and lowered the gangplank.

Her sandals clicked down the wood, each step filling her with dread and adrenaline. Behind her, she heard the flutter of sails as the ship departed from the station, a silence coming whole and lovely upon the scene, punctuated by the rush of the lake against its banks.

The palace glittered on and above the far bank of the lake. She crossed the platform, the click of her sandal heels echoing, and she began to arrange her skirts like she had never had to before.

Ruthenia came to a stop at the platform’s edge, gazing across the watery expanse. Nothing but the lake stood between herself and the royal tower. Expanding her umbrella in her hands, she paused to breathe in the late afternoon air, taking comfort in the summery scent of grass buoyed upon it.

“You’re not getting the better of me, palace,” she growled, then called the Threads to her overturned umbrella. Carefully she lifted off the edge of the platform and into the air, light as a leaf.

For minutes, all she heard was the swish of the lake. She bobbed along upon the wind, repeating the Helika Waltz in her head. Slowly, the sounds of life came to join it: carriages rattling, the burble of fountains and the chatter of residents and visitors on the boulevards. She stared at the towers and halls that ascended above the grounds, alien and breathtaking in their white glory.

The gleaming lobby opened like a mouth in the southern face of the royal tower. It was a wide hall, steps at the base of each wall ascending to colonnades of Astran pillars. A dark carpet unrolled from the foyer to the wall at the far end, on which hung a shimmering banner, almost ten feet tall, bearing the Astran coat of arms.

Drifting to a stop over the foyer, Ruthenia took a careful step onto the marble and drew in a breath as myriad echoes followed. The echoes amplified her every footstep as it clicked against the polished marble. Beneath the cold she detected a faint scent. She wracked her memory. Lavender.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, pausing to stare up at the dazzling crystal chandeliers flowering overhead. It made her insides feel heavy. Each one of those crystals could have bought a New Town child an education.

The pillars stood like files of soldiers along the vast hallway, cream curtains hanging between them, veiling the glow of arched windows. Cushioned benches sat beneath each window.

Upon the farthest one, she spied a figure in grey and black.

“Aleigh?” she shouted, her voice echoing. She broke into a small run until she almost tripped over her sandals. “I can’t believe you live in this place! This is just excessive!”

“Ruthenia,” answered Aleigh warmly, extending a single hand to welcome her as she approached. “I see you are quite taken with this open display of surfeit.”

Ruthenia skidded to a stop on the marble three feet away, and her mouth opened—for Aleigh Luzerno looked nothing like the friend she knew. He was the Arcane Prince once more, appearing as he did in his portraits: his hair lay in a ponytail over his shoulder, tied up in a ribbon, wavy golden locks falling over his ears and upon his brow. Braided golden loops of cord hung from his chest. On his shoulders sat golden epaulettes, white gloves adorning his hands, black dress pants over polished black boots.

For a minute he ceased to be her classmate, and became the distant vision from the portraits and the newspapers, the ones she'd seen as a poor child on the streets.

“Well, you sure are dressed up,” she said, trying not to stare.

“As are you.”

They took a seat on the closest bench, and this time he had the courtesy not to sit at the far end. She, on the other hand, could not bring herself to be as candid as usual. Ihir, what was she doing here? “What do you want with me till six o’clock, anyway?” asked Ruthenia, straightening her skirts yet again. “We have almost an hour, you know.”

“I haven’t much planned,” he answered. “I feared you might arrive underprepared, but you have surpassed my expectations in that regard.”

She stared at her hands. “Well, I could certainly use some more time to prepare,” she replied, adjusting her posture as Hollia had taught her to, back straight, legs together. “This is all making me very nervous.”

Aleigh turned. “I did not expect it would.”

“I’m afraid of making a costly mistake and ruining everything for Tanio. And for you.”

To her surprise, her companion laughed. It took her a moment to realise she’d never heard him laugh before. “I never thought I would hear Ruthenia Cendina say that,” he said.

She pouted. “I’m just being a decent human being!”

“You need not worry. I am sure you will do as well as you are able. Have you learned the dances?”

“Just the Helika Waltz,” Ruthenia answered, lifting her gaze. “Are there more?”

He nodded. “Most are derivatives of the Waltz, so learning them will not be much trouble,” he said. “I presume I can trust you not to trip me.”

She lifted her head and laughed. “You’ll have to hope that my skirt doesn’t trip me first.”

He laid a hand on the seat and glanced up at the hallway. “Since we are done here, we could very well depart for the ceremonial hall now.” Rising, he turned to offer her a gloved hand. “Shall we?”

She saw, now, how practised this motion was, as was every other he made. Practised to be effortless, and easy, and charming, for so many guests before her. The way he dressed, the way he spoke, all of it premeditated and contrived.

She ignored the extended hand, springing from her seat with an unfamiliar click of heels. “Yes, let's get this over and done with,” she said.

Together they descended to where the black carpet lay, then followed it to the end of the hall. They rounded the banner wall: a screen-wall, she now realised, as they came upon a small glass elevator on the other side, the beaming operator awaiting them beside it.

Ruthenia felt a shiver envelop her. Aleigh turned to her, wearing an earnest look. “If you must leave an impression,” he said, “make it a good one.”

They stepped through the doors onto the marble platform. The operator offered the Arcane Prince a bow, then one to Ruthenia, though her position most certainly did not warrant any more than a disdainful sniff. He extended an open palm towards her, and she stood frowning at him for a while, before Aleigh whispered about her umbrella. Hastily she offered it up, feeling a little less safe once she did. With a twirl of his hand, the platform began to descend, silently, through the shaft.

Ruthenia paced about inside the chamber, shivers rippling up her neck. Beside her, Aleigh stood motionless, watching his own reflection in the glass. She pulled her limbs close again. They slipped away from the marble and the light. For a minute the starry purple sky was all around them, glittering beyond the glass, the golden palace laid out all around, above and below.

Then the floating elevator was swallowed by the building below. A thin line of gold light appeared at their feet. The chatter grew loud and lively, full of laughter and clinking glasses. Sliver by sliver, the hall revealed itself: a hundred guests conversing amongst themselves between sips of cocktail, ranks of velvet chairs arranged like pieces on a board, before a stage dressed in rich velvet curtains.

The elevator eased to a stop, and the door slid open, the roar of conversation tiding in. The bright lights sent Ruthenia into a sudden unprecedented stir of fright. She snatched her companion’s arm, and together they entered.

The tangle of lights and the siege of heavy perfumes made Ruthenia gasp, and only the feeling of Aleigh’s elbow in her left hand stopped her tripping over the steps.

Perfumes and wine vapours rolled in like a fog, and she stared at the velvet carpeting at her feet, wondering at how spotless it was.

At once there was a surge of gasps and shouts, as the guests moved to welcome the Arcane Prince out of the elevator. A wave of blazing camera flashes followed. She heard exclamations of “Your Highness” and shouted questions. Ruthenia blinked and shielded her eyes with a hand, letting his arm drop.

“The rest of my family’s in the front row,” he whispered amid the lights, carving a pathway through the crowd with the sternest glare he could muster. She raced after, fleeing the xenon flashes.

For many dizzying seconds they wove and dodged through the glittering crowd, Ruthenia tripping and stumbling in her unfamiliar sandals. A man with an uncanny grin accosted the two with the bell of a recorder, shouting over the din, “Your Highness, care to introduce this lovely lady to us?”

She went still. “I—uh—”

“Excuse me,” answered Aleigh with a hand to the bell, taking a detour down the row to the neighbouring aisle. “Don’t answer, Ruthenia. Once they have you, they will not let go.” She stared after him as they advanced to the front of the hall.

Lights burned merrily in sconces wrought of iron, curling from pillars between heavy-curtained windows. Towards the front of the hall, the crowd thinned until the aisles were clear and only the seats were filled, and they slowed to a proper walk. She surveyed the area: the blond- and brown-haired gathering that was Arcane royal family was impossible to miss over the heads of the seated guests, huddled beside the stage. Immediately her companion picked up his pace, and she followed suit.

But that meeting would have to wait. A flash of blue cloaks stopped them mid-step. Ruthenia looked up, and felt the breath catch in her throat, as the face of the newcomer connected with her memory of every portrait she’d seen of the very same.

“Good evening, Aleigh,” said Ordinary King Hazen, touching a hand to his heart with the other extended.

“Good evening, Hazen,” the Arcane Prince replied, clasping the extended hand with a dip of his head.

She was not ready when the king turned to regard her, extending a hand. “And to you too, miss. Who might you be?”

“Good evening—Your Majesty,” she answered, face heating up as she ransacked her memory for the right gesture. Just in time, she lowered her left knee, taking the hand he offered and touching her forehead to his fingers. By the time she rose, she was shaking. “I’m Ruthenia. It’s an honour to meet you.”

She looked up, awaiting a response—but by then Hazen was no longer looking at her. “Is she from the families?” he said, stroking his chin with a thumb.

“No, and that needn't matter,” Aleigh replied without missing a beat. “Ruthenia is my esteemed classmate, here by my invitation.”

“Of course.” Hazen raised an eyebrow. “But she must have some claim to your attention, surely?”

“Excuse me, I’m still here!” Ruthenia cut in loudly. “I can speak for myself on that matter, thank you.”

“Yes, of course, how rude of me,” the Ordinary King muttered, sparing the girl a moment’s odd look before smiling. “How did this arrangement come to be?”

“Well, I did his mother a favour recently—repaired a device. And somehow that was enough for Aleigh to offer me a ticket to this wedding.”

“Is that so! You're the one Talia was on about. You must have done them a great service.”

“Hey, it was nothing,” she answered with a giddy grin.

Hazen gave a kindly smile. “You are a most unique lady, Ruthenia. It is lovely to have you here. Don't be giving the young Arcane Prince too much trouble.”

“He can deal,” she chuckled.

She saw Aleigh go tense at her response, but Hazen did not seem perturbed, only offered a kindly nod. “Enjoy your very first visit to the palace, and good day to the both of you. As you were.”

Once he had departed, Aleigh sighed. “Others among the guests would not have taken so kindly to your interruptions,” he said. All she could do was grin, courage filling her up like warm cider.

The merry gathering of Arcane royals turned one by one as Aleigh approached. Glances turned to smiles and greetings, none warmer than from the woman with straight blonde hair and a dazzling gown of blue sequins who came gliding forward. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “Aleigh, come here and congratulate dear Anio!”

Without warning, he was pulled into the circle to a chorus of welcomes. “He’s here?” A high voice rose above the clamour, before a short lady with shocking red hair in a bob burst through in front of Ruthenia, her brown skirts bouncing on her waist. “Anio, get over here, it’s your little cousin!” she gasped, pouncing upon the Arcane Prince with a hug. “You’re looking lovely as ever, Your Highness!”

“Good evening, Cathia, and congratulations!” answered Aleigh over her shoulder, returning the hug.

“Any good books lately?”

“I've made most of my way through The Temper of Darkness. Not quite the lush classic I was expecting, considering all the buzz.”

“Aw, that's disappointing. I was looking forward to that one. Tell you what, let's chat at length after I move in!”

It was then that Lord Anio—or so Ruthenia assumed—came up beside them, a drink in his hand. “I'm so excited,” she sang, flying to drape an arm about Anio's waist. “Can you believe we’re getting married tonight? Is there a better match in the heavens and on Tierra?”

“They’ll seen it soon enough, my dear!” answered Anio with a smile, bowing to kiss her head. He bore passing resemblance to Aleigh, but his hair was cropped short and combed back, and his manner far more open, as if the polite geniality of nobility came naturally to him. Cathia laughed and pressed her cheek to his shoulder.

Aleigh nodded, with as genuine a smile as he could muster. “I am happy for you, Anio, and Cathia,” he said.

As they spoke, Ruthenia began to slip away from the gathering—but then it was too late, for the blonde woman in the blue gown had spied her, and, as if seeing a treasure in the distance, flew to meet her. She froze in place as the lady cried out her name and took her in an embrace.

“Oh, I have wanted to meet you for so long!”

“I—how do you know—are you Aleigh’s mother?” Ruthenia gasped as the thoughts cascaded together. She looked up as the woman let go, the similarity of their faces only just beginning to strike her.

“Why, yes,” replied Talia, dress glittering like the sea. She offered her hand, which Ruthenia took in the same gesture as she’d made unto Hazen. “Forgive me, my son—the elder, that is—would roll his eyes at my candidness. But have so much to thank you for that I do not feel I can properly treat you as any less than a friend.”

“I was just doing my job,” said Ruthenia, with a smile that came easily. She cast a glance about. “King Aligon isn’t here yet, is he?”

Talia chortled. “He takes his time, simply because he can.”

They were interrupted by a clatter of footsteps from behind. A pair of hands gripped her shoulders, making her yelp. Before she could wrench herself out of that grasp, she had been spun around. “And who’s this!” sang the newcomer, who turned out to be Cathia herself, beaming widely when their eyes met. “You look lovely! But I don't think I've seen you around.” She laughed in a way Arcane ladies weren’t supposed to.

“Do I look like I’m from around here?” Ruthenia answered, starting to grin despite herself. “Good evening, Lady-to-Be Cathia.”

“This is Ruthenia,” said Aleigh from over her left shoulder. “She is a guest attending by my goodwill.”

“And a friend to the family,” added Talia.

Cathia glanced from one face to another, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, Aleigh, I mean your Highness, is she your partner?” she said.

“No, no, no!” Ruthenia gasped. “I’m just a representative, here on my own business. I have less than no interest in him.”

Cathia laughed. “Who allowed this eagle into the company of swans?”

Their discussion was broken up by the blaring of a voice above all conversations in the room. “Good evening, guests!” it went. “And our very warmest thanks for your presence at this wedding ceremony—of Lord Anio Veritian, son of Lady Hespera Veritian sister of Arcane Viz Talia Luzerno mother of Arcane King Aligon Luzerno, to his betrothed, Cathia Argola to be Lady Cathia Veritian, on this evening of the Twenty-First of August, Year Four Hundred and Ninety One! Sorry, big list of names to get through. I am the master of ceremonies, Lord Kamaro Arbel, although just Kamaro will do if you want to chat after the ceremony.”

The Arcane royal family hurried to seat themselves in the front row. The seats had already been decided, it appeared, and Ruthenia found hers beside Aleigh’s, her name printed in capital letters on the placard lying upon it.

There was a showering of congratulatory applause all around, and another wave of camera flashes. Almost at once, Kamaro launched into flourishes of prose concerning his nephew’s first encounter with his wife-to-be. The story became increasingly flowery as the scenes unfolded.

“…and in the summer of Four-Eight-Five, the summer of our era, as our good Kings Hazen and Aligon here ascended to the thrones of the country, so did Lord Anio offer his gift of engagement to Cathia, high on a balcony in a restaurant in the middle of Helika.” Now he whirled to face the pair in the middle of the central aisle. “Here we have them, Lord Anio and Lady Cathia!”

Kamaro gestured for them to rise—and laughingly, the couple stood to face their guests, taking each other’s hands.

“You know,” Ruthenia whispered, “I’m at least somewhat sure she accepted the proposal because he’d become a lord. Their engagement was weeks after your brother’s ascension.”

Aleigh shook his head. “I know them both. They are very much in love.”

“And who have we here?” Kamaro’s gasp made every head turn in a single concerted movement. Ruthenia followed suit.

At the far end of the hall, the lift doors slid open, and admitted the most gaudily dazzling couple Ruthenia had ever laid her eyes upon.

The man was unmistakeable with his head of wavy golden hair, a red uniform half-shrouded in a gold-trimmed red cloak glittering with gemstones. He waved as he traversed the centre aisle, offering his hand to those in the closest seats so they could kiss his fingers. Beside him, his wife wore luxurious gold silk, her brow and bodice adorned with almost as many gems as bore her husband’s cloak.

There were looks and squeals of adoration all around. Aleigh only shook his head and sighed. “Never one to forgo a chance to look ridiculous.”

There was a flurry of shifting and turning in Ruthenia’s row, as the Arcane King and his wife took their seats between Aleigh and their father. Queen Xenia fussed over her gown as she sat, apologising to Aleigh as she swept the folds under herself.

Before Xenia could notice her staring, Ruthenia turned to face forward, licking her lips. She could already hear the Arcane King chattering jauntily with his father, two seats away.

“My dear guests,” resumed Kamaro, “now that all our royal guests have arrived, we may proceed with the wedding ceremony! Could the bride and groom please join me onstage?”

There was polite applause for Anio and Cathia, Kamaro ceding the space to them as they ascended the stairs to the stage, hands still clasped in each other’s.

Kamaro exchanged a few greetings with the wedding couple, before turning to the left end of the stage. “And now, may I invite His Holy Grace, Archbishop Tiel, to the stage as well?”

Horror gripped Ruthenia like a cold hand. She watched with short breaths as the man emerged from the shadows to the left of the stage, and the fear clung and throbbed, threatening to spill memories.

Archbishop Tiel was robed in blue-trimmed white, a stark contrast to the glittery gathering below. A slender leather-bound book was clasped in one hand, his iron staff in the other; she bowed away, unable to watch, and listened to the staff thump on the wood as he made his gradual way across the stage.

When she finally found the strength to raise her gaze, he had come to stand before Anio and Cathia.

She’d never thought about the man’s age, but now she could see him close, she saw he looked barely forty, with an old haircut and an upright stature, almost too young for his ancient robes.

Turning to the audience, Tiel commenced a speech distinctly theological, about love as a force that made life what it was, every so often acknowledging the presence of the couple standing stiffly centre-stage.

“And so, as claims the philosopher Elode,” said the man, “love is the soul’s dissent against the selfishness that nature demands of us. It is an intellectual gift that raises us above animals—the gift to know oneself, and then to know another. Love is knowing we are all incomplete, and entrusting those shortcomings to the care of another. Loving is becoming, in part, another, and they becoming, in part, oneself. It is a beauteous act, to love, and to commit to that love. Love is the dissent of the soul, and marriage is an act of rebellion.”

“What do you know about love?” Ruthenia muttered.

Tiel shut his small book, and paused for a moment. “Will the couple please stand,” he announced then. He stood his staff on the ground, the swan atop it rising above his head.

Anio and Cathia ascended from their seats. Till then they would not stop holding each other’s hands—clinging, as if it kept them alive. She watched them walk to the front of the stage where Tiel waited. The Archbishop turned his staff about in his hand, so the swan faced the couple before him.

“Lord Anio Veritian, swear by Ihir and the sign of the Swan that you will take Cathia Argola into union with yourself so you are hers as much as you are your own, and swear that this union, made sacred in Ihir’s name, will not be broken, no circumstances and conditions withstanding, no willing change of heart or mind.”

“I swear by Ihir and the sign of the Swan, the above and all things implied,” Anio said earnestly, but his gaze was all for Cathia.

The entire process was repeated with Cathia, identical words and gestures. But her answers came differently: as she spoke, her fingers tightened, and when the words left her, they came furious and high, and accented like a New Town Solan’s. It almost made the event, in all its cold legality, a little less frigid.

“Then by Ihir and the sign of the Swan,” Tiel’s voice rose again. “Your marriage is sanctified and officiated, Lord Anio Veritian and Lady Cathia Veritian.”

---

In a rousing tide of applause that ascended like a wave without warning, Anio jubilantly took his wife by the shoulders in a whirl of robes, Cathia leaping onto her toes to kiss him. Ruthenia clapped along. The cameras were clicking indiscriminately away once more. Their empty film rolls filled up with pictures of the new lord and lady.

---

Chapter 20: The Demolition of Strongholds (and Palaces)

Preface 04: The Arcane Noble Families

Note: only individuals related to the Arcane Monarch regnant within the four most recent generations are shown.

***

While audience stood to join the rousing celebration beneath the glittering lights and bouquets were tossed by family and friends, Ruthenia leaned back and folded her arms, one leg crossed over the other.

“Congratulations to Lord Anio and Lady Cathia! Are they not lovely?” Kamaro was answered by cheers and applause. “My dear little nephew Anio himself. I never imagined he would find a wife before I! Of course, that is not to say I have not had my fair share of romantic exploits.” He flicked his hair out with a grin that won him more laughs.

Someone came to take the seat beside Ruthenia, brushing out his robes. She stole a glance rightward, and at once her heartbeat began to boom. It was the Archbishop. She went rigid, turning quickly away.

For a minute she stared resolutely forward, watching Kamaro strut across the stage with yet another crowd-rousing tale. But with the golden lights blurring before her eyes, she grew angry with herself.

Clenching her jaw, she turned, and found Archbishop Tiel already looking in her direction.

Looking her parents’ killer in the eye did not feel the way she’d expected it to. Nothing about him screamed of evil. His eyes were unrevealing grey, like overcast sky, and now that she could see the lines on his face, she also saw that he was infuriatingly ordinary.

“Good evening,” she murmured.

She gripped the edge of her seat and tried to feel anything, any of the things she wished she did and thought she should—anger, betrayal, anguish—but somehow she could not find it in her.

Against the sound of the audience’s laughter, Tiel’s voice came, quiet as a dove now that he was no longer on the stage. “Good evening, ma'am,” he said. “You are?”

“Ruthenia.” Her legs were trembling to flee.

His eyes lit up briefly. “Ruthenia,” repeated the man solemnly. “I have only known one other who bore that name. Are you perhaps one and the same?”

“Who?” she muttered. “I’ve never spoken to you before.”

“A child I failed to save from the streets.” He studied her face with a bizarre, unfamiliar kindliness. “The daughter of two people whose lives were taken. She was gone when my messengers went in search of her. Tell me, are you she? Did she live after all?”

Ruthenia could not find an appropriate answer to give, not within all the rage she’d hoarded over all the years.

“I...I did,” she said. “But I don’t understand, you were the one who ordered the execution, I thought—”

He shook his head, eyes clouding up with the memory. “I never wanted anyone dead.”

She felt those words slowly demolish her thoughts, the warmth drain from her. “Then who did it?”

“No one,” Tiel replied. “The clergy was divided, so they cast votes on the matter. To the last day the hallways were full of argument, more than should ever visit a holy establishment. No one could tell which course of action would ultimately cause less harm.”

Two months ago, Ruthenia would have said it was obvious, that the route that led to no death was, and would always be, the better, without question. Today, Ruthenia wasn’t sure. Her throat hurt with the beginnings of a fathomless grief, but she couldn’t fashion it into a blade as she normally did. She could not lash out at this man. Not even after six years of longing to.

“Then why are people still being killed in Ihir’s name?”

“Because we misunderstand each other,” he replied. “Sometimes willfully.”

She nodded blankly, and brought her attention back to the stage, just in time to watch Kamaro close his latest comedic anecdote, the applause and laughter ascending resoundingly around them.

---

With the close of the ceremony, the gathering was ushered out of their seats and towards the staircases at the back of the hall. They travelled in orderly queues, departing one row at a time, beginning with the royals in the front.

“Could I leave for a minute?” Ruthenia whispered to Aleigh as they rose. Her head was all awhirl. He turned, wearing a quizzical look. “I just need some fresh air; I won’t be long.”

“I could show you to the boulevard, I suppose,” he replied. “There is time.”

Following the rest of the royals, they made for the corner of the hall, and down the staircase. But on arriving in the atrium below, Aleigh pulled out of the stream of guests and waved for her to follow. Together they crossed the atrium to the lobby, the entire hallway faintly reflecting them.

Pillars were evenly spaced along the lobby’s length, paintings hanging between them. Ruthenia walked briskly until she was ahead of the Arcane Prince, skirts swishing unfamiliarly about her legs.

They passed few people on their way to the exit. Some were journalists in discussion; she’d come to recognise the badges of commission they wore. They lifted their eyes as the Arcane Prince passed, one scrambling to point a camera in their direction, but the two hastened away before he could. A group of men in suits stood sipping wine by a painting of a fruit bowl. One woman was studying a portrait of King Eduro, the first king of Astra, lit gold from below.

They crossed the threshold of the lobby, and out into the night. As she burst into the darkness, Ruthenia drank in the air, arms spread out. The sky was purple and only just beginning to glitter.

Down the steps she raced, coming to a stop near the bottom to gaze out over the palace grounds. The light of stars pricked through a thin gauze of clouds, visible between the towers and blocks above. Where the stairs ended beneath, a boulevard of trees was lain out, a fountain sparkling at its centre, and the breeze carried the fresh scent of the garden in full bloom.

She paused for a while, letting the wind wash over her. She waited  for the memories of the Archbishop and of the dizzying camera flashes to soak out of her. A brief while later, she heard Aleigh arrive beside her.

“I don’t feel right here,” she said. Wind whistled between them. “I’m a child of the streets. I should hate this excess yet I'm starting to enjoy it. My friends would be furious if they knew where I am.” Letting her gaze sweep the grounds once again, she heaved a sigh. “It’s hard to imagine having such a huge home. Where’d you live, before Aligon became the king?”

“In the Linterna District,” Aleigh replied. “My mother was the district administrator. We have a manor there, a place above a good garden.”  When he fell silent, the rustle of leaves grew audible.

“What a life you must have enjoyed so far.”

“Well, I did not enjoy it, but that is my own fault.”

“Why not?” She turned with a sceptical look. “You had everything I ever wanted. And everything I did not. Everything.”

Aleigh shook his head, a breeze setting his hair aflutter. “Life, to me, has always been a stiffly orchestrated affair,” he replied. “For as long as I can remember, it has been but a system of immutable rules and routines. Being a liability to my family, I was never truly allowed to do much. Afternoon detours, failing grades, those were never permitted.” He shook his head. “This must all sound terribly ungrateful.”

Ruthenia scrunched up her face. “It makes sense, I think. It sounds like a frustrating way to live.”

They let the silence persist between them for another minute. The fountain splashed. Two people were drinking on the boulevard.

“You won’t live here forever, will you?” she said, softly. “Where do members of old royal families go, once their terms are over?”

Aleigh gazed up into sky, as if to ignore the palace around him. “We will probably return to Linterna, or, if one of our relatives takes the throne next, stay in a side house in the palace complex,” he replied. “But I do intend to find employment, perhaps as an archivist, or a secretary for a ministry.”

“A secretary!” Ruthenia laughed. “That’s a little far to fall, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps, but I wouldn't mind falling.” He paused in thought. “If it means no more cameras and ceremonies and press. I like to think that suits me better.”

She shook her head. “You're absolutely nothing like I thought.” The whistling gale made her eyes sting, carrying the cold of the mountain.

“That makes both of us, then. I, too, have been wrong about you.” She grinned, and they stood in a comfortable silence for a while, gazing down at the palace grounds.

“What is the time?” asked Aleigh then, glancing backward at the lights in the lobby.

Ruthenia picked up her watch. “Seven twenty,” she said, turning around so the wind was to her back. “Let’s go back.”

Ruthenia followed Aleigh back through the lobby, crossing the moderately crowded atrium they had left and passing through the heavy double doors behind the curving staircases, where other guests were gaining clearance. The guards, both unarmed, nodded to the two as they passed.

The ceiling soared, and the bustle of conversation engulfed them in a tide. They followed the right wall, circumnavigating the crowd. Ruthenia stumbled in her sandals as she dodged around fellow guests. A scintillating chandelier the size of a rowboat hung from the ceiling on an ancient golden chain, the pale vaults painted like the sky, arching three stories above their heads. Between towering pillars, windows almost the entire height of the hall gazed out into the night as it fell upon the palace grounds. Balconies with marble balustrades overhung the hall left and right, and thirty round tables, draped with red, surrounded a gleaming lake of marble floor.

A rousing bowed-string hum ascended from the orchestra as its instrumentalists tuned on the velvet-carpet stage. A swirl of aromas suffused the air, of roasted meats and rich sauces mingled with wines. To the left of the stage stood a table two-thirds laden with full wineglasses, already thronged by drinking guests.

Being with the Arcane royal family meant, as expected, a table at the very front of the hall, right beside the orchestra and the wine. Ruthenia checked the empty places one by one until she found the one with a small card bearing her name. To her left was the Arcane Prince’s seat—and, beyond him, the Arcane Queen and King. Ruthenia turned to her right, but the guest had not yet arrived; the name the card bore was Hespera Veritian.

Shrugging, she dropped into the cushioned seat, and unrolled the serviette in a flourish that had Queen Xenia giving her odd looks.

Chatter rose amongst guests as a great pair of wooden doors slid open and waiters in black tailcoats came wheeling trolleys in, great platters and shiny domed covers rattling. A gloved hand placed a steaming bowl on the table before her: a creamy soup with white chunks of something inside.

Ruthenia only barely stopped herself from picking up the bowl and slurping its contents up. A flash lit the surface of her soup, and she straightened, to find that the journalists and photographers were thronging the edges of the hall behind velvet barricades, their cameras flashing like lightning across the hall.

Hespera arrived minutes later, upon her husband’s arm. She was a slender woman of tall stature, blonde and pale as her siblings. Ruthenia watched as she seated herself, beige gown shimmering, then turning to her with a brief “good evening" that startled her straight.

“Oh, good evening to you too,” Ruthenia answered, staring dumbly at the lady’s offered hand before remembering the gesture and taking it with a lowering of her head. She dropped the hand almost too eagerly, and met the woman’s eye again. “You’re the mother of Lord Anio? Congratulations to your son!”

Lady Hespera took in the words with a brief smile. “I have never seen a man more eager to be married,” she said.

“Well, then, he is in for a very happy life hereafter.” She glanced about the table; the wedding couple sat to the right of Hespera’s husband—chairs pulled together, almost no space between them.

“Smile for the papers!” the exclamation made Ruthenia look up and stare wide-eyed as the grinning man pointed his lens at them. A white flare exploded from the xenon flash above the wooden camera box, freezing her into silence.

“Bloody—” She quickly pinched her lips shut, fuming with her fists clenched. “I wasn’t ready for that!”

“Good evening to all our beloved guests,” Kamaro’s voice turned all their heads, pushing the camera flash out of her mind. The master of ceremonies stood atop a black dais, arms held out in welcome. “Thank you, once again, for attending the wedding of Lord Anio Veritian and Lady Cathia Veritian! Before dinner is served, I would like to offer the stage to the wedding couple themselves. I’m sure we all want to hear from them, don’t we?”

He swept their table a bow, and the pair stood to uproarious applause, scurrying to the dais. Stepping up to the fore, Cathia and Anio took turns shoving each other to the front, to a smattering of laughs, until Cathia stepped forward.

She brushed her hair behind her ear, beaming widely. “Hello, everyone!” she said. “Thank you for joining us tonight, you’re all wonderful! This is my first time attending an event so grand, and I must say I’m soundly impressed! They weren't kidding about royal parties.” Her laughter was met with applause. “Now, I’m sure most of you know by now that I’m not from around here. In fact, I was born in the New Town!”

Head perking up at the mention, Ruthenia shifted forward in her seat, then felt silly because her accent should have given it away.

“And I hear more than a few of you are wondering if I married this man for his deep, deep pockets,” Cathia went on. A murmur swept the audience, punctuated with laughter. She cast a glance at Anio; he grinned back. “And I know it’s a theme these days, with you Arcanes—marrying out of the big families, all that. But for me, I married him simply because he’s the loveliest, kindest, most wonderful person I’ve known—” she jabbed him with her elbow— “aren’t you, beautiful?”

“If you think so, then it must be true,” he answered with the warmest smile, and a look almost flirtatious. The two leaned in for a kiss that received growing applause as it grew increasingly fervent. Ruthenia cringed. Catching his breath after they had drawn apart, Anio continued. “Thank you, Cathia, my love, for your extremely flattering words. I’m delighted to finally be marrying you, and look forward to living the rest of my life with you.” Amid coos and sighs, he took her about the shoulders and pressed his cheek against her head. “More importantly, I am looking forward to tonight.”

“Oh, I know,” Cathia replied, placing a hand on the small of his back.

“Oi, there are children here!” yelled Kamaro in the audience. The laughter that came now was the loudest yet.

“Alright, now, thank you, but before you begin discussing your plans,” Kamaro cut in, to uproarious laughter, stepping up to join them, “shall we begin tonight’s dance, Lord and Lady Veritian?” They nodded eagerly, stepping out onto the gleaming floor, hands locking. With a flourish and a grin, Kamaro gestured at the orchestra.

Across the hall there was an uncanny hush, as if everyone were waiting for a prayer to begin. It was no prayer, but an offering perhaps much holier: a stir of flutes and guitars, as the orchestra entered the introduction of the very first dance.

The first dance of the night was not unlike the Helika Waltz in its steps. Ruthenia began to match the steps to her memory of the dance. But the melody was spirited and wild, and its various more dignified steps were substituted by twirls and leaps. Anio and Cathia, so lost in their tiny heaven with every star in their eyes, spun and leapt like sparrows beneath the giant chandelier, capturing every gaze in the room.

The music swelled, and the spirit of the dance began to catch on like fire. Other guests began to join Anio and Cathia: nervous, tittering nobles, with their hands tucked into each other, and husbands and wives, pulling each other out into the light, their dinners left unfinished—they left their seats one by one, entering the breathless whirling dance.

While dozens of other guests took to the floor beneath the chandelier, and the second dance began, Ruthenia sat wolfing down dish after sumptuous dish. Soup was followed by a salad appetiser—lettuce, tomatoes and dried fruit drizzled with a tangy white sauce. The main course, roasted steak soaked in pepper sauce, got all over her hands and serviette despite her most valiant efforts to keep the sauce inside her plate. She wiped furiously, Hespera watching with a permanent grimace, like a parent watched a baby spatter food all over the walls.

Some part of her, which stood apart from all the luxury and havoc, saw and knew that she should not be here. Not when her friends were robbing and killing to stay alive. But it was easy, too easy, drenched in these lights, to lose oneself in them.

“Is this how you pass all your days in the royal tower?” she said to Aleigh between dishes, licking her fingers.

Talking to Queen Xenia till then, he broke off and turned towards her. “Today is a day of particular import,” he replied. “But banquets such as this are a monthly affair at the very least.” She scrunched up her face. His voice dropped. “By the way, you will find your opportunity to address my brother when he leaves the table to dance.”

Ruthenia nodded. “How will I get his attention?”

“I am sure at least one among the dances tonight will be a quadrille. If we remain at close quarters, an exchange of partners will be inevitable.”

“I don’t know that dance.”

“That does not matter. Have him leave the dance if you must.” Aleigh’s expression grew stern. “All that matters is that you decide what to say to him beforehand. That is all I ask.”

“Well, obviously,” she snapped, before shoving the last of the steak into her mouth.

The fourth course was served in the midst of merry dancing: raw fish that still reeked of the ocean—most off-putting, to be sure, but the nobles seemed absolutely delighted when the waiters uncovered the platters.  Anio and Cathia drifted back to their seats just in time for the fish, compliments accompanying their arrival.

“Fresh from the sea, the way I like it,” sighed Aligon, taking a good whiff of the plate before him. Ruthenia turned at the sound of his voice.

“Fish has grown frightfully pricey,” said his wife, Xenia. “The new maritime regulations are doing the industry no good.”

“Indeed, indeed.” She made out Aligon’s reply through the din of clinking forks, leaning a little closer. “The entire matter has weighed upon my mind considerably, although the Ministry of Maritime Defence claims that a dubious new tool for investigation has recently made itself available!”

“Is that so? How odd.”

“Yes, Calied and Company recently delivered to the office the blueprints for a most interesting machine: a flying camera.”

Pulling away at once, Ruthenia fell silent and made herself small, insides twisting up into knots. She dipped the slimy slabs of fish in the sour white sauce, but continued to watch the Arcane monarchs, fork trembling.

“Well, surely that machine is illegal!” she heard Xenia gasp.

“Ah, but that is where the matter becomes complex, for the machine’s engine is powered by Thread!” He paused to slurp up a long filet, sauce dripping. “Clever, and wise.”

The queen frowned. “Does that not make the machine doubly illegal?”

Aligon paused after swallowing. “Why, I cannot say! Either it is twice as illegal, or not at all. You know I would like to bolster the Ihirin vote this early in my term, but recently, with the...business with the biochemical laboratory, I suspect I’m about to lose the Candelabra ordinary.” Ruthenia’s every muscle tautened.

“Did you not control that story?”

“Yes, but—” He fell silent. Ruthenia went rigid as he lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Oh my, a wren on the windowsill?” The king turned to Aleigh, who pointedly ignored him. “That lovely lady over there ought to mind her boundaries.”

Xenia’s eyes had followed her husband’s. Cold sweat broke out on Ruthenia's back, but it was too late to pretend otherwise. She glared right back, lifting her fork to her mouth.

“Aligon,” Aleigh put in suddenly, “surely you do not intend to allow the crisis to persist unactioned?”

Ruthenia bowed her head away as the Arcane King’s gaze left her. She proceeded with the meal silently.

“Of course—what would diarchs be if they did not have plans?” Aligon replied, assuming his brilliant tone once more. “The appearance of Lilin has disrupted operations in the Silver Sea. We are unable to tolerate nor circumvent this problem. It is starting to appear that the only solution, grisly as it sounds, is to kill her.”

There was a collective intake of breath.

Aleigh shook his head. “Deities are ethereal beings,” he said, “gathered and maintained by a spark of will. The only way for a deity to die is for it to desire death.”

“A pity, then,” answered Aligon, hands outspread. “If Lilin is, indeed, intent on causing the death of our nation, then we must demolish her will, drive her to such suffering that she wants nothing more than death.”

Ruthenia was startled to feel a twinge at these words. She opened her mouth, the beginnings of a retort flaring in her throat—but then she cast a glance at Aleigh, and remembered that she had already made one mistake too many.

“You would be using the machines to lay siege upon a daughter of Ihir,” Aleigh replied. “The symbolism strikes me as...troubling.”

For a moment, Aligon considered his brother like a raptor considered its prey. “If we do it quickly and without fanfare, then symbolism needn't worry us,” he finally said. “If a goddess dies and no one hears, did it really happen?” The Arcane King cast a last glance about the table—then turned to Xenia, rising from his seat with a hand extended. “Let us go dance, my love.”

---

Chapter 21: Green with Spite, Red with Rage

Ruthenia stared after the Arcane diarchs as they departed. “Now?” she said.

“Give them one dance together,” Aleigh replied, skewering the last of the fish with his fork. “We shall join them in the latter half.”

She watched, intently, as the music swelled, and the men lifted their partners in synchrony. Aligon, with his grand stature and his opulent dress, was a sturdy dancer who took the surest of steps, and his wife glided in her finery, like a mayfly. They did not leap; they danced the way only royals did, and a few couples stepped aside just to watch.

As the music entered its flourishing, climatic measures, Ruthenia cast a glance at Aleigh, and he returned it, nodding once. They rose together, she with a kick of the chair. “Sorry,” she muttered. Her companion said nothing, only held out his hand, which she grimaced at and flicked away. Cameras popped.

“I hope you have enjoyed your banquet so far,” said Kamaro. “It is our greatest desire that you all enjoy yourselves as is fit for a wedding night. Tonight, we have with us the Astran Traditional Orchestra, performing the standard nine piece set. The next is Palla’s musical reimagining of the Old Bel Quadrille!”

Together they crossed the dance floor; the spinning couples with their billowing gowns and tailcoats parted to let them through, like flowers across a pond. Everyone danced in drab blacks and blues and greys, even golds, and out here in her blazing red, she felt as bright as a signal flare, and almost as conspicuous.

All the same, she glared back at the cameras as if it would intimidate them into submission, and took the Arcane Prince’s arm.

There was a lull in the music, as they moved into the view of Aligon and his wife. On noticing their arrival, the two turned, beaming.

“Here at last, are we?” said Aligon. “I dearly hope this lady knows the dance. The quadrille comes next.” He cast her a glittering green glance that made her feel wrong.

“I can learn,” she replied with a look just as forceful.

“Of course,” Xenia replied, taking her husband by the hand. “Why don’t you watch us for two cycles, and commit it to memory?”

Right on cue, the instruments stirred. From strings and pipes, and metal bars of glockenspiels, the first bar of a quadruple metre piece unfurled warmly across the hall. With no more than a nod, the Arcane King and Queen took swiftly to the dance.

It was something of an odd sight, watching a ruler and his wife dance. Ruthenia observed diligently, catching the first move of each bar first. She memorised the twist and step of feet at each downbeat. Like the music, the steps were even and stately, rhythmic and unswerving, easy to guess.

Then at the eighth bar, there was a whirl of movement across the floor, as women flung their partners across to each other. Aligon and Xenia cast a glance at the pair beside them and, seeing they were not ready, brought their gazes back to each other.

At the passing of the twelfth bar, Ruthenia clenched a fist, then turned to Aleigh, snatching his left hand with her right. “You start,” she said.

He nodded, taking her right shoulder. “Left foot back,” he said, and she gasped in fright and almost tripped when the Arcane Prince stepped forward and she hurried to comply with a backward step, leaping away on one foot.

Ruthenia’s first quadrille cycle was a horrific mess of stumbles and trips. For many seconds, she clung to Aleigh for her life as she struggled to leap away before he could step on her feet, the marble floor spinning below her. He obliged to steer her into the right positions every time she went wayward.

“Slow down!” she cried out, when he swung her away from him with a toss of the shoulder and she made a frantic three-step turn.

But when the next pair of bars came, she found she already knew them. The panic loosened its grip on her heart, and she let out a soft sigh as she stepped backward, his feet following hers as they were meant to. The pounding of her heart was drowned out by the trembling swell of lutes.

“That was impressively quick,” said Aleigh, green eyes glinting with amusement. She laughed back. “We’re almost at the end of a cycle. Are you ready to meet my brother?”

“I might as well,” she replied with an earnest nod.

He slackened his grip in preparation for the trade, and cast a glance to his right, nodding once at his brother.

Then she released his left hand, and he crossed to Xenia with all the grace of a swan, at the very same moment Aligon crossed to her. With no more than a shiver, Ruthenia took the Arcane King’s hand, and he reached out to grasp her shoulder. They rejoined the dance.

When her eyes met King Aligon’s, she could almost feel the world whirling. Studying his face, she found he looked a little like Aleigh, except he was broader and older, and his hair was shorter, and he wore the grandeur like a mantle—so comfortable within it, it made him seem impossibly tall.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” she managed to say. “I’m sorry about eavesdropping just now.”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” he replied with a smile she could not decode. “I like a woman with a mind of her own. Ruthenia Fulminare Cendina.”

Fear sprawled through her chest like tendrils. She fought to stay in beat, taking the next set of steps before speaking. “You know me?” she replied.

“Why, yes,” said Aligon. “My brother’s business is mine as well, as far as it concerns a public event we are attending together, so I took the liberty to conduct some background research. And I must say, he picked well! That is, if it were true he picked you.” There it was again, that dangerous glint. “But you were not picked, were you? Titanio Calied's little pawn?”

She spent a moment trying to regain her footing. “Tanio didn’t send me,” she answered snappily, but her heart was booming in her ears again. She busied herself with dancing, and Aligon obliged, moving her with far more force than Aleigh had.

As this cycle of the quadrille came to a close, Aligon glanced at Aleigh, who glanced at Ruthenia. She shook her head. He conveyed the gesture.

At once, the Arcane King’s grip shifted from hands to arms. “Do you drink, Miss Cendina?” he said, stepping out of the dance, steering her firmly away with himself.

“I don’t,” she said, but it was clear that wouldn't stop him. The man in the supreme seat of Astra certainly acted the part. Indignantly, she wrenched her fingers out of his grip, and followed the King towards the head of the hall.

They passed dancers who cast them odd, but not disparaging, looks. Occasionally there were bows; Aligon dismissed each one with a flick of the hand.

Verging the wine table, the king picked up a drink, gesturing for her to follow suit. She shook her head, watching as camera flashes lit the liquid inside the glasses blood-red.

“So, Miss Cendina,” he said, after a swirl and a sip. “What is it you wish to say to me?”

She stared at the wineglass and grimaced. “What makes you think I have anything to say?”

“I do not think the daughter of Lita Kyril would enter the palace with no purpose. Particularly not of her own accord.”

She felt her body go numb as she watched a smile curve his lips because she knew, he knew what she was about to say.

“Let the camera pass,” she finally muttered. “And let my boss off the hook. It’s the only way you can prove it’s Lilin.”

“Oh, I’m certain Mister Calied knew that when he sent it,” Aligon replied, sipping his red wine. He shook his head. “But I can give no guarantees, Miss Cendina. Now's not the time for bold policy moves.”

The fury Ruthenia had been fighting to smother—beneath false smiles, beneath thick black gloves—flared suddenly through the cracks. “You see?” she gasped. “This is precisely what’s wrong with politicians, you huge—” she sucked in a breath, only barely hanging onto the last word— “You have no real beliefs. You’re no different from Arcem. You’d do whatever it takes to keep the popular vote.”

“Ah, but popularity is of the essence in this political game,” Aligon replied. “I cannot bring my plans to fruition without securing the longevity of my term.” He shook his head with a piteous smile. “You could stand to learn a thing or two about delaying gratification, Ruthenia Fulminare Cendina.”

Hearing these words, Ruthenia bared her teeth. “I have delayed it long enough, Aligon Luzerno. I’ve waited six years for Astra to learn from its mistakes. But it will never change with men like you leading it, men who want nothing but to win the vote of the Ihirin, year after year.”

She went stiff when the man took her by the shoulder. “Ruthenia Cendina, leadership isn't like fixing an engine,” he said withba stomach-twisting smile. “You know nothing.”

White-hot anger wrenched her from inside. “I know you’re full of lies!” she yelled. And with a yank, she snatched the glass out of his hands, and flung its contents at his face.

Amid the white lightning-flash of cameras, the red liquid met his shut eyes in a bloody splash, and rolled down his cheeks, dripping from the tip of his nose and his chin to soak the front of his robe.

Blinking his eyes open, Aligon raised a wine-stained eyebrow. He reached into his pocket for a napkin, and said nothing while he dabbled at his face, lips pursed.

Trembling all of a sudden, Ruthenia set the incriminating glass down on the table with a thud. The gathering around them was frozen into a tableau, though the music continued undisturbed. The cameras kept flashing, preserving the moment. Her heart raced when she realised what she’d done.

The Arcane King began to grin. “You certainly know how to make an impression, don’t you?” he said. His grin turned to laughter. It was a laughter that made her feel squirmy. “You ought to be thankful that I have a generous sense of humour. Aleigh would most definitely have set the guards upon you.”

She folded her arms. “You know nothing about him,” she replied. "He is kinder than you'll ever be."

For the first time tonight, Aligon was stunned into silence. He reached for another drink, and this time downed the glass in a single gulp. He lowered the receptacle. “Shall we return, then?” his voice was dangerously kindly. “I’m sure that half-dance did not satisfy you.”

*

The first thing Aleigh did when Ruthenia returned was shake his head at her. “You did every single thing I told you not to, in the span of five minutes,” he said.

“I couldn’t—I couldn’t help it. I was just so mad—”

“As you always are,” he murmured, but he seemed not to want an apology.

They took to dancing again, Ruthenia particularly wary of the Arcane royal couple who, by now, seemed entirely uninterested in them. A couple of slow dances came and went, and the orchestra spun melodies like skeins of silk.

“Whatever tonight’s outcome...I enjoyed being here,” she said, as the Little Waltz closed in a tinkling of lutes, and the hall was once again taken over by the clamour of voices. She unhanded him, and they pulled into the shade of a balcony, the guests at the tables gaping up at them.

“You have been admittedly excellent company,” her companion replied.

She laughed.

“My expectations were not the highest,” he replied, smiling back nevertheless.

A soft rumble of drums made Ruthenia glance up. “That’s fast.”

“We shouldn’t miss the last dance,” Aleigh said, offering her his hand by reflex. She took it and let him lead her back into the light.

As the first glorious rumble of drums announced the beginning of the Helika Waltz, they found themselves a new space in the hall, far away from his brother and the queen.

“Have you heard the story of the Helika Waltz?” asked Aleigh, through the pulsing hum of the strings.

“Hollia told me, it’s the rhythm of Ihir’s heartbeat,” Ruthenia muttered. “Ah, to think my very first dance looks like this. I’m probably the only person who can’t appreciate it.”

He raised an eyebrow quizzically. “You’ve never danced before?” He paused to fling her into a twirl.

“My parents never cared for this sort of thing,” she replied. “And neither do I. Obviously.”

“Of course not.” He smiled. “I do not think it a privilege to dance with me, even if Aligon would insist so.”

She felt the beat through her feet—the double eighth notes chased by two lazier fourths—over and over, round and round. She felt her own heartbeat answer, twirling as the rhythm bade her, feeling silly but not caring that she did. Aleigh’s warmth was perceptible through his gloves, through hers. And he still looked like a storybook royal, and she liked that rare smile, even though she would never say so.

Two eighth notes, two quarter notes. As the measures grew wilder and the melodies began to swing, Ruthenia found her steps becoming flighty as if Ihir’s wings were lifting her, and she began to grin, then to laugh, with every twist and step and swing.

Eventually, the cymbals shivered, and the strings began to whisper a long goodbye. The music sighed to a close with a final trill.

Applause came, a polite pattering that the echoes repeated. Conversation burbled back to life as the music vanished from knowing, and all the warmth with it.

Ruthenia stepped back and let go, feeling a little stupid with the last of her laughter still sitting in her throat. Confusion flooded the joy out as she tried to regain her bearings, head spinning.

“We would love to thank every last one of you here tonight for offering up these four hours of your Sunday,” Lord Kamaro announced over the crowd. “Lord Anio and Lady Cathia will now retire for the night, and you are free to depart, although drinks will continue to be available until midnight. Good night to all!”

The hall was awake with the buzz of warm conversation as the glittering gathering of guests came to a rippling standstill, the first of them coursing through the lobby and out into the night.

While the room began to empty and other guests proceeded with their drink, Ruthenia followed Aleigh up the stairs, her sandal heels louder on the marble now that the noise had thinned.

The elevator stood wide for them, the new operator awaiting them with both hands tucked behind herself.

Once they were aboard and the door shut, the prismatic chamber slid quietly through the shaft, exiting the roof of the hall. Again, they found themselves immersed in the night, no light to see by but the light from the neighbouring towers, glowing through the glass.

“You’re lucky,” Ruthenia whispered, staring out at the palace complex.

“Because I live here?” Aleigh paused. “I suppose I am. And yet I wish I were invisible to the public eye, and free to do as I please.”

A smile widened on her face. “I quite love it myself.” She touched the glass, leaving an unsightly fingerprint. “I hope you find your freedom someday. And I’ll continue to fight until I’m no longer under anyone’s command. Until I am my own.”

“That is a rather selfish interpretation of anarchism.” His voice had sharpened. “Not everyone can live as you hope to. At the very least, the family must be preserved, as a basic structural unit of the social fabric. Even in anarchy otherwise total.”

She folded her arms and grimaced. “The family is a stupid structure to organise a society around.”

“It is the only level of organisation under which pure altruism may thrive.”

“You know that’s not true.” She closed her eyes, but water rushed into the dark behind her eyelids. Water and the sound of wings. Lilin. Lilin. Ruthenia. “What if I just want to break down the system that ruined my life? Isn’t that fair?”

“You’re not the brave rebel you fancy yourself to be,” he said. “You’re in grief.”

She growled. “I’m not in grief. I hardly even cry.”

“Grief isn’t crying,” her companion said, seeming more distant than ever, yet never before so sincere.

“Oh, sure, Mister Psychologist,” she answered with a roll of her eyes, and they were silent for the rest of the ride.

At the royal tower’s main landing platform, Aleigh called a servant to return her umbrella, which the short man offered unto her upon both palms, like a priceless treasure. Grinning to feel its trusty weight in her hand once more, she swung it once round in a circle, then released the catch so it sprung open, like an orange flower blooming.

“Ihir, I cannot wait to scrub this muck from my face,” she muttered, feeling the wind buffet her legs, unfamiliarly bare.

“Goodbye, Ruthenia,” replied her companion from beside her. “Thank you for your attendance.”

“Thanks for having me over,” she replied, reaching out to pat him on the back, before reflexively thinking that that was the wrong gesture for the Arcane Prince. “I’m afraid I will be seeing you tomorrow.”

“I anticipate it with dread, likewise,” he answered, while she strung the umbrella up at the edge of the darkness. She lifted off without ceremony or regret, only exhaustion and phantom fears of a dance yet to begin.

Ruthenia hung upon the night in her little overturned umbrella, a leaf buoyed on the balmy air, floating among the golden lights of the Helika Palace, waiting to be crushed.

***

Ruthenia landed on her patio without so much as a sound, opening her door only as wide as she needed so she could tiptoe through. She gave her right hand a cramp twisting it around to undo the clasps, then she tore the dress off, inch by infuriating inch, bundling it into a ball that she tossed into the backroom.

Then she pulled on a shirt and slacks, and with them reentered the comforting warmth of home.

Rolling into the hammock, she closed her eyes. The ghosts of camera flashes returned. Whatever tomorrow brought, she decided, she would contend with tomorrow.

---

Chapter 22: The Hangover

When tomorrow came, Ruthenia was not at all ready to contend with it.

It started with Tanio stopping her in the living room, gesturing her over with a mocking bow. “I knew something was going on,” he said in a drawl, shoving the papers into her hands like a certificate. “But mind explaining yourself?”

She shrank away, holding the newspapers gingerly. Instead of answering, she unfolded them.

The words turned to ice in her throat. There was a smattering of black-white photos on the front page, the largest of all being that of an euphoric Anio and Cathia mid-kiss on the dais.

But among the ones below, she soon discovered, was a most cringeworthy photograph of herself in full-body, her skirt billowing around her, deep red lost in the dark grey grain. And not just herself, but also Aleigh. They had been caught mid-step, on the verge of a leap, holding each other with enough fervour that it made a red-hot flush surge over her.

“I can’t bloody believe it,” she breathed, lowering the papers. She gasped and cast a glance at a smirking Tanio, before lifting it up to read and praying no one had recognised her, at least.

Among the surprises of the night was the fact that Arcane Prince Aleigh Luzerno was not alone for the night. His partner appeared in a brilliant scarlet dress and was impossible not to notice.

The appearance of this surprise guest was met with a spectrum of reactions. What is most fascinating to note is that this young lady was no everyday visitor, despite not being a noble: she is Ruthenia Cendina, the sole successor of scientist and revolutionary Lita Kyril.

Cendina was seen entering a brief spat with the Arcane King, which ended in her flinging wine at his face.

And beneath that, she found a photograph of the exact moment, imprisoned and preserved indefinitely in ink.

She flung the papers back at her boss, who lunged to catch them. “Damn it!” she growled. “How will I show my face in school, now?” She felt her shoulders sag. “He warned me. But I didn’t listen.”

“Well, it’s done, and they’ve already decided the image they’d like to paint of you.” The man glanced down at the crumpled pages. “Were you offered a kiss for your trouble, at least?” He shot her a cheeky grin.

“I did it to save your life.” Ruthenia stormed off into the kitchen and plucked a roll from the tabletop.

*

Perhaps she should have opted to miss school that day, or—at the very least—given herself a long pause before entering the classroom. But all of this regretting was tardy and useless, now that she had appeared at the grey doorway of the 2-I classroom, and twenty stares had skewered her.

In the full sight of everyone in the room, she looked up at Ms. Kelde, who had lowered her textbook to meet her gaze with a squint. “Miss Kelde,” said Ruthenia, her throat going dry, “may—I sit?”

An odd smile pulled at the corners of the woman’s lips. “Certainly, Your Highness.”

Ruthenia felt herself freeze on the spot while laughter breezed across the room. Glancing from desk to desk she saw that everyone was snorting and giggling, save Aleigh himself, who had blocked his face from view with a book.

She completed the walk of shame down the aisle. "Here comes the princess!" gasped Alacero, scrambling to straighten out of his slouch and pulling her chair for her.

“You grace us with your presence,” added Calan with a chortle.

Her eyebrow twitched. “Shut up,” she muttered. She dropped into her seat, letting her bag thud to the ground.

“Was that really you in the news, or some impostor?” She noticed the roll of newspapers under Calan’s desk. “You looked so pretty, I had to read the article thrice before I believed it was you!”

“I mean, I knew you were friends with the Arcane Prince,” said her left-hand seatmate, “but I didn’t think you were on ballroom terms!”

“My ma just won’t believe that I sit next to you in class!”

Amid their probing, which went unanswered, Ruthenia laid her head on her desk and breathed a long, deflating sigh.

Throughout the hour, Ms. Kelde made no more jabs, although it did not stop Alacero and Calan from dropping the occasional “Your Highness”, or her other classmates from staring and gawking. Ruthenia glanced across the classroom at least half a dozen times, trying to make out if Aleigh was enduring the same relentless ribbing as she. But as always he was cold as ice, not even exchanging a word with Aperio, beside him.

It became difficult to ignore the way their lips lingered over the syllables of her last name, as if coming upon incriminating evidence. Hollia fussed over her, embarrassingly pleased with her performance.

“What a story you made.”

Ruthenia’s efforts to avoid detection were rendered futile when a voice in the lobby brought every gaze to her.

Stepping forward, Iurita laid a hand on Ruthenia’s wrist, the gathering around them cornering the two with their pitchfork stares. She smiled, the way she smiled when she was about to wound.

“My, Miss Cendina, I never expected the situation would develop in this way,” the Arcane woman drawled. “You’re selling newspapers faster than any other event this year. I must applaud your cosmetic efforts; you were beautiful enough that I failed to recognise you.”

Ruthenia said nothing, but she made up for it with her glare.

“Is it all true? Are you a branch of that decaying tree? Be careful, rebellion is poison.”

“It’s not about my family history,” she snapped.

“But it’s always about history, in cases like yours,” sang Iurita. “Vendettas, grudges. I wonder what to make of it—the daughter of Lita Kyril, weaseling her way into the royal ballroom just to spit in the face of the Arcane King. I wonder what the public makes of it.”

“I’m no politician,” growled Ruthenia, with both fists curled. “I’ll do that without manipulating people and images, the way you Arcanes do.”

“Without manipulating? Well! Are you courting the Arcane Prince in complete sincerity, then?” Terror clutched at Ruthenia’s heart. Iurita’s smile widened, revealing teeth. “No, I think you’ve made him accessory to your plans. Give yourself some credit. You’re playing the game, just like the rest of us.”

She was saved by the arrival of the elevator, announced by the snick of the door sliding open. With a wave of mocking farewell, Iurita entered first, as the highborn always did.

But then the rest in the lobby turned to her, expectantly, and her eyes narrowed.

Ruthenia shook her head listlessly. She turned around and took flight for the stairs.

***

A phonograph awaited Ruthenia on Tanio’s coffee table when she got home. She hefted the musical machine across the plank bridge after dinner, kicking her door open. She lowered the clattering device onto her work bench with an assortment of curses.

That night, Ruthenia sank to the riverside with her lantern. She draped her legs over the edge of the umbrella so it tipped slightly, dipping her feet in the frigid water. She listened closely to the murmur of the river. There were no voices tonight.

“Lilin,” Ruthenia said. “Are you going to destroy Astra? After so many centuries of truce? What’s making you angry?” She closed her eyes to the glow of the moon, and sighed in the cool wind. “I think I understand. Parents aren’t always reasonable, are they?”

The moon rippled in glittery circles about her feet. She thought she heard night sparrows flitting through the rustling crop.

“Are you angry, Lilin?” she asked again as her eyelids parted. “Or are you grieving?”

As if in answer, a wave surged from the surface of the river, swirling once about her feet as if reaching to hold her, to pull her in. She held fast to her umbrella’s shaft, listening for an answer, hearing none.

---

Chapter 23: Open Wounds

Preface 05: The Basic Principles of Chemistry

Sharmon’s lab was not the sort of place one associated with scholarly pursuits, for it more resembled an artist’s painting room than it did a laboratory.

The bottled chemicals that sat arranged in ranks along shelves held every hue of the rainbow, and some would imagine, every hue outside it too. On other shelves were bottled metals, dull, matte, lustrous.

The samples were as foreign and fascinating as tales of another land. Some fizzed when stirred together; others created pastes and sediments. It had always struck Ruthenia as strange, that metals meant to take on the most wondrous of forms should be incarcerated in glass vials to be treated with blue fires and strange-smelling solutions.

Up on Sharmon’s wall, there was a bulbous chart of multiple merged circles: a line of cells that made a circle and wrapped around itself many times, budding suddenly in parts, sagging with the names of metals. There were words in the boxes, some familiar and others as peculiar as the colours of the bottled chemicals—“copper”, “lith”, “haf”—and Sharmon said that it was a scientist of Akido who had first thought to put them in a spiral.

The man had, like Ruthenia, been born into the science business. He’d painted before, and painted still, and while he’d known the fine arts from youth, he’d also observed the creation of each foil tube of pigment. At some point in his childhood, chemistry had swallowed him up, painter’s psyche and all.

He was not a traditionalist. Why did you join us? Ruthenia asked. He said it was the right of Astra. To know, and to rejoice in that knowing.

Sharmon sometimes took it upon himself to educate Ruthenia in the fundamentals of chemistry. The chemicals seemed indecisive and ungoverned, even though every transformation was an immutable process. Why should they trade charges? Why should they combine the way they did?

Some of these questions, Sharmon said he could not explain in ways she would understand; others, he claimed the scientific community had no answers for themselves.

***

It was an excruciating wait, but by Thursday, the jokes had overstayed their welcome, and were slowly passing into oblivion. Ruthenia still took care not to be seen with Aleigh, at least not outside of teatime, where she found herself visiting him on the mezzanine increasingly often.

“How long will this go on?” asked Ruthenia one afternoon, as the sun brightened over the fields. Aleigh did not respond, so she tilted over to read over his arm, glimpsing but a few words before he closed the book.

“A week at the very most,” he said. The afternoon was buzzing with crickets, the clatter of utensils accompanying them. Instead of returning to his novel, he turned to regard her. “How are you today?”

“Good, compared to past days,” she replied. “You?”

“I’d say content, if I were trying to be diplomatic,” he replied, “but in truth, I am exhausted. My brother has been quite upset by your stunt.”

Ruthenia barely suppressed a laugh. “Well, at least one good thing came of my visit to the palace,” she said.

Aleigh drew in a breath and sighed. “I hope you are satisfied,” he said, “because it is causing no end to my troubles.”

She hopped up onto the tabletop. “Oh? Is your brother angry at you for taking me along?” Bewilderment turned to a pang of guilt when he cast his eyes down. “I’m sorry, can I make it up to you?”

“It’s a little too late for that, but I appreciate your offer,” he replied. “I can only hope no lasting ill comes of this, for either of us.”

*

On Friday, as the old tradition went, Ruthenia dragged herself to the New Town, to join her street friends for lunch under the bridge.

The river murmured below the cobblestones, and it wasn't hard to see how far the swirl of water had risen, how choppy the current had grown. She found their usual spot flooded out, her friends sitting on stones farther up the bank, munching on skewered meat and round loaves.

Each one turned to stare at her as she arrived—except for Tante, who seemed reluctant to meet her eye at all. And with just a hint of a twinge, she saw that they already had a fifth member with them: Reida, who sat atop a suitcase on dry bank without any lunch in hand.

Swallowing, Ruthenia strode up into their midst.

“Ah, she has arrived,” announced Den over his lunch, lifting his gaze. “Ruth, sincere commendations on your performance on Saturday. Congratulations, in particular, on soiling the Arcane King’s favourite robe.”

“You were quite impressive,” added Reida, folding her arms.

“I didn’t know you could be so pretty,” Gordo put in. “Like an Arcane.”

She turned to Hyder, who looked like a wounded animal. “Yes, you looked amazing,” he muttered, staring intently at his bread. “Why didn’t you say a thing to us about this? We thought we were your closest friends. What happened to that?”

Ruthenia gaped. "I—I’ve been gone for two years, Hyder, I can’t possibly remain—"

“There, you see? She never cared about us like we cared about each other,” Tante snarled, every word laced with the same wrath with which he drove knives into ribcages. “We were always wrong about her. I said so. I said so many times.”

Ruthenia felt herself burn up inside. “I’m not living with you anymore, you can’t expect me to share every detail of my life with you!”

“Girls are such fickle creatures. We were wrong to trust one.”

“Excuse me?” Reida gasped.

Ruthenia flung her umbrella to the ground and lashed out at Tante with a balled fist; she’d say, with some satisfaction, that she’d almost caught him by surprise—but the knifeman had always been the quickest of them, and he saw the twitch of her arm at about the same moment she realised she’d made a mistake. He curved to a side to avoid the blow, then his arm struck out like a snake, and suddenly she found her neck girdled by his fingers.

Ruthenia choked at the pressure, thrill and horror gushing through her. With a thrash she delivered a sharp kick in the shin, and his knees buckled momentarily—long enough for her to grip him by the hair and yank him downward, ignoring his grunt of agony.

“You bitch!” Tante roared with quivering shoulders, spit raining between lips, teeth bared as locks of sandy-blonde tightened against his fingers. He plunged forward with his fist, which collided with her chin, sending her yelping and gasping backwards while sparks exploded everywhere.

Through her spinning daze, she snatched his upper arms and drove her knee between his legs, before flinging him at the rocks. The knifeman yelled, skidding like a limp doll across grass and mud down the slope, till his head thumped against a rock a foot from the water. He twitched once then dragged himself upright, teeth clenched.

“Stop!” Before he could rise, Gordo had descended upon him in a lunge, pinning his arms to the ground. At the same time Ruthenia felt hands shackle her and drag her backwards.

“Are you hurt?” Hyder’s voice said from behind. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start this.”

Ruthenia wriggled her right hand out of his grasp and nursed the throbbing pain on her chin, blood pouring into her mouth where her cheek had been crushed between her teeth. She spat the redness on the ground, making Reida cringe and step away. “I’d have killed that stupid knifeman,” she muttered

“Don’t pay that harlot any attention,” he answered, pulling himself to a stand.

In five minutes, all five were seated in a circle once again. Some of the chicken had fallen on the grass; Tante picked it up anyway, more than ready to start tearing away at it with his teeth. Hyder presented Ruthenia with her own bread and chicken.

“Ruth, tell us what it was like,” he said, then. “Being up there in the palace.”

Ruthenia shrugged. “It was really excessive. There was too much of everything. Just like you’d expect, but with twice as much.”

“I suppose that’s the sort of life everyone wants to live.” Hyder stared dejectedly at his feet. “Do you? Do you want to give up on us after all?”

She felt as if something had entered her ribcage and seized her heart. “Why would I?” she gasped. “You four are the reason I found my footing. I’m not giving you up.”

“Why didn’t you tell us, then? About the Arcane Prince. And about going to the wedding with him.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?” she muttered. “All I meant to do was get into the palace to talk to Aligon. So, I asked the Arcane Prince if he’d help me with that. And he said yes. And that’s all that is.” She met their testy gazes with a glare.

“And he just—let you?” answered Hyder. “You don’t even say ‘thank you’ when you should, how did you convince him?”

Ruthenia sighed. “Well, we are friends.” The word “friends” felt strange on her tongue.

Hyder nodded and did his best to smile, but it did nothing to ease the disappointment out of his eyes. “I’m glad,” he said. “Did Aligon listen?”

“I don’t know.” A smile came to her. “But I’ve made sure he will always remember me.”

“Well, Ruth! Now that we have you with us,” Den cut in, “I believe Reida has a thing or two to say to you. She's been looking for you since last Friday.”

“Don’t you worry, lovely,” the girl said with a smile, waving Ruthenia towards herself. “I’m afraid I shall have to speak to Ruthenia in private. Excuse us, boys.”

She strode away without acknowledging Tante’s glare. Picking up her umbrella from where it lay by her feet, Ruthenia followed eagerly.

“Ihir, I barely feel welcome around them anymore,” she muttered.

“They think you’re about to leave them, they are convinced you’ll drop the news any day now,” said Reida. “And I do not think the little dearies quite know how to handle the notion.” Once they were at the junction under the sprawling oak where the bridge met the road, Reida turned. “D’you remember the gun carriers I spoke of a couple months ago, in which you took great interest at the time?” Ruthenia nodded. “Excellent. Lately, I have taken to searching for an explanation, and my questing has yielded me a lead.”

“Really? Tell me you weren’t hunting down leads for my sake.”

“No, you silly,” she laughed, hand to her mouth. “I have business of my own, and it takes me strange places. There’s been gun owners about. The Swan’s Post could stand to gain from reporting on a potentially dangerous gang situation. If the boss will let me.” She paused. “But enough about the Swan’s Post. I have traced suspicious activity to the New Town East Laboratory, and intend to investigate further.”

“That’s my mother’s— It’s abandoned.” She frowned. “What did you discover?”

“I heard mechanical noises from inside the building,” Reida said. “I stayed an hour but saw no one come or go, and the front doors appear untouched.”

“What are they doing with the lab?” Ruthenia muttered, glancing at the blocks across the street. “Could we meet tomorrow about this? At, say, four o’clock?”

“Four would be perfect,” she answered with a temperate smile. “I meant to ask if you’d accompany me. Perhaps carrying a weapon of your own.”

Ruthenia grinned. “You didn’t ask any of the rest?”

“I trust you more than I do any of them. Tante gives me the shivers. And Den only knows how to use his tongue.”

“Does he?” She waggled her eyebrows. “How’s that going? Your business with Den, I mean.”

Reida laughed. “I barely know if he cares about me in any genuine way,” she replied. “I have never doubted that my standing with the bureau is a part of his motive, but I’m afraid I cannot tell just how great a part.”

Ruthenia smirked. “He’ll be disappointed to know that you’ve figured it out.”

She shook her head. “I’m sure he knows that I have. Besides, I dislike Marva almost as much as he.”

“Is he so bad?”

“Every month or so, a Royal Bird comes around, offering to pay the Swan’s Post to feed trash to the New Town. The boss is glad to follow stipulations.” Ruthenia grimaced. “Of course, that is the very reason I have worked as hard as I have. Already he has placed a third of the company’s affairs in my hands.” Reida smiled, a touch slyly. “I’ll show him how to run a press.”

“Even if you end up losing funding?”

“If we don’t sell well, that is our own burden to shoulder, not something we can evade by banishing moral direction.”

Ruthenia grinned. “You’re going to drive the company to ruin,” she said. “Should I leave you my messenger code?”

***

In what was the finale of three weeks’ fierce deliberation, Tanio's flying camera was found to fly on the power of Thread alone, and accepted by the government as a research instrument.

A tremor had sent a bank house crashing into the ground earlier that week. There was no doubt the mounting danger had had a hand in these concessions.

Tanio's porch was crowded with reporters the next morning. Once or twice she saw a camera flash at her shed, but other than that, they left her to be. He was in the news, and was graced with ten minutes of precious radio airtime.

Listening to the interview in her boss’s little living room (he’d assembled a staticky radio from spare parts for that very purpose), Ruthenia began to wonder how she survived in the same house as this man. He spoke of religion and politics as if discussing an exotic breakfast.

Whether her stunt at the wedding had had any influence upon this outcome, she would never be able to say.

---

Chapter 24: Becoming Symbolic

Midway through work on Saturday, Ruthenia snuck out early under the pretext of needing fresh air. Eldon seemed to know she would not be returning, but she’d completed one of the machine’s wings today, leaving just the other wing and engine tests, so he had turned her a blind eye.

Amid the afternoon roadway bustle of chugging engines and clattering wheels, she dodged smoke columns, surveying the ground for the old place of her childhood.

She knew it almost immediately, the dark spot in the landscape, two streets from the eastern plaza; descending towards its rooftop she was filled up with a strange bitter mixture of loss and nostalgia.

A flash passed behind her eyes: the Candle Plaza, the line of guards. Ice welled up in her gut and she gasped for breath before her mind could continue along that track.

The entire laboratory block was painted black. The imprints of the old vines long torn off pockmarked the facade, the cornice overhanging ornate Belan windows. Reida was waiting at the front stairs, between a pair of white Astran pillars that Ruthenia had once loved. The doors were shut, a shiny chain strung up across it, and the steps were dusty with soot.

Reida was dressed too well for this part of the town, coat dress over petticoats, ribbons in her hair, and her flying suitcase stood on its side beneath her palm. “Is there another entrance?” she asked when Ruthenia appeared.

She cast a glance about, before laying eyes upon the circular drain cover by the pavement. “There were a couple of drains in the basement that were large enough to climb through, but I doubt they’d be able to fit an entire gang through those.”

“It’s worth a try.” They approached the roadside drain cover, Ruthenia squatting to grip the rings with both hands. She straightened slowly to a stand, and the cover slid out with her, making her palms burn.

With a sigh of relief, she dropped the grimy thing with a clatter. The noise echoed down the dark shaft. Then she dusted her hands on her pants while Reida sank to her knees and peered inside.

Her head rose. “Are you armed?” she asked. Ruthenia nodded, slipping the fruit knife, wrapped in a dishcloth, out of her bag to show her. Lifting a hand, Reida began to whirl her fingers about, a tiny loop of light materialising upon her palm. “If anything happens, we bargain and defer. No running or fighting; if this outfit is illegal they would want nothing more than to secure our silence. I know enough Weaving to make a flimsy net. The knife is a last resort. Understood?”

The woman seemed to be saying more than she knew. Dread glittered in her dark brown eyes. With a nod and a pat on the forearm, Ruthenia slid onto the first rung of the ladder, and began her climb, the dark, watery gullet swallowing her.

There was no sound but the sound of carriages chugging overhead, and the gentle splash of drainwater slopping at the bottom of the ladder, smelling of dampness and scum. Ruthenia guided herself down by touch alone, and glanced downward every few seconds. Outside of the rippling reflection of the hole above, nothing else was visible. She shivered.

The Thread light followed Reida in. As her companion approached, certain features of the nondescript black were revealed: a sloshing stream of water, the depth indiscernible, and holes along the walls of the underground canal, spewing water out.

Ruthenia tested the depth of the water first, lowering her left foot until the slurry engulfed her shoe halfway up the heel. Water soaked in. She cursed. Then her foot met the drain bed. “It’s shallow enough to walk in,” she called upward. “But your socks will be sodden at the end of the trip.”

“Secrets are worth a pair of smelly socks,” Reida replied, bringing the light with her while Ruthenia stepped off the last rung, her right foot claimed by the waters.

They paused and fell silent. The Thread light flashed across the water, lighting a patch of the far wall.

“There,” said Reida, pointing at the part of the wall where a circular outlet about two feet up opened into the main one. Splashing through the drainwater, they climbed into the branching way, Ruthenia giving Reida a hand up.

The ensuing drain was barely tall enough for their heads, and the water was no more than a puddle deep. They scurried along through the damp depths, hands on the sides.

Halfway down the tunnel, Ruthenia paused. A flicker of firelight lit the curve of the drain. “There’s someone there,” she whispered, tilting to a side with all her weight on one hand so Reida could peer over her shoulder. “They’ve been doing something under the lab.”

“Shush.” Then they went silent again, and although nothing seemed amiss at first, Ruthenia slowly began to realise that the sound of chugging was louder than it had been before, and that it filled the dim little channel inside which they stood.

“They’re using the lab machines,” she muttered. “I can’t bleeding believe it. How did no one realise?” She turned to look Reida in the eye. “Let’s go ask them what it’s all about.”

“Be careful. They’re probably armed.”

As they approached, they saw that the glow of flame was hidden around another bend. Their paces quickened. Scraps of metal and paper lay discarded in the water, churned up from the bed as they splashed through. Then they came upon wall paintings, which Reida paused to lift her Thread torch to. No Trespassing, read one. Ruthenia sniffed. “We’re not the ones trespassing,” she muttered.

“Who are you?”

Both were startled out of the water. Feet came stomping down the turning. The two glanced at each other and Reida crushed her Thread light in her fist. Ruthenia began reaching through the folds of her bag for her knife, halted only by her companion’s glare and a subtle shake of her head.

Nodding, she let her hand drop from her bag, and they turned to meet the newcomer as he emerged from the light at the bend.

He was a hulking man with a shaven head, his right leg wooden from the knee. Even though he was almost a silhouette with the light to his back, Ruthenia could make out his clothing. The shirt on his back was patched so many times one almost could not tell which fabric was the original. On his waist hung a belt, and on that belt hung a gleaming Ordiva, just like the one Ruthenia had found on the boy that day. Her ears roared.

“Get out!” he shouted, with a shooing gesture. “Get out or I’ll put metal in you!”

Ruthenia snarled, but Reida held up a hand to stop her. “We aren’t here to give you away,” she shouted down the waterway. “We just wanted to know why there was noise coming from the building—”

“I don’t care why you’re here. Back to the top with you!” In a fluid motion he plucked the gun from the belt and jabbed it in their direction, cocking it with a click that made fear snatch her bodily, squeezing gasp after gasp out of her. “You have a minute to scarper.”

“This place was my home before you even thought to come here,” Ruthenia growled, sliding her hand into her bag. “I know this place better than you. Don’t keep me out.”

The man stepped forward with narrowing eyes, gun still raised. “You’re a scientist?”

“My parents were!” she replied. “In fact, my mother was the last head of this lab!”

It took about five seconds for the words to register as a widening of eyes. “It’s you,” the man breathed, then. His revolver barrel wavered. “Ruthenia?”

“Oh, you know me!” Ruthenia snapped, heart pounding in her throat.

A change was coming over his gaze, like a thawing of ice. He studied her face as if he might find her name written in her features. “Why are you here?” he asked blankly. “Are you here to join us?”

“I’m here to find out where these guns are coming from,” she answered. “And why, specifically, they’re coming out of my parents’ lab.”

The Ordiva had vanished, and the man’s frown with it. “Ruthenia,” he said, tucking the revolver in its makeshift holster. He strode forward through the murk, swinging with a subtle limp. “I’m so pleased to welcome you. I am Greso. Please—you must come with me to see the rest. They would love to meet you.”

At those words, Ruthenia felt the heat and bravado drain from her. “What? Why?”

Without answering, he waved for them to follow. Reida nodded in her direction before following him forward. With a deep frown, she followed suit.

“We knew you were our ally from the very moment we heard about you,” Greso said as they passed into the firelight and rounded the bend. “How delighted we were to hear that the king had been soiled by his own riches, in his own home!”

“Whoa, look, I didn’t mean it that way, I didn’t mean it to—” Reida shook her head, a trace of a smile tugging on the corner of her mouth. “Or maybe I did.”

They stopped inside a grimy stone chamber lit by kerosene lamps on makeshift metal-strip hooks. Six drainpipes gaped in the walls, wide enough to crawl through. But only one of them released a narrow trickle today; the rest were dry and caked with sedimentary stalactites.

And covering almost every inch of the damp floor, and stuffed into some of the larger pipes, were crates laden with glittering gun parts, wood and brass peeking from beneath the covers. Bent screws and barrels lay discarded in puddles on the ground.

Ruthenia opened her mouth. “Ihir burn me,” she said under her breath, eyes darting about. “You’re making them. You’ve been making them yourself.”

“We have our ways,” said Greso, a smile in his voice. “It’s gunpowder we have trouble with. And that’s what we’re under a lab for.”

“Why all this?”

Greso paused, a hand on the handle of the narrow old access door, its base already rotten to fibres. “These guns aren’t just for us. They’re for the town.”

All at once, comprehension dawned upon her. Again she gaped. “Rebels?” He nodded, shoulders squared with pride. Then she frowned. “I don’t think they’re using them the way you want them to.”

“It’s to be expected!” answered Greso. “Better an unruly town than a town in chains.”

Ruthenia pursed her lips. “How long have you been here?” she asked.

The man grinned. “Little more than a year.”

“Ihir—I leave for two years, and you guys come up with—” she spread her arms— “with this.” She was no stranger to secret basement projects, this put all others to shame.

“This is quite special, indeed,” murmured Reida.

The door handle screeched. It swung inward to reveal a dank staircase, lit flickering orange, as with the chamber below. The rhythmic clack of Greso’s wooden leg on the steps echoed up the stairwell. The sounds of lab machinery, and the ever-growing swell of chatter, rose into audibility.

The access staircase ended in an alcove of a room Ruthenia recognised by the low hum and clatter of machinery as the ball mill room. The air was humid and it smelled of something they shouldn’t be breathing.

In the corner, watching over the nearest machines, sat a woman chewing leaves. She made the barest effort to lift the head to greet Greso—but on seeing the two accompanying him, she straightened.

“Who’s that you have with you, Greso? I know her face,” she said, pointing a finger at Ruthenia. “Nudge my memory, will you?”

Greso cast a glance backward. “She’s the one who threw wine at the Arcane King.”

“Oh, fancy seeing you here!” the woman exclaimed, spitting leaves into her clay pot and breaking into a grin. “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Mella. Why do you grace us with a visit?”

She shrugged. “We had to find out where the guns were coming from.”

“You did us all a favour.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she answered, warming up enough for a smile. Then Greso was waving them onward once again.

Through a broken door they passed, towards the heart of the noise. Ruthenia remembered these doorways; they looked different in the lamplight. And as they passed into the assembly hall, she began to understand that this was no longer the facility that had been her home.

It was still a home, just nigh impossible to recognise: paper bags and beer bottles lay strewn about, a village of folded-sheet mattresses and makeshift tents inhabited by raggedy folks with scars and tattered shirts, curled around rolled-up jackets, playing games on boards drawn with charcoal. The white-tiled sterility of Lita Kyril’s precious laboratory was lost in the warmth of the conversation passing back and forth.

A surge of silence accompanied their arrival, then a small smattering of “welcome”s and “who are you”s—and a few whispers of recognition that quickly grew into a rowdy exchange.

“I knew we’d meet, I knew she’d discover us, what did I tell you!” cackled an aged lady. “You did good, you little demon.” Clamours of welcome paved their way past the gathering. Reida had the patience to spare for acknowledging each one, but Ruthenia offered no more than a nod.

Greso stopped at the head of the hallway, where there sat a figure in an armchair, robed in black and hunched over a notebook. He formed a singular contrast to the gathering about him, his dark hair combed back and his posture statuesque. He did not lift his head until Greso bowed to whisper something in his ear, and a quiet conversation proceeded between them.

He had a pale, narrow face and ghoulish eyes, and looking him in the eye was like being stabbed through the head. “Who are these,” he drawled, like an actor in a stage play. He squinted. “I know the one with the auburn hair. You’re the young lady who defied the Arcane King! Ruthenia Cendina!”

Ruthenia froze. All across the hall there was a wave of fervent conversation. A tinderbox clicked. The heat smelled faintly of hallucinogen smoke.

“My name is Derron,” he went on, “the leader of the hungry. You made a perfect portrait of rebellion that night.” His glare was like a plough through her thoughts. “Who are you? A proper rebel? Or just a child caught in the crossfire?”

A flash of annoyance dispelled the last trace of Ruthenia’s petrification. “My life was ruined by the king and queen,” she answered. “I am not caught in the crossfire. You are in my mother's lab. We were heretics long before you.”

“Ah, those are the words I like to hear,” said Derron, closing his eyes as if to savour them. “We would be very pleased to have you among us. We have been waiting. Waiting to bite back. Our plot has been a year brewing, but only recently has the climate become good. Your act of public dissent has fanned the embers. Oh, I feel it already, the fire waiting to devour all.”

To her surprise, his words made her feel squirmy. All the answers she could give felt wrong on her tongue.

That bladelike gaze met hers again. “The Arcane hegemony has harmed every one of us. But do you care to join us in dismantling it? I ask you in all seriousness, do you wish to be a part of this?” He swept a hand out at the gathering along the hallway.

“What do you intend to do?” the question was out of her, and she readied herself to be admonished for prying into their affairs.

But Derron only smiled, a sleek raven smile. “To flood the streets with fury. To bring death to those who deserve it.”

“And I hope you succeed. But I cannot join you in earnest. I have much of my own work to do—work that will lead us towards a common victory.”

“I understand,” answered Derron, dipping his head. “But let it be known that you are our friend, and that you are welcome within our walls anytime.”

With a nod, Derron turned to fix Reida with the same incisive gaze. “And how about you?” he said. “Are you, too, an ally to us?”

“You may know me as Reida Breyte, vice editor of the Swan’s Post,” she replied, folding her hands into each other with a bow. There were mutters of recognition, but louder hisses and yells at the paper’s name.

In the chair, Derron was studying the woman with a quirked eyebrow. “The Swan’s Post is complete drivel,” he muttered.

“Which is very much to my chagrin,” Reida replied. “I have had quite enough of us selling out to the government.”

“That is all well and good, but, ma'am you can’t possibly have sought us out without journalistic motives.” He nodded at Greso, and Ruthenia saw a flash of a blade at the corner of her eye, as did Reida, whose shoulders tensed.

“We were simply concerned that this supposedly abandoned laboratory did not seem to be abandoned,” Reida lied. “We were not expecting to encounter you. I have no intention of publishing anything about this outfit, I swear.”

“Well then,” he said. “I would love to trust you, but I know your kind—glib liars, would talk their ways out of anything if they could.” He stroked his chin. “That is, unless you can prove your trustworthiness. And, ah, what a perfect opportunity. I have just the right assignment for you.”

She seemed ready to retort, but Derron gestured at Greso, and he came up to the seated man’s side, knife gleaming. “What—will you have me do?”

“Put something in the papers for us,” he said.

“Sir, I don’t run the company—”

“Something small, a rebel call-to-arms. ‘The coiled naga hungers for swan’s flesh.’ Go, do it.”

The unease had crept into Reida’s face, but she kept her gaze steady. She exchanged a trembling look with Ruthenia.

“Put your money where your mouth is, won't you?” Derron jabbed.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” Reida burst out. “You will see your message in the papers—tomorrow.”

Ruthenia swallowed. She’d spent so many years hungering for rebellion—but now that she saw they were closer to the cusp than she could imagine, she felt the terror bearing down.

“Oh, and, good sir,” said Reida. “We have a couple of friends whom I’m sure would be thrilled to join you.”

“Reida!” Ruthenia gasped in a whisper.

“Oh?” Derron’s head perked up in interest. “Do send them to my scout, the shoe shiner on Thyme Street. I would be delighted to welcome like-minded rebels into the fold.”

Nodding, he leaned back, arms behind his head. Greso lowered his knife and stepped away, resuming his smile. “You are both free to go. Thank you for gracing us with this visit, Ruthenia Cendina. I trust you to keep your editor friend in check.” He winked at her, and Ruthenia barely managed to produce a smile in answer. “Oh, and next time, please enter through the other drain.”

As Greso escorted them back down the corridor, they were greeted warmly. A girl, barely twelve, tossed a string of beads at Ruthenia; she caught it and offered her thanks, looping it onto her index finger, and the child answered with hands clasped together. Greso waved them both goodbye at the canal, where they took it in the opposite direction, trudging through ankle-deep water to an open drain hole that—they discovered—opened in the ground beside a scrapyard.

As soon as she had lifted her dripping soles off the top rung, Reida heaved a great sigh. “What an ordeal,” she gasped, then sagged. “I should not have mentioned my occupation. I let him seize the upper hand. I gave it away.”

“Why’d you tell him about our friends?” Ruthenia snapped. “Just to get let off? You’re going to get them killed.”

“It’s what they’ve always wanted, is it not?” answered Reida.

Ruthenia sighed. “Too late to fret about it. Ihir burn me, I didn’t think my outburst at the wedding would mean so much to anyone.”

Reida turned to offer her a smile. “Fickle, isn't it? Fame, I mean. You do the right thing in the right place, and suddenly you're on everyone's front page,” she replied. “Even if it was just for a day. Everything you do will mean something—they’ll make sure it does.”

Ruthenia did not like the shiver those words sent through her. “Well, are you really going to publish what he told you to?”

“You mustn't forget, fair exchange is law here...and I want their victory more than their downfall. As long as I am not on the streets when the banks break, their plans line up with my own.” Straightening her skirt, Reida turned around to wave her goodbye. “Take care not to start any revolts by accident.”

---

Chapter 25: The Plea Answered

 More rain fell that month than an Astran August had ever seen.

The rainy days were humid and full of wind. The pavements grew shiny, and the workers would find ferries home in the afternoon. The decks were always empty, the cabins full. The Wind Tunnel waters ran high, the roar of the current joining the howl of the wind, droplets splashing the fliers’ feet.

All over the country, the rivers had risen. Lower New Town streets were deluged, their first floods in a decade, and the kings had taken to the press with reaffirmations that something would be done as soon as they ascertained the cause.

Fish markets were in the thick of a slowdown and although no one wanted to admit it, everyone knew all was amiss. Nothing about the brewing trouble was published.

As promised, a bizarre little message appeared in a small rectangle on the last page of the Swan’s Post. “The coiled naga hungers for swan’s flesh,“ it read, in foreboding capital letters. Most assumed it to be a quote from a poem—but the few who knew what it meant felt either great fire or great dread at the sight of the message.

Ruthenia spent the dry afternoons at the milkshake stand, but the days when Hollia joined her were growing fewer. Many evenings, she found her dinner in a basket on the table, an apology note alongside it that told her Tanio might not be back before she slept. In the mornings she would find him reading the papers with dark rings around his eyes, coffee steaming by his feet.

On a Wednesday near the start of September, Ruthenia waited by the gate to the menagerie while the rest of the second year students streamed past, chattering.

When Aleigh passed on his way to collect Benedice, he stopped beside her, seeming to know she couldn't be there for any other reason. “What is it?” he said.

Ruthenia shrugged. “I know how you are about detours, but do you want to join me at the milkshake stand?”

She wasn't sure why she was asking, but Hollia had once again rushed off on urgent errands as the migration season drew towards its peak, and she missed the chatter. This left but one inconvenient possibility: that she actually did enjoy Aleigh's company.

The jury was still out on whether that feeling was mutual. “Milkshake stand?” he answered. The slanting afternoon light glared through the windows. “I’m very sorry, but my schedule does not allow for it.”

“Really, not even ten minutes?” Ruthenia muttered. “It’s right between here and Helika City, too.”

His stony refusal softened to pondering. Then he said, “I suppose fifteen minutes in the direction of home wouldn't hurt.”

“Perfect, thanks for humouring me.” She grinned, leading the way to the stables.

The island kiosk emerged at the end of fifteen minutes of golden sky, upon miles and miles of meadow and small gleaming lakes. Ruthenia was improving on her landing—she slowed to a hover in front of the counter. Benedice could not, however, hover, and so he and his rider soared past the island and circled it once, landing in a clatter of hooves on the edge. She laughed as Aleigh dismounted, combing down his hair.

Imessa, the shop owner, flew out of her chair and to the counter. “Your Highness,” she breathed, bowing eagerly with a hand on her chest. “It is my honour.”

Aleigh offered a small nod of acknowledgment. “I came at Ruthenia's recommendation,” he replied.

“Ah, yes, of course!” The woman piped up. “She's mentioned you many a time.”

He glanced at Ruthenia. “You have?”

Against her will, her face went hot. “I mean, I talk about my classes sometimes!”

“Oh, she mostly complains about you,” Imessa answered.

“That's enough!” Ruthenia muttered, pushing him aside and placing an argent on the countertop. “The usual, please?” Then she turned to her companion. “You?”

Aleigh stared for a moment. “Do you have a menu?” he said.

Ruthenia buried her face in her hands, pointing at the boards hanging on chains behind the counter.

“I see. Do you, perhaps, serve samples?”

With a sigh, Ruthenia held up a hand and stopped him mid-order. “Just choose one, pay for it, and don’t say anything else.”

“How shall I pay, though?”

“You pay by giving her money!” She mimed throwing coins at the woman’s face. “Have you never bought a thing in your life?”

“I do not carry money with me unless I know I will need it,” he answered with a pensive shake of his head. “Typically otherwise, I make purchases in bank cheques—”

“Are you telling me you don’t have money with you?”

Exchanging a very long stare with the shopkeeper, Ruthenia began to laugh. She howled, banging a fist on the counter, then opened her pouch again while she wiped a tear from her right eye. “I hope you know that you are absolutely beyond help,” she said, loosening the drawstring on her pouch and fishing another argent out of it. “I can’t believe I’m buying a drink for the Arcane Prince. Ihir, look at me. Ma’am, another honey milkshake for the idiot, please?”

Sweeping the coin into her hand, the woman began to measure out the ingredients. “I’m sorry, this is all rather unfamiliar to me,” said Aleigh meanwhile. “Had this been planned out in advance I would have been prepared.”

Ruthenia sighed. “It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “There’s really is no room for spontaneity in your life, isn’t there? Actually, don't bother answering. I'll have you know it’s a right nightmare for anyone trying to be your friend.”

“You’re doing quite splendidly, on that front,” he said.

“Am I?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Does the Arcane royal family look upon me with favour?”

“That blessing is reserved for foreign dignitaries, but I suppose we do. The Arcane royal family looks upon you with favour. Or I do, at least.” It was obvious from the mirth in his eyes that this was all meant in jest, but it made her gladder than it should.

“Why, I am most honoured to be receiving your blessing,” she answere.

A clink announced the arrival of their honey milkshake. At once, Ruthenia snatched hers off the counter, then moved to take a seat on the raised stone barrier at the edge of the platform, barely inches from a hundred-foot drop, a hand resting on her wooden umbrella crook. Aleigh gave her a look that might have been one of warning, but all she did was chortle and roll her eyes.

She gazed lazily into the windy golden afternoon, sipping her drink. The shopkeeper’s rowboat levitated close beside the milkshake stand, at a convenient distance, with a hat and a few books stacked inside. In the distance, a vast ferry made away with its host of evening passengers.

Her eyes returned to her companion; he, too, had received his own cup of the milkshake, and was taking cautious sips of the drink. She smiled when he turned and noticed her, but was not prepared for him to approach her.

“Thank you.”

She blinked up at Arcane Prince, who no longer seemed like a faraway vision whenever she looked at him. “For what?”

“For your friendship,” he said, before drinking more of the honey milkshake in his hand.

Ruthenia smiled absently. “I prefer you when you’re not acting all stuck-up.”

“We aren’t supercilious by nature, you know,” he replied. “We do tend to be ignorant because of our circumstances, but rarely with intention.”

She found that his words did not inflame her as they would once have. Perhaps it was because she had learned something during the past months. Perhaps it was simply the clemency of his gaze. “Tell that to Iurita,” she laughed. “I know you can’t help good fortune, but it’s your job to learn about the problems you don’t experience yourself. How else can you rule well?”

He nodded solemnly. “We all have much to learn,” he said.

Finishing his drink first, Aleigh left the cup on the counter, offering Imessa a “thank you” that she answered with frantic gestures of gratitude. As he passed Ruthenia, he tapped her forearm. “Thank you for inviting me here,” he said with a nod and a smile. He returned to Benedice and mounted in a single practised leap.

Ruthenia returned her own glass to the countertop, and swung her umbrella into her left hand, thoughtlessly rotating the ribbon around its ribs. “Take care,” she called.

Aleigh dipped his head once to acknowledge her greeting. Then with a flick of the reins, Benedice leapt from the platform, a single white feather swirling through the air as he vanished from sight, to land at Ruthenia’s feet. She stooped to pick it up, running her fingers along its edge.

---

On the rainy Thursday that followed, Tanio forgot to mention his departure. But Ruthenia had grown accustomed enough to the routine of recent days, and she found her dinner herself, slathering butter on the pan and tossing meat onto it, all while consulting the cookbook with one hand and furiously licking butter off the other.

That night, because the possibility had bothered her long enough, she took her umbrella out into the rain, almost slipping over the edge of the patio in her haste. Even though the winds were flickering and wild, she managed to mount her umbrella, flying through sheets of the cascading water, the army of raindrops blinding her. Her flight swung with increasing ferocity as she sank to the roaring river. The air smelled of rain and wheat and broken stems.

She landed on the bank, bare feet and knees squelching deep in the slippery soil, choking with rain in the howling black emptiness. With a gasp that filled her lungs up, she counted to three, squeezed her eyes shut, and plunged her face into the freezing current.

“Lilin?” Ruthenia whispered into the black water, bubbles flowing from her lips, ticklish against her ears. “Lilin, you there?”

For a while she was left feeling stupid, head hanging in the current, lips pulled tight, while the rain pelted her back through her sodden shirt.

A piercing wail slammed into her, so loud she feared it might split her ears open. The scream vibrated through every inch of her, called from her depths the part of her soul molded by the sea.

“Stop screaming!” she exclaimed, then her breath expired, and she flung her head out of the river, gasping while her head spun. Bright, grey rain and the guttural roll of thunder far above engulfed her. She had started to shiver.

Another bigger breath, eyes shut, and her face was in the water again.

The hum of the distant voice came almost at once, its tones swallowing her whole.

Is that you? Is it you? The one who spoke before?

“Yes,” she whispered, bubbles scurrying against her cheeks and nose. “I’m Ruthenia.”

Ruthenia— Ruthenia—the voice was distraught—where is my father and why won’t he answer me? Tell me? Tell me! Will he let me go?

“No, I don’t think he ever will.”

I want to be free. I’ve had enough of this ocean. I never want to see it again.

The finality and grief barreled into her like a boulder. She burst from the river for breath, teeth clenched, shaking her soggy hair out between gasps, all loose and falling upon her wet shoulders.

“They’re going to kill you,” she whispered, bowing. “They don’t care that you did no wrong. They’re going to kill you.”

The storm was thinning. She sucked in a final breath, and thrust her head into the water a third time, eyes shut.

“I’ll make sure they free you. I know it can be done. I'll make sure it is done.”

Lilin’s answer was not in words, but an indescribable agony, so vast that it filled every stream through every town, every mile of every coast of the nation her father had founded.

Ruthenia began to see things. Skies spinning, and wings. The land of Astra when it had been young, and the people had drawn shapes in the mud, painting their faces with the swamp.

She watched a small band try to light a fire near the coast, and watched as a little boy—too curious to know—burnt his fingers in the flame. She heard stumble backward with a piercing cry.

That cry was the same cry Lilin had been repeating for centuries.

But the vision was broken by a storm, night and day whirling together, and the dart of a chain through the air. Then a bright flash of blood, spurting from the centre of her abdomen, from which all the pain of the world was suddenly screeching, staining the chain that ate its way through her.

Throwing herself out of the river, Ruthenia clutched herself with a wail, blood pouring down her fingers and onto the earth, the wound gnawing away at her.

She pulled her hands away, and found her hands clean, her shirt spotless, if drenched. She gasped, shivering when the breeze touched her, collapsing onto the soil while a convulsion of sobs overcame her.

“I’m sorry, Lilin,” she whispered through her aching daze. Her limbs were stained with mud. The river glinted back with gibbous moonlight, like thousands of eyes winking.

---

The rain did not cease, even as night was scattered by the first daylight, imperceptible behind the thick cloud curtain. Raindrops splashed upon the slats of her roof.

Ruthenia spent the morning staring pensively at her empty desktop while the shadows of raindrops raced across it, arms lain on her desk, half-finished essays and sketches strewn and piled in every corner. The last of yesterday lingered, like an aftertaste.

It wasn’t as if she had to keep her promise to Lilin. And yet, what sort of a person would that make her, if she did not?

Again she looked up, gazing through the pounding, pelting rain outside at her boss’ house. Lilin’s survival wasn’t her business. Not unless she made it so.

---

Chapter 26: Rain and Silence

The school day closed in a reluctant rustle of paper and a clatter of pencils, but even then the rainstorm had not shown any signs of subsiding.

The discreet, miserable grey that curtained every window seemed at once impermeable and endless, and the meadows below were hopelessly swamped, not the late warm springtime they were accustomed to.

Watching the shadows lengthen and deepen to blue, nostalgia washed over Ruthenia. She almost did not notice when Ms. Vina began dusting the board, and seats began clattering and rumbling across the floor.

Awakening from her daze, she began packing her belongings away with her eyes nowhere at all, and rose to leave. At the doorway, she said a hello to Hollia, who returned it timidly.

“How's migration season going?” Ruthenia asked.

Something about her expression felt to Ruthenia like a pulling-away. But she answered, “I'm doing my best for them. I fear I may have to start skipping classes, to meet all my duties.”

“Taking a leaf from my book?” She folded her arms with a grin.

“Well...knowing you has warmed me up to the notion,” Hollia confessed.

While they wandered up the hall, their conversation meandered through the subjects of work and the weather, until they were interrupted by a call of Ruthenia's name, whose perpetrator she discovered to be Aleigh. At once Hollia began glancing back and forth between them.

"I shall—I shall leave the both of you to converse in peace!" she exclaimed, before bowing, and turning to depart.

“Hollia!” With a sigh, Ruthenia turned to Aleigh. "What is it?”

“My apologies," he answered, “but I must ask a favour of you.”

“I’m so sorry you had to resort to seeking help from me,” she replied, walking on with her bag swinging upon her hip. He followed wordlessly. “What sort of favour?”

He glanced out the arched window at the downpour, then back at her. “I’m afraid Benedice was injured today, and the palace couldn't organise a different equine in time. I'll have to ride a ferry home.”

“Oh, with all the riffraff?” She grimaced.

“They couldn't arrange to have someone pick you up?”

He shook his head. “Have a chauffeur pick ne up from school? That would be simply...embarrassing.”

“And you wouldn't hear the end of it from me,” she chuckled. “But what’s this have to do with me?”

“You have an umbrella.”

Her eyebrows arched. “I use this umbrella to fly, in case you hadn’t realised.”

“You do not use it for shelter at all?”

“Well, I do, but not when I need it to fly!”

He nodded. “I understand. Well, then, I shall have to find some other form of shelter.”

Ruthenia shook her head and sighed, lips curving at the corners. “I’ll do it if you pay me.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “What are your rates?”

She laughed. “A tenth of the royal treasury per hour, perhaps?”

“Ah, Miss Cendina, ever enterprising.”

“‘Miss Cendina’,” she snorted. “It’s been a while since you last called me that.”

“Ruthenia Cendina, most esteemed,” he replied, sweeping her a mock bow that made her giggle. “You may refuse me if you wish.”

“Oh I know,” she said. “But I don’t intend to refuse. I still owe you for the wedding.”

It felt far too easy, walking together; she forgot he was royal, though perhaps he wanted that forgotten, too. Past giggling classmates they went, until they had arrived in the lobby of the western tower.

Instead of the lift, they made for the staircase.

“Have you been to the Central Circle south station?” asked Aleigh as they descended the eighteen-floor flight.

Ruthenia shook her head. “The one over the Es Orica? I’ve seen it at a distance.”

“It’s no more than a fifteen minute walk away. Not the most impressive of stations, but it serves its function.”

As they descended to the third-lowest floor of the tower, it struck Ruthenia that she had never been in this part of the building before. Nor had many others, she realised, for the granite steps were nearly spotless beneath her shoes. Walking here felt like desecrating something holy.

They stopped at the base of the stairs at a small gate, no wider than a person. A chill breeze swept over them: the rainy afternoon whispered beyond the grilles of the gate, and a small, steep flight of stairs descended from the arched doorway, meeting the meadow where a barely-used gravel path began, meandering through the fields.

Before Ruthenia could reach around the bars to open the gate, her companion had done so. As they stepped out of the dimness ad onto the rain-wet backdoor steps, she released the catch on her umbrella and let it bloom bright orange overhead.

They made their ways down the narrow steps in single file, amid a cold breeze

Arriving on the earth at the bottom, Aleigh said, "I hope you aren’t cold."

"I believe you should be the one worrying!" she answered. "You're the one who spends all his time locked up in a tower. You’d barely survive ten minutes."

“Unfortunately, I’m not nearly as sickly as you seem to believe,” he replied.

They began down the gravel road, feet crunching on the pebbles. Ruthenia had never shared her umbrella with anyone before, and she attempted to find a compromise between sheltering her companion and not accidentally bumping into him, drifting left and right.

In the middle of the path, Aleigh came to a stop and turned to her, extending a hand. “I’ll carry it,” he said. “You're the one doing me a favour by being here.” She was momentarily surprised, then she decided it wouldn’t hurt. The umbrella changed hands.

The gravel crunched beneath their feet, the gentle patter of the rain on the umbrella punctuated sometimes by gusts and answering flushes of rain. The cold damp sent chills through her body, so she drew in under the umbrella—noticing, for the first time, the faint scent of lavender in the air surrounding them.

"Why does everything you own smell of lavender?" she muttered.

“Aligon has a preference for it,” answered Aleigh. “He insists that we have our laundry scented with the herb after washing. I did not realise it was that outstanding."

"Oh, no, no—it's not. I just—noticed." Suddenly Ruthenia wished she could burrow into the ground and never leave it. She stared at the pools in the gravel, taking care to step around them.

The station sat upon the air above them, hovering over the old southern wall of the Central Circle, its silhouette blurred by the rain. The staircase of suspended granite slabs stretched from the path to its very edge.

Coming to a stop beside the stairs, they peered up its height. “Safest staircase I’ve ever seen,” she muttered. “What happens if we fall off?”

“I would assume there are Thread nets beneath it.”

With a shrug, she  began to climb it, turning now and then to check that Aleigh was following.

Arriving under the shelter of the station drew a sigh of relief from Ruthenia. She dropped into an empty space on the closest bench and pulled her arms about herself, trembling slightly. Aleigh hesitated to seat himself, but she turned with a look of invitation, and he relented. Gusts howled across the platform while he sat down beside her. The lone fellow passenger in the station cast them a look, but neither of them heeded it.

“So, could I leave you here?” said Ruthenia, turning when he placed the umbrella in her hand. “Or do I have to baby you all the way to the palace?”

Aleigh shook his head. “This will do.” He paused. “Thank you, it was very kind of you to take the time.”

“Don't get used to it,” she answered. “Being my friend doesn't mean free favours.”

“Ah, am I your ‘friend’ now?”

“It's not as hard as you think, you know,” Ruthenia answered with a grin. “Making proper friends. And keeping them.”

He smiled, and she had the absent realisation that she liked his smile, especially with his hair catching the the late afternoon sun. “Well,” he said, “not everyone is like you. Earnest and trustworthy.”

“Alright, alright, that's enough flattery,” she muttered, nudging him away with her elbow.

“You can't take a compliment, can you?” She heard the teasing in his voice. “Well, you are also excellent company, and a delight to talk to.” When their eyes next met, she felt her heart spill over with an effervescent joy, like when metal met acid and neither could withstand the other. She laughed again, a little too loud this time.

Ruthenia’s ferry south arrived first. It came in a creak of masts, the wind-battered hull looming over the station before it began to descend, all the sails tied. She stood abruptly as the shadow swept across the platform. The ropes were thrown and the gangplank lowered, cabin doors opening on opposite ends.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she said with a wave.

“Goodbye, Ruthenia,” answered Aleigh, softer than usual.

Ruthenia left for the open ferry door, plunging into the shower without opening her umbrella. Once hurried payment had been made to the cashier under the eaves, she vanished into the cabin to escape the rain.

Once she was dry and had nothing but the wood walls and the indifference of passengers to look upon, she became aware that her face was flushed with warmth.

She pondered the storm outside the cabin, and the swamping of the fields down below. But thoughts of her classmate, of the sorrow hidden behind his gaze, kept creeping into the gaps between. They occupied her all the way to Beacon Way. Staring down at the crook of her umbrella between her knees, she gripped it tightly, right where he’d held it.

---

At last, the two-day shower ended in a glorious Thursday morning, the sky scrubbed clean of clouds so it glowed a dreamlike pale blue.

Ruthenia arrived at Tanio’s house this morning to find it empty, a seventh note of apology beside her breakfast of bread and softboiled eggs, bearing the following tip: You might want to pick up a copy of the news today. Not the Herald, something more open-minded.

With a shrug, she took two eggs and cracked them into the bowl, slurping the contents up without bothering for a spoon. Then, taking off, she flew through the spotless morning, following the Colura to the New Town. There was a newsstand on the outskirts that she could always trust to have the Eagle Eye in stock. Indeed, she plucked one copy of today's issue from the rack, dumping the three cupres' price onto the cashier's counter without a glance.

“Will you look at this git,” she muttered, opening the papers to find the inventor’s monochrome photograph grinning daftly from the bottom right corner. She turned her umbrella over for the journey home, the newspapers lain across her lap.

Today in alternative news:

Evidence of Lilin’s Awakening Recorded! Calied Co's camera provides stunning evidence of the deity’s activity

Tensions ran high yesterday, as the Calied Company’s Aperture I set off from the Centrelight Harbour on the eastern coast of Astra. The launch was not publicised by the government, but our insiders report it was a bash.

The controversial flying camera's inventor and chief operator, Titanio Calied, was fussy about the details of the launch, and a minor issue with lubrication saw launch time being pushed back by fifteen minutes.

The efforts gave bountiful returns, however. The Aperture I traversed an arc spanning twenty miles across the Deeps, two hundred feet in the air, capturing photographs of the surface every tenth of a mile. It arrived at the port after its three-hour flight with film rolls full of spectacularly clear photographs of the situation at sea.

“I’m just glad a storm didn’t start in the middle of the flight,” admitted Mr. Calied after the historic flight. “This could have gone wrong a dozen different way. Thankfully for us, our luck held.”

And thanks we should give, too, because the images captured by the Aperture I have provided the solution to a month-old puzzle. Now all that remains to be seen is how the clergy and the Kings respond to the confirmatory evidence.

There was no need for text, really, for the images spoke for themselves. Printed in the best quality the tabloid could afford, the two lone photographs claimed an entire page of the papers to themselves.

Above, a photograph of the sea surface with its many gleaming ripples, and a dark shadow smudged across its centre, beneath wave crests and reflections, the shape of a large shimmering tail. There was nothing beside it for scale, but if what the article said about its elevation was correct, then it had to be the size of a small island at least.

The other photograph featured something far more alarming: it was something white and sharp, glimmering beneath the waves. The immaculate shape of a wing. A pale white wing, black-tipped silver, neither bird nor fish.

Staring at the photograph, Ruthenia could feel and hear nothing but the sound of Lilin’s pleading. It wasn’t that she felt pity for this strange apparition, of which she’d only seen a wing and a tail. But she felt anger. Anger at all these things she’d couldn’t change in a lifetime, in ten. But what could she do to resist? The law of Ihir would always run the country—or, whatever the clergy and the kings could pass off as Ihir’s law.

Opening the door to Tanio’s house, Ruthenia flung the papers onto his coffee table, watching it skid to join the rest of the stack. She took her umbrella to the river below, but did not throw her head into it as she had before, sitting instead on the hard clay soil, soaking her feet in the breezy current as she pondered her choice.

---

Chapter 27: Full Bloom

 It was on the the twentieth of September when the first bluebell bloomed.

It was up on the peak of Calmen Ihira, where a priestess had been praying in the rain. It had been there a while, or so she surmised, for it was already laden with flowers. No one knew where it had come from, the tiny sprig of blue blossoms, heavy with raindrops. A sombre sign, or so the clergy had determined: bluebells meant disappointment, but when they bloomed in the rain they meant unfathomable loss.

“Can you believe it?” Ruthenia said over the table on the mezzanine. “The Herald thinks flowers are worth reporting on.”

“Bluebells are extraordinarily symbolic,” replied Aleigh. “My brother believes that Lilin sent it—never mind that Lilin’s influence is not known to extend this far. In any case, it is not to be dismissed lightly.”

“You’re silly,” she said, “thinking a flower’s worth that much care.”

“It is a very particular flower, and as many flowers as there are upon this island, this one demands to be taken seriously, because of the time and manner of its appearance.”

She propped her chin up. “Symbols mean a lot to you, don’t they?”

“What do you think?” There was a trace of wryness there. “I'm a symbol. And that's why some see fit to publicly smear my name.”

That evening, as the classrooms emptied and the sky turned to luminescent gold, they met again at the menagerie door, the way they had that evening two months before. He waved her into the stables before him. The sun was falling just right and the entire room was golden as they entered, warming the hay so the space smelled like Beacon Way the day after the harvest.

Amid the sound of clawing and beating wings, Ruthenia watched the creatures around her—equines with wings tucked away, roosters of riotous colours scratching in the hay.

A crane lay with its neck between the bars, lethargic in the way all caged animals tended to be. She squatted to watch it, before haltingly reaching out to scratch its head.

“You like that one?” asked Aleigh from behind her. “It's seen better days.” Benedice was beside him by now.

Ruthenia realised only ten seconds later that she was staring. She shook her head. “Ugh, I should probably head home.”

Lilin’s Bluebells? Are these flowers a symbol of Lilin’s anguish?

So read the Herald headline that afternoon. Over the next three days, the rest of the bluebells came. Their heads pricked through the earth everywhere except where the wheat and corn grew, bursting into bloom all over the island. They hung their heads in sorrow—what for, no one knew—but the kings looked upon their island of flowers and saw nothing but bad news.

---

Dispatch Force To Be Deployed: 'Photographic proof sufficient saction,' say diarchs

Eagle Eye, 26th September 491.

The Ihira clergy has ordered the death of Lilin.

Recent compelling evidence, in particular the photographs taken by the Calied Company’s Aperture I, has led authorities to conclude that Lilin, the beast of legend, is responsible for hundreds of deaths and the destruction of dozens of civilian vessels in the eastern sea.

In light of the developing emergency, the clergy voted in favour of an execution, and the Royal Diptych has issued an ultimatum to the Admiral of the Royal Navy to deploy ships to remove the ever-growing threat posed by Lilin.

Many experts have weighed in, and an overwhelming majority are in support of this decision. However, among the detractors and noncommittal parties is his Holy Grace, Archbishop Tiel himself.

“I am not inclined to agree that Lilin is a demon in the technical sense of the term. The business of the deities should not be intruded upon. But one could argue that if it is for the good of the state, of the First Nest, then it is also an act of respect to Ihir.”

Despite disagreement amongst clergy members, more than two-thirds voted in favour of the move, considering it sanctioned by Ihir—a surprising turnaround in opinion since two months ago.

---

Again. It's happening again.

It was that Saturday that, riveting the last canvas sheets onto the right wing, Tanio’s flight machine finally assumed the form that had till then existed only on paper—albeit in the man’s absence.

Sharmon announced that he had made a breakthrough in his fuel research over the recent week, but on being pressed for a date, all he offered was a shrug.

When her demands were met with more question dodging, she began to shift on her feet and felt sweat break out on her back. They weren’t working fast enough.

The stack of letters at Tanio’s door grew thick; Ruthenia knocked it over every time she arrived. His coffee table turned unruly once again, strewn with cuttings from a dozen different publications. The radio buzzed and crackled in his doorway all day and night. In the evenings, he listened with blinding intensity.

Saturday evening, she found him in the dining room slumped over his dinner, chin propped on one elbow.

“I'm tired of these press hounds,” he muttered in the dimming evening light, eyes closing while he rubbed his temple. “Politics. Work. Public scrutiny. If I end up choosing the hermit’s life and depriving the nation of my genius, they have only themselves to blame.”

“If you need anything from me, just shout.”

“Oh, Ruth, you know I will.”

He was almost always gone before she could get a proper word in. Never did Ruthenia find the chance to speak up about Lilin or the tangled plan she’d begun to formulate, even though it continued to pound in her mind, pressing on her thoughts, dulling her appetite.

She saw the busyness take its toll on her boss’ visage, darkening the rings around his eyes, furrowing his brow so the lines didn’t disappear when his face slackened.

Yet every evening for the rest of the week, she found photographs of him peppering the news—of the great Titanio Calied striking poses, or feigning deep thought as he inspected blueprints, or gazing off skyward with the light on his eyes. And every morning, his living room was empty.

---

Ruthenia intercepted Aleigh in the corridor the following Monday, separating him from the stream of traffic with a hand on his shoulder.

“Could we talk?” she said.

“What about?” he replied. They resumed their walk, entering the lobby.

“I made a commitment recently,” she said. “And it’s making me afraid, and I need an outside opinion.”

The briefest concern came over him then. “Certainly,” he said.

They slipped into the lift, where they found a comfortable space in the corner, behind everyone else. Not a word was exchanged, but when Aleigh placed his hand on the rail, his arm pressed against hers. She did her best not to notice, but let herself shuffle in closer anyway.

Up on the mezzanine, amid the whisper of a quiet downpour, he let her take her seat first.

Ruthenia spent a minute trying to find the words with which to begin. “I want to save Lilin,” she said. “I’m done watching Arcanes—watching these kings do merciless things in the name of putting on a show for the people. I’m not letting them force her—” she stopped to breathe— “to kill herself.”

She waited for the inevitable frown. He did not disappoint. “Ruthenia, how do you intend to prevent this?”

“I’ve spoken with her, in the rivers,” she said. “Lilin isn’t the monster everyone thinks she is. She can be reasoned with.” She glared at the glossy wood between them. “All she wants is to be free. The navy could free her, couldn’t they? If they can kill her, they can free her.”

“She was chained by Ihir. I do not know if freedom is a possibility for her any longer.”

“Well, there must be tools that can cut her free! Like the Glaive of Laveda, or some other holy weapon—the government could easily access those!”

His eyes narrowed, and he folded his arms on the tabletop. “What do you mean to do?”

“Look, we have what I’d say is a viable course of action. Couldn’t you convince the kings to take it?”

“I shall,” he answered. “But if that falls through, what then? I refuse to believe for a minute that you do not intend to take measures of your own. It wouldn’t be like you not to.”

“Well, I do have a plan, just a sketch one, and it involves a secret flying machine—”

“A flying machine?”

Eyes widening when she realised what she’d said, she cursed. “I mean, I suppose, yes,” she muttered, every muscle tensing. “But it isn’t complete yet, so technically it’s not illegal yet. Please...don’t report me.”

“It would be illegal regardless of its state of completion,” he said, a storm swirling in his eyes that she couldn’t make any sense of. “But I will not, because you did me the same favour three months ago, and, more importantly, because I see your point.”

A small smile lit her face. “Do you?”

“Yes, I do not think it wise to kill her. But this is not an official sanction, for my opinion is my own, and not my family’s.” His voice grew heavy. “I cannot assist you personally. But I will turn a blind eye to this operation of yours, and trust that your know the implications of what you’re proposing to do here.”

“Thank you so much.” His words made her shiver.

Instead of commencing tea as they should have, Ruthenia found herself locked in place by Aleigh’s presence, his gaze—and he by hers, it seemed.  “You worry me,” he said, simply.

She considered him, lips curving into a smile. “Why would I worry you?” she said. “Surely the Arcane Prince has better things to worry about.”

“The Arcane Prince is not all I am.” She studied him again, this boy who carried his title like a curse, and she yearned all of a sudden to dispel his sadness, if only she knew how.

---

“Ruth, do you remember the mourning doves?” Hollia said, waiting for Ruthenia to nod in vague recollection. It had been a week since they had last spoken, but the girl had called her into the seat beside her during tea break today, and she had gladly obliged. “Something’s been happening with them lately. They sing all night as if something’s dead, or dying. And the birds of paradise seem to know something’s afoot too. The swifts’ migration instincts are going haywire.”

“Is it Lilin?” Ruthenia asked absently. “Perhaps the feel her sadness.”

“Sadness?” Hollia’s brow furrowed.

Then Ruthenia remembered that no one knew of the things she had heard in the stream. She shrugged. “Maybe it’s the weather.”

“I’ve tried so long, but they still feel the sky. As if they’d never been parted from it,” Hollia said. “And still they try to flee, every year at the turn of autumn. Just as their parents did. And their parents before.”

Ruthenia folded her arms on the adjacent desk, sagging so her head rested on the tabletop. “There’s something I’ve never understood about your work,” she said. “What’s the point of nurturing bird species that can only survive in captivity? If they’re never going to return to the wild? What’s the use of a species like that?”

“I can’t say,” Hollia murmured. “It’d be silly to say I love them. And yet...I feel as if that’s really all it is. Love. Hope, maybe.” She giggled, and her eyes were red. “It’s really selfish of me. And now there are only two mourning doves left in the world, and they don’t love each other.”

Ruthenia hadn’t the heart to say that birds couldn’t love, and that her work would never be worth the while—because what was the point of saying so?

She would graduate someday from the Central Circle School, with a certificate that she would never use. While everyone else flew off to chase their aspirations, sweet Hollia Canavere would inherit the aviary, and she would tend it for the rest of her life.

Just as her parents had, and their parents had before. It had already been decided.

*

There was a long and quiet pause. The rain thundered in the corridor outside.

“Ruth, I’m sorry,” whispered Hollia, bowing away. “I’m sorry we haven’t talked in so long. I’m sorry their opinions matter to me.”

Ruthenia could not be angry if she tried. She could see it was tearing her friend in two, and she could barely stand it. “No, no, that’s fine,” she answered, patting Hollia’s arm. “I get it. I’m used to it. I’m like a disease, you catch it if you stay too close to me.”

“No,” Hollia replied. “You’re more like fire.”

“I burn people alive?”

“No one can ignore you. And they’re afraid of you, they all are.”

---

“I told him,” Aleigh said. The corridor was empty on either side of them. His voice echoed both ways. “I said to him everything you told me, about Lilin’s imprisonment, and releasing her—”

“And?”

Ruthenia didn’t have to hear his answer to know how Aligon had responded.

“He refuses to believe anything you’ve said. He thinks you’re liable to believe whatever suits you.” When she bared her teeth to growl, he shook his head. “I think I understand. The people are restless and afraid. The clergy claims it is the only way. They won’t settle for her freedom; they want closure. They want to see her dead.”

“So you’re going to kill an innocent to please them? This isn’t one of your novels, Aleigh. People shouldn’t do things for poetic justice.”

“You don’t understand,” he replied, frown deepening. He fixed her with the most frightening gaze she’d ever seen on him, and suddenly she could not speak. “Ruthenia, not every action is a matter of doing good. Your choices do not exist in isolation. They pave routes to futures, not only your own but also those of everyone around you. Not everything a leader does in interest of maximising benefit will appear kind, initially. Aligon knows this, and he does not pander without cause. He has far-reaching plans, plans that he cannot implement in full if he loses the throne at the next election.”

She folded her arms defensively. “Now isn’t the time to be a bloody prick,” she growled. “I’m not stupid. I know grave wrong when I see it.”

“No, you are blinded by your own personal entanglements. You’re angry at something you should not be. You’re projecting your own grudges onto something that has nothing to do with them.”

“Shut up! I suppose I only have myself to trust, then!” she snarled. “And if that’s all I have, then that’s what I’ll use! I’ll steal that damned Glaive, and I’ll cut her free myself. The admiral and his damn Royal Navy can go rot.”

“And is that likely to work at all?” asked Aleigh with an increasingly fearsome glare. “You, riding a flying machine, to face a fleet of warships and a Lower Empire deity?”

“And you can go rot too!” Ruthenia yelled. “I was always wrong to trust someone else to help me! I just can’t watch this happen; am I the only person who sees it? The kings keep killing at the clergy’s orders, and I’ve had enough of it!” She didn’t stop the tears when they came, rolling from her eyes every time she blinked, salty on her lips. She let her voice break. “I’ve had enough of standing aside and watching!”

“Why do you care for Lilin more than you care for Astra?”

“I care about this nation not being built upon the blood of innocents, and I care about not letting this fat pig of a diarch keep doing what every single bleeding monarch has been doing for—”

“Quiet!” She flinched. “Would you say you know more about ruling a country than he? Do you think it’s a simple matter of right and wrong?”

In all her months knowing him, Ruthenia had never seen his iciness shatter so emphatically.

“You think yourself everyone’s judge. It’s so—easy to make unreasonable demands when you’re not in the seat, so easy to think you could do better. You know nothing about running a nation. You know nothing of the paranoia and frustration I must watch consume my brother every other evening. Stop imposing your petty griefs upon us!”

She balled up her fists, but had just enough restraint not to strike. “And I don’t care if the monarchs promise that it’s all for the greater good, not when it hurts, when it hurts in ways you’ll never understand!”

He drew away, stunned. She longed suddenly to slip into the shadows. He was trying to catch his breath.

For a dizzying moment she felt completely alone in the universe.

“I’m sorry, Ruth, that wasn’t fair of me,” he murmured, then. “It is not my place to tell you what you should believe. But I simply cannot endorse your throwing yourself in the government’s path, not officially, and I cannot take any actions to assist you.”

Pulling her arms around herself, she nodded. “No, I understand. You have priorities.”

“You are my priority.”

Ruthenia drew in a sharp breath, and waited for words to come to her, but there were none. They glanced away at the same time.

“And I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to lose a rein on myself. I want to believe it too.”

He sighed. “I’d do more, if it were in my power,” he said.

“But you have power,” Ruthenia muttered, attempting to smile. “So much more power than I do, Your Highness.”

The Arcane Prince shook his head. “Do you realise that you’re more powerful than I have ever been?” he answered, in a manner that wasn’t anything but absolutely sincere. “My title is nice to show at formal occasions—but really it is no more than a cage. I’m nothing but a canary, singing to please the people. You’re beyond all that, the eagle to the canary almost, soaring beyond these cages and walls.”

Ruthenia’s stare grew blank. Suddenly, standing here in her unpressed clothes, hair unruly, one shoe unlaced, she felt so small. She wished she were that grand. Then, for all her dirt and commonness, she might know what to do now. But she was just a schoolgirl who sometimes had honey milkshakes and forgot her homework, and she didn’t know.

Had Arla Orpane felt so? Velo Quis? What was it like, to make these decisions every day?

Noticing that Aleigh was still awaiting an answer, Ruthenia shrugged. “Don’t call yourself a canary,” she muttered, a smile tweaking at her lips. “Swans can be fearsome when they want to be.”

He shook his head. “I’d never do half of the things you could,” he said. “Being brave is power in itself.”

“Well, that sort of power comes hard,” she replied. “Some people have it thrown into their laps like bouquets of flowers, and then they spend it all shying away from it.” She gave him a meaningful look. “You really should enjoy your power and privilege, Your Highness, Arcane Prince of Astra. Do something with it.”

He touched her wrist, and let his hand linger, fingers trailing across her skin. That gesture would normally have meant little. But she had learned that everything Aleigh Luzerno did held volumes of meaning. “A title is only an ornament unless graced by the people’s trust,” he said.

“I trust you,” Ruthenia answered with a grin. “But I'll have you know you’re still stupid sometimes.”

“And I shall not say you are wrong in thinking so.” The silence was broken by the snick of the elevator doors.

He stepped away and busied himself with departing. Ruthenia watched him go, laughing sadly.

---

“I have been in contact with Derron. He wonders if you will join. The others have.”

Her throat felt tight. When do we pass the point of no return?

I would, if I weren’t occupied with my own plans.

“Certainly.”

I’m guessing you can’t tell me more because of the filographers?

“Correct.

Hyder misses you.”

Of course he does. Don’t tell him I said this, but he was the only good friend I had with that bunch.

“But not good enough to be a lover, it seems.”

When I was twelve, that was all I wanted. I’m glad I no longer do.

“Oh, you heartless child.” 

---

Chapter 28: Helika's Light

Ruthenia stuffed the half-crumpled Geography essays deep into her bag and strode out of the classroom—and straight into Aleigh.

She halted. By now she was familiar with the experience of encountering him without warning, and with the curious gladness that accompanied it. “Yes?”

There was a moment of stunned staring. “I’d like to visit that milkshake stand again today,” he finally replied, “if you do not mind squandering the time that way.”

“What about your schedules?”

“I am unoccupied for the evening. And I brought some argents this time.”

Ruthenia barely felt the weight of her bag as she walked, savouring the afternoon still with deep breaths. Already the air smelled of summer, and the sky was proud blue, peppered with pale clouds.

“Why the sudden invitation?” asked Ruthenia while they walked.

Aleigh did not give an answer for almost a minute. “I have no reason,” he answered. A throng of students scuttled past them, offering greetings and bows to the Arcane Prince, but also whispering between themselves, laughingly, when they saw the girl with him.

“Well, there’s no need for a reason,” she answered, unable to help beaming. “Do you actually like the milkshake there?”

“I like the quiet,” he said, pausing to unbuckle the gold clasps on his briefcase upon a windowsill. From inside it he produced a book, one of those she’d seen him reading at the cafeteria table recently.

“What’s that?” Ruthenia murmured.

This book was a paperback. “It’s one of my favourite books, actually,” he answered absently, riffling its pages. “Heaven’s Gaps."

“What kind?”

Fingers going still, he peered down at the page he’d caught, squinting a little in the dim light near the stables. “A historical tragedy, and a sublimely beautiful one. Not that I expect that to matter to you.”

“I’d sooner read the driest Physics textbook, believe me,” she answered, reaching over to snatch it nevertheless.

A brief flip revealed some fragments of plot and setting—something about gates and ponds in a pristine compound, and main characters being extremely intimate with each other.

“Another romance thing?” she muttered, yanking the briefcase out of his hands and stuffing the book back in for him, enjoying the smoothness of the dark leather under her fingertips. “I thought that was the sort of thing girls liked. Pretty places and star-crossed love and all.”

“I do not think books are inherently gendered."

Into the stables he disappeared, then, without excusing himself. When he returned, Benedice followed, nuzzling Ruthenia’s shoulder though she hadn’t asked for it. She scrubbed at his muzzle, only to be rewarded with an ear-lick. “Hey!” she exclaimed at the snort of horse breath against her neck, the scent of chewed hay. “Is your horse trying to eat me?”

Aleigh smiled. “He’s grown fond of you,” he answered, a hand at the shoulder prying her away from the equine. Swearing vengeance at it, she wiped her ear on her right sleeve.

Both emerged at the top of the steps at the archway to the sky; with a leap Aleigh mounted the white winged steed and slid the briefcase into the saddlebag. With a single rein-flick, Benedice had cantered into the air.

Ruthenia followed them into the airspace north of the school, far less showily. They flew in a straight line towards the stand at the aerial crossroads, the wind whirling around them.

The milkshake lady with her brown windswept curls seemed particularly pleased to see them here today. She greeted them cheerily, and would not avert her gaze as they placed their orders—honey milkshake for Ruthenia as usual, and a boring plain milkshake for the Arcane Prince.

“Quite a good day for a drink, isn’t it?” commented Ruthenia between gulps, eyes fixing themselves to the sky.

“Judging by the past days, one cannot really tell,” answered Aleigh, sipping meditatively.

She leant against the counter, facing the pinking sky and the fields below, sparse tracks and roads scouring undulating lines through the green.

“I really hope all this business with the storms ends well,” she said, brow furrowing. She couldn’t quite discuss her true sentiments in front of an outsider. “Astra’s too good a place to lose to a disaster.”

He nodded, glancing in her direction. “It’s just a pity fate can’t afford rehearsals. If this fleet fails, then you can be sure Hazen won’t let them send another one, whether or not my brother would.”

“Do you think they can really kill her?”

“They intend to make use of the Glaive of Laveda, and as many explosive as the nation can afford. If the ancient writings hold true, then Lilin’s body is formed of pure ethereal will, drawing matter together. Once they have broken her will down, she will cease to exist.”

The words troubled Ruthenia enough that she could not respond. For a while, they drank in the warm silence instead. She took another hearty swig of the drink to clear her mind.

Amid the distant rustle of grass and the chirps of crickets, Aleigh sighed softly. “Ruthenia,” he said. She acknowledged it with a tilt of her head. “I'm well aware that my words have done nothing to deter you from following through with your plans, but I must take it upon myself to remind you that it would be rather rude of you to plunge straight into your death without a thought for your friends.”

"How sweet of you to care!" she sang. “Are you one of those friends?”

He frowned. “As brother of the Arcane diarch, it is my duty to ensure the safety of every Astran. The loss of a citizen is impossible to compensate.”

Ruthenia threw back her head and laughed. “The government has more reasons to throw me out than to save me,” she said. She tipped the remains of her honey milkshake between her lips, and returned the empty cup to the counter.

“That is quite true,” said Aleigh with a drop of amusement, “but yes, I am one of those friends, and I will ask that you keep yourself safe anyway.”

Those words awakened an awkward spur of fondness in her, which she struggled to rein. How could she hate someone like that?

“Don’t you worry, I’ll try my very best,” she said, folding her arms.

Aleigh took his time to finish his drink. He returned the cup without so much as a sound—placing it on counter-top as if afraid to damage it. “I thank you for your company,” he said, then paused. “I have been meaning to ask you this: how does it feel to be associated with me?”

Ruthenia shrugged. “You seem to think very highly of your reputation,” she muttered. “Well, people do look at me different. And a lot of them seem to think we’re going to—to get married or something.”

He raised an eyebrow. It was impossible to tell if he liked the proposition or not. “And you? How do you feel about it?”

“About getting married?”

“Oh—no, no, about acquaintanceship with the Arcane Prince. Myself, I mean.”

She felt herself go hot in the face, and attempted to obscure her embarrassment by turning away. Behind them, the shopkeeper laughed. “I’d like to say I don’t care for acquaintanceship with royals,” she answered. “But I don’t really think of you as one of them any longer. It just stopped mattering at some point. I appreciate that we became friends, and that is that.”

"A flattering assessment."

"You've done a lot more for me than you need have."

He shook his head. "I owed it to you."

"I thought the debt was cleared!"

"It will never be cleared, not as long as my conscience won't allow it."

She laughed. "You sure are attached to the idea!" she said. "It's almost as if you want an excuse to help me as much as you please."

He smiled back and looked off. "Perhaps I do." By now she could barely help but notice that they were standing close enough that it would have been easy for her to reach out and take his hand, or even lean in close enough to sink against him and steal all his warmth for herself.

Once the idea had crossed her, she found herself battling the urge with every glance they exchanged. Ihir, stop it! You can’t go around thinking about the Arcane Prince of Astra like that.

A long rumble shook the platform, accompanied by a frigid breeze, startling Ruthenia out of her daze. Clouds had thickened all across the sky.

“Storm’s coming!” she exclaimed, glad for the distraction, lifting her umbrella and struggling to Weave it into place. Aleigh needed no warning to leap up onto Benedice’s stirrup and swing himself into the saddle. Behind them, battered by wind and gathering her cups, the shop lady was getting ready for temporary closure.

“Please take care, your Highness!” exclaimed the shop owner.

She pouted, but there wasn’t much time to get steamed over not being greeted. Almost as soon, they were hurtling towards the closest gate, the wind tossing all around them, Benedice's wings beating almost uselessly against the stormy gale. But Aleigh's flight trouble was nothing next to Ruthenia's: she tipped and swerved, and however much speed she put into her flight, she could not stay on her path. Even as they flew, lightning streaked in the distance and more thunder boomed overhead, so near it rattled her.

The rain caught them both before they’d entered gate 35. It came down in cold spikes, soaking Ruthenia through. Looking thoroughly panicked, Aleigh flicked Benedice’s reins with a jangle of rings and shot forth into the gate. With a cry, Ruthenia plummeted towards the mouth, all shivering, the sky roaring up, grey and white and misty.

She sighed as she came up level with Benedice in a convulsion of shivers. The cold of rain-flecked wind bore them on, spots of tumult battering them about. The rush of water resonated around them. They were the lone fliers along the entire length of the tunnel.

“It will be soon,” said Aleigh over the wind. “Five warships are being prepared in the harbour. I hear it’s only two weeks until the fleet is ready to sail.”

“I’m not afraid,” she repeated.

Gate 28 of the West Wind Tunnel flew into view amidst the glow of Thread lights, and Ruthenia slowed down as the opening approached, drifting closer to the Tunnel’s edge.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Aleigh called out as their flights diverged.

“I’ll see you too,” she answered, but by then he had disappeared at the near bend of the West Wind Tunnel. She stared on down the great curving tunnel, suddenly wanting him back.

She flew on homeward with a sigh. Of course, rather than ponder over all the whirling, snarling dilemmas in her mind that demanded to be thought upon, Ruthenia began to think about Aleigh again.

She flew slowly, and wondered about him all the way home, about the things he’d said about the future, about his desire to become a secretary for an administrative organisation and to live ordinarily.

And she wondered if she could aid him towards that because, as little sense as it made, she wanted to matter to him in some way.

Maybe he’d be the official to sign her arrest warrant, or to offer her the title of Honourable Lady, or to exile her permanently from the Diarchy of Astra. It’d be nice, in any sense, to know he knew she existed, and would always bear that weight upon him.

Growing conscious of these thoughts, Ruthenia shook her head.

Don't be silly. It won't happen like that. We're just friends in passing.

I don't want us to be friends in passing. I don't want this to be a mere business relation. A political strategy. I want us to trade unconditionally. I want us to send armies to war for each other.

Ruthenia could hardly stomach more than a mouthful of dinner that evening.

The night was mercifully still, not a breeze stirring the curtains. Across the oval table, Tanio ate calmly, looking quite content with himself, exhaustion lingering in the lines on his face. Normally they'd be arguing over something inconsequential. But tonight she couldn’t find the words with which to begin.

“You look unwell,” he was quick to say, abandoning his dinner. She stared intently at her food. “Or uninterested, I should say, in everything but that which is in your mind.” He smirked. “Lovesickness?"

“Stuff your mouth with something. Like that burnt chicken, maybe."

Dinner was the last of his concerns by now. “Then out with it," he muttered. "As your legal guardian I am very interested to know what’s upsetting you.”

"No, I’m fine, stop making up stupid stories in your head," she growled.

Tanio paused, tapping his chin while his eyebrows gradually rose. “Well, in your defence, hundreds have probably found themselves in your position before. And most can't claim to know him personally.”

“I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about!” Growling, she tipped the bowl and slurped up the rest of the noodles up, meat and all.

“It’s alright, Ruth, let yourself feel what you do!”

Heaving a huge sigh, Ruthenia stood up, kicked her chair away, and picked her empty bowl up. Then she’d vanished into the kitchen, where Tanio hadn’t turned the lights on. She knew the place by heart anyway.

She dumped the bowl into the empty basin and peered out through the deep black window. She saw faint pale patches below: the near-invisible shimmer of an ocean of wheat, and a faraway glitter of lights. Helika’s lights.

The air was suddenly cold, and a shiver rippled across her skin, bringing a pang of wanting.

Which of these is the light in your window?

She snapped her gaze from the distant glow and growled. “Stupid Arcane boy,” she muttered, covering her eyes with a hand. “Ihir, I don’t want to think about you.”

---

Chapter 29: Summer

The sky had begun to wake earlier than ever. Ruthenia muttered a curse in Ihir's name when she rolled off her hammock and checked her watch to find it was six-thirty in the morning.

She glanced outside. The light was softened by a thickening cloud layer, and a moment of silence made her realise that a soft drizzle was ongoing.

In her bleariness, she noticed a glow of blue on her desktop, and stumbled across the room, checking her screen, across which something was scrawled.

"Does your schedule this weekend bear room for an excursion?"

Ruthenia traced the loops of Aleigh's cursive blankly.

Saturday afternoon, but whatever for?

She gathered herself in a deep breath and let the message go.

The response arrived a minute later.

“Information. I reckon you’ll need an insider’s help.”

For a minute more she stared at the screen.

Where and when do you plan to meet me?

“Helika Plaza, Saturday, at four thirty.”

I will be there. Please don't make me search for you again.

The morning was well-squandered at Eldon’s mansion. He seemed surprised—but not confused—at her arrival, and did not question her unannounced appearance, leading her into the basement where he left her to her own devices.

There, she laid her notebook—the culmination of two months’ planning—on the ground, and began to remodel the engine of the flying machine, undoing weeks of work. She dismantled it into components, and began to reorganise them into a form far more condensed.

She went to test the runway hatch with a great yank of the lever, watching the great slab of steel creak to reveal the garden, inviting a breeze and the swish of thin rain. Rivulets of rain flowed down the ramp and into the gaps.

Though she clocked in at six hours of work, the engine was not ready to be hooked up to the gears even then.

The looming of school hours barged in on her building session. Noting the half-hour left till the start of lessons, and noting also the half-hour it'd take to get there, Ruthenia groaned and began kicking tools under the curve of the hull.

"Just a little longer," she murmured over the dashboard, a glittering collage of steel and brass and glass. She pressed a hand against the nobbles of the rivets.

Just a week now. Her eyes hung onto that gaping cavern beneath the bonnet.

Now all that was left was the last link in the chain: Sharmon.

***

It rained through the whole of the next day, and the day after, and when Ruthenia arrived half-wet on the landing platform, the sky was an endless thick grey pudding of clouds.

She thought it seemed vaguely sad, the way it murmured on the school’s windowsills, no longer furious or cruel. The fields were bluer than they were green, for the divine bluebells were on every knoll, a soundless dirge that resonated across the countryside. When she peered out the classroom window in the afternoon, she thought she saw the shapes of swans in the clouds, pale wings sprawling through the grey.

She waited for a fragment of blue—Astra’s sky blue—to show. But all there was was grey, and the cloud-swans filling the sky, and their tears flooded the drains and canals of the cities—Helika and the New Town alike.

Excusing herself from classes at break time, she detoured to the Destra Block in Swan’s Cross. The building, a top-shaped tangle of roofs and balustrades, was a collection of hundreds of shop units, tacked onto others in every direction. It was impossible to miss when one was passing Swan’s Cross.

She landed on the deck of a north-side shop painted creamy pink, five from the bottom named Illume Paints and Pigments researcher office. The wind battered her, and she peered down at glowing windows all along the surface of the block, hooking her umbrella to her shoulder. Platforms with black rails outlined every deck and balcony, doors opening and closing intermittently as customers and clients came and went, inviting the glows of lamps, both gas and Thread in swinging iron cages, through.

It was a cold and unassuming interior, and made no effort to seem welcoming except with its carpeted blue floor. A balding receptionist sat in the immediate room, his desk beside a polished door, filing his nails into a rubbish box.

Ruthenia strode up to the table and explained the cause of her visit. After a small argument over the fact that she had not written in prior to the visit, he shot her a disapproving look, but as his job entailed, did not reprimand the customer. The lack of a queue meant that he waved her immediately towards the door.

She found Sharmon rinsing his hands in a paint-spattered sink. The broad man seemed squandered on the narrow space, his hands a finger’s reach from every stained bottle of reagent in the room.

He turned at the sound of her entrance, grinning when he caught sight of her. “Oh, what are you doing here?” he said, patting his hands dry on his coat.

“How’s the fuel coming along?” she replied.

Sharmon cast a glance at a section of the bench that bore flasks and tubes of conspicuously colourless liquids. “It’s...coming along.”

“Will it be ready by next week?”

“Whoa, Ruth, why the hurry!” he exclaimed, moving to tidy up the glass apparatus in that portion of the bench. “We’re not flying that beast until testing is done. You’d have said as much!”

She folded her arms. “No, I—I meant to ask if I could borrow some for another side project of mine,” she replied, watching Sharmon’s face to gauge his response. “I need an incredible amount of horsepower.”

“Well...I do have some poorer versions of the fuel,” he replied. “Fifty percent purity at the very most, but I’m sure you could make do?”

She extended a hand. “That’s good enough, thank you.”

He shielded her from the glass with his body. “Oh, no, you’re not carrying this home with you on that umbrella of yours. I’ll have it delivered.”

“No, deliver it to Eldon,” she said, turning to leave. “And deliver it as soon as you can.”

***

When they had found their seats in the cafeteria the following afternoon, Aleigh was not reading. There was something of a serene dread in his eyes, and she did not have to ask what it was he feared.

He laid a hand on the tabletop. "I'm afraid preemptive goodbyes must be said soon,” he said. “I might actually miss you."

"I’m not going to die," she said. “I didn’t know you were even capable of missing people.”

"I am afraid to," he replied, turning to gaze over the fields. "It doesn't do for a person of my position to grow invested in another's existence."

She smiled oddly. "Well, nothing wrong with missing a friend." Everything in her screamed to be released. To live untethered, even though she had been tethered all her life, and had never questioned it.

He shook his head. “Please be sure to keep our appointment,” he replied. “After that, you may do whatever you please, much as it will sadden me.”

“Don’t be,” she whispered, but she heard the dread hanging upon the words. She knew he was afraid of loneliness, but she didn’t think it was in her power to help him out of it any longer. “I’m not worth mourning.”

"I shall, anyway," he replied. “You have given me more than I ever thought a single person could.”

She shook her head, smiling nevertheless. "I've barely done anything."

***

The sun still lay shrouded in blankets of grey, through evening to the next day. The entire land was blue. Blue and grey. Astra awaited its verdict in the rain, the seas churning against its rocky cliffs from all sides.

In the cold of the afternoon, Hollia stopped Ruthenia at the door, with no more than a hand on her wrist. Her face was contorted with fear, her golden hair just a little stragglier than usual, her glowing joy just a little fragmented.

The floor was grey around them, every chair empty, every ray of light captured in a thousand flecks of glitter.

“The doves aren’t themselves,” she said. “They peck at the netting as if trying to break the wires. They won’t do anything else, not even eat. I don’t understand, it’s never happened before—it’s almost as if they were trying to flee—“

Ruthenia frowned. “What if that’s what they want?”

Hollia’s face fell, and Ruthenia felt her own heart sink. “I...I don’t know,” she said. “They’re the last pair in the world, Ruth. I can’t—I can’t just let them go.”

She could feel the air shifting, the Threads swinging and rearranging around them. She knew the ships were waiting in the harbour, their every cannon loaded, and Lilin was waiting for a reprieve that would never come.

Knowing she might never live past next week should have held her fast, frozen her rigid—but somehow knowing she would expend all the meaning of her life in a short few days, like a firework exploding, made her feel freer than ever.

“To keep them trapped is to keep them safe, isn’t it?”

Ruthenia caught the girl in an impromptu embrace about the shoulders. “They’ll be fine, Hollia.” She nodded against her shoulder, small sobs shaking her.

***

She submerged herself in fragments and pieces of stories, exchanged in black and white.

All the nation was restless. They knew something was about to happen, something that would rend the nation or transform it eternally.

She is every sort of taint, a creature that Astra should condemn, the prime symbol of divine treason and denial of Ihir’s holy Good.

Ruthenia felt the cold creep into her hands while she lowered the papers to stare at the ceiling. Strange, how they’d changed their tune so quickly.

Weeks of research have been conducted into Lilin’s behaviours and patterns of activity, and five warships will be launched at seven o’clock on the Twelfth of October, and strike at eight in the night, when Lilin begins her sleep.

Hired hunter Leon Alemer will enter Lilin with the Glaive of Laveda and shred her heart. This will be no easy feat, and we ask that you send this future hero your blessings.

“You’re no hero,” she growled. No one heard.

The low-lying regions of the New Town are experiencing the worst flooding yet. Yesterday afternoon, the River Colura overflowed and broke its banks, swamping the basin west of Calmen Ihira, capsizing boats and taking three lives.

The total damages caused are calculated to value over two hundred thousand aurs: an amount that residents are expected to have trouble recuperating. Many call it a well-deserved “cleansing” of the streets.

She clenched her teeth but every bone in her body ached. “You don’t care, you Arcanes don’t care,” she muttered, a chant, that heated the blood in her veins. Soon she’d show them just how wrong they could be.

But when she turned the page, her insides turned to ice.

Slush Funds And Illegal Dealings Discovered: Royal family secretary Eldon Legars has been funding illegal project in secret

“Eldon,” she whispered. “Eldon?”

And her breath quickened to a pant. Throwing the newspapers onto the couch, she rose, eyes darting about in the living room for Tanio.

“Tanio—Tanio! Master Tanio!” She felt numbness bloom all over her, like poison as it started its attack. The world grew soft and muffled in her ears when she squeezed her eyes shut. Again she retrieved the papers from the couch. Blinked with camera-shutter rapidness.

The words were still the same, bold and unmoving.

In the latest development of the war on heretics, anonymous persons who suspected Mr. Eldon Legars of criminal activity tipped the police on the matter, leading up to what was one of the most shocking discoveries concerning sacrilege since the Purging itself.

Investigations revealed that Mr. Legars, ex-secretary of the royal families, has been paying multiple steel factories with funds he previously claimed to have set aside for “miscellaneous property development projects“.

Further investigation revealed unsigned blueprints for a machine, its purpose clearly marked: flight.

On interrogation, Mr. Legars refused to reveal the location of the actual machine or the identities of collaborators. He will face a minimum of three years’ jail sentence, on top of twenty years’ house arrest.

Mr. Legars has been placed in police custody while further investigations are carried out regarding the matter.

If charged, all offenders may be sentenced to at least twenty years of house arrest. The absence of a physical machine precludes a harsher sentence.

Ruthenia could neither eat nor talk for the rest of the evening. The thought of food alone made her sick to the stomach.

Tanio was hardly doing better. They stared soundlessly across the dining table, the wavering electric light making his eyes seem sunken with age, cavernous almost.

Ruthenia’s only attempt at conversation came as a croak—the words withered in her lungs. Every breath hissed, catching in her throat. No words crossed the table.

Their food went cold between them. Her boss wordlessly swept half his plate into the scrap heap.

Late in the night, where the silence went on unbroken and the stars barely breathed through the clouds that smothered them, Ruthenia finally did speak.

She said “good night” to Tanio. He returned the greeting simply, shallowly, and his voice was not its usual drawl, nor even a shadow of it.

Tonight she was afraid of the dark again. She was afraid of the things that hid in it. She was afraid of the eyes watching from the corners.

Restless, burning and shivering, Ruthenia locked herself into Tanio’s guest room and snuggled into the cold blankets, pulling them close, turning them warm. Blood stormed in her head as she struggled to keep her eyes shut.

The sun woke Ruthenia near ten o’clock on Friday morning. The rain had begun to murmur three hours past midnight, but she had barely felt the cool.

She could hear every second that passed; it boomed, like thunder, sweeping over the miles, heralding the storm about to come.

It seems, Lilin, she thought sadly, resting fingers on the misted glass pane of the guest room, we are soon to be in the same predicament.

You will forgive your father, won’t you? I can’t forgive him. He killed my parents and now he’s imprisoning me for the rest of our lives. Us both. We’re both his prisoners.

There was no message cancelling this Saturday’s building session—wise, of course, since any message now would as good as reveal them to the Royal Birds.

Saturday, as Ruthenia recalled, was also to be the day she’d meet Aleigh. She could still go, she supposed, as long as they had yet to be discovered. Perhaps they would not be, and all this panic was for naught. And, Ihir, she wanted to see him at least once before it all happened. But what use was information, now?

Perhaps she could flee, and finish what she’d planned. What did it matter if she added another crime to her list? She could fly to save Lilin, or die trying. It’d be prison after that, but better prison for being brave than prison for an unfinished project.

Ruthenia glanced up at her window, on which the rain pattered.

Four months, five months ago, she might not have understood, but now she knew the world was a cage. Someday soon, he would have no choice but to denounce all connections with her. Someday soon, they would hold their last conversation.

And her street friends would have to avoid her abode, if they cared to maintain their own freedom. Hollia would find new friends without her. Her classmates would spit every time they heard her name.

After all, that was life, wasn’t it? Thenal’s theories of selfishness and survival?

While the rain pelted quietly outside, a solemn prayerful whisper, the weight of this loneliness that she’d spent her life ignoring suddenly felt like a hundred feet of dark water, roaring to crush her.

“Stupid animal!” she shouted at the sky outside, voice breaking on the second word. “Stop it! Stop taking things from me!” She snatched handfuls of paper from her desktop and flung them at the floor, all crumpled. When at last all her belongings were on the floorboards, she threw her head on her desk to blind herself to everything.

***

The teachers might have thought it strange that Ruthenia was being more agreeable today than she had been for the rest of the year. Beside the looming lifetime-imprisonment sentence, school seemed like paradise.

The windows were so blue and so wide, and from here she could see the towers and ferries of the Central Circle, the columns of smoke and the gilded roofs of opera houses that she’d never visit.

She stopped by Hollia’s desk when she came, and smiled down at her without explanation.

The usual chatter died when Ms. Ariera entered. It was life as it had always been, and always would be—even though the sky broke with rain every hour, and the New Town was flooding over, and she was waiting to be arrested.

That sort of thinking could wait for another time. Break had begun, and she waited at the doorway, arms folded, eyes on the right side of the classroom.

A cold silence held Ruthenia and Aleigh prisoner as they walked down the corridor, in which Ruthenia drew inward, trying to keep a million words inside her.

It was Aleigh who broke it. “I heard about our secretary…” he began, before the words fizzled out.

Ruthenia’s eyes clung resolutely to the light of the lobby far ahead. “I know,” she replied. “If they find any mention of me, or of Tanio, then—”

“The investigations will be carried out tomorrow evening,” he replied, grave but urgent. “You will be fine till then, but I’m not sure about Monday, after the paperwork is completed.”

Fear burned in his green eyes, the same fear she was fighting so hard to rein in. Ruthenia grinned, and hit his arm with the back of her hand. “Come on, it’s not as if they’ll execute me or anything, I’ll still be alive,” she said.

“You do know what this means for the two of us, though, do you not?”

She nodded, lips pursed. An ache was welling up inside her head. It demanded to be felt, to be seen.

“We are—we are still meeting tomorrow, aren’t we?” he said, then. “Will you still be needing information, seeing that—”

She smiled. Poor boy, where had his eloquence gone? “I could still escape,” she said. “No—I will. I have to. If it comes to that.”

People hurried about them, deep in their own conversations. Just an ordinary day. Rain breezing outside, muffled by the sound within the hall. Bluebells opening their flowers.

They pulled themselves into a corner of the lift, as always, and she bowed her head because she could feel her eyes beginning to sting. Moments later, she felt him take her hand, and when she turned in surprise, his gaze conveyed sadness and consolation and something. She found it in herself to smile, and to sidle in closer, although the warmth only reminded her of the cold that was to come.

“Hey,” came an unfamiliar voice inside the lift. “When are the both of you getting married?”

Ruthenia glanced about as spontaneous laughter broke out from the rest.

“When he stops being an idiot,” she snapped, which stirred up even more laughter. The crowd left laughing at the bottom level.

"Is that so?" he asked along the corridor outside.

"Is what so?"

"That if I stop being an idiot—"

"It was just a joke," she replied, turning the other way. "You're no idiot."

In a week, all this warmth would have vanished. She did not want it to. She didn’t want to lose the one person who needed her as much as she needed him.

Conversation during tea was sparse. They watched each other while they ate, and neither gaze wavered.

***

Tanio’s study glowed, the Friday evening sun cooled by the fey of clouds boding another fall of rain. Ruthenia didn’t investigate, nor did she grow alarmed when he didn’t come to join her for dinner.

The gloom grew tighter about the house, and Ruthenia tried to focus on her plans. Tried to tidy up the routes she’d been drawing in her mind.

At nine o’clock that evening, before she turned in for sleep, Ruthenia’s messenger lit up unexpectedly.

“I convinced them to move the investigation to Sunday. Hopefully you find the extra day valuable.”

Ruthenia grinned through tears, unsure of why it touched her so. He really was the greatest idiot, helping someone he would lose within a week.

Then she picked up the pen, and began a new conversation, the one that would decide whether she fell or flew.

Reida? Could you do me a really big favour?

---

Chapter 30: Limina

“Tanio,” said Ruthenia.

Titanio Calied glanced at the doorway where the newcomer stood.

He wouldn’t have noticed her entrance otherwise. In the grey of the rainy morning, he had been staring so intently into the pages of the Morning Herald that he wouldn’t have noticed if a naga had smashed a hole straight through the floor. “Are you worrying?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” he answered with an ashen, smirk-like grin.

Ruthenia nodded blankly. His eyes were ringed with black, like soot, and he was dishevelled, his coffee table the sort of hurricane-swept mess he’d once waged war against.

“Well, we knew the risk when we started,” she said, then sighed when it darkened his expression. “Never mind our high hopes; they’re gone now. You’ve got two days of freedom left. Don’t waste them in here.”

He only stared at her like she was crazy. Shaking her head, she left the sullen inventor.

Some rummaging in the kitchen revealed that her employer hadn’t restocked the pantry since they’d run out yesterday. Bloody dung-heap, so busy sulking around that he’d forgotten they still needed to stay alive. She munched on stiff bread and gulped the old milk down, glad it hadn’t turned sour at least. Very soon, sour milk would be the least of her problems.

Mounting her umbrella in the drizzly wind out on her boss’ porch, Ruthenia leapt and flew through the light rain like a sparrow. The fields of wheat sprawled out beneath her. Her heart raced when the wind twisted her flight into drops and swerves, and sometimes she even tipped, the way Ms. Decanda had taught them three months ago.

At the time, watching the woman tip had struck such horror into her that she’d decided, before she’d tried, that it would be impossible. Yet now, now that she knew she might never fly again, Ruthenia flew like it was the thing she loved most in the world.

She flew like a madwoman, tasting the wind and the drizzle, all this fear and pain scattering like snowflakes, until grey Helika Plaza with its four-swan fountain came into view.

It seemed the weather had scared even the most eager of the customers away. The wet black lampposts with their iron curlicues seemed almost alien without pedestrians leaning against them, smoking cigarettes and breathing swirls of smoke into the air.

All the pedestrians stood in the shelter of the ambulatory that passed in front of the shops of the plaza, warming their hands in doorways and pulling their coats tighter against the chill. Ruthenia had her own jacket on, a dark woolen one, buttoned up to her neck. Instead of her usual worn pants, she’d come in a more presentable black pair.

She pulled herself to a landing near the start of the eastern row of shops, sighing with relief when the shelter took the pounding of drops off her face. The warmth of the nearest café soaked into her skin, accompanied by the scent of coffee. Other flavours soon joined the rich bitterness—jams and pies and that famous Helika toast again. She sighed.

A blink dispersed her musings, and only the glass façade of the café remained, gleaming with her cold windswept silhouette and the grey of the sky behind. The couples and businessmen inside spoke and ate, rosy with health, as they sipped coffee under curling gold-leaf chandeliers laden with candles, all unaware of the girl watching them.

“Ruthenia.” Ruthenia turned away from the glass to look in the direction the voice had come from.

She hadn’t realised how odd it was to see Aleigh without Benedice. But it seemed he’d come all this way without his precious equine, because the beast did not loom over him. The Arcane Prince always had something unnecessarily expensive to wear, as he did today, but that waistcoat did look wonderful on him, black adorned with gold. She remembered when she had last been here, when she had thought almost nothing of him. If only she had known, then, that he would become so dear.

She hooked her umbrella on her arm, dragging her gaze away before it became too obvious that she was staring. Stopping beside her, he turned to the café. ”You like this one?” he remarked.

Ruthenia gaped. “What?” People passing them by in great grey coats gave her glances. “D’you think I brought a hundred argents with me?”

Without warning, he took her by the wrist, and then she was being taken through the swinging glass door, golden bells jangling. “I do not expect you to pay,” Aleigh answered as the air grew warm around her.

The walls were a creamy gold. Light refracted through glass in precise patterns that scattered the brilliance all over the room, and triangles of light shone on facing walls and upon iron brackets that held floating spheres of crystal. All across the ceiling, too, glass beads and crystals hung in midair, forming elaborate arcs. She supposed this was the look of a rich person’s café, but Helika was stuffed full of those.

The receptionist’s face lit up and reddened at the sight of the entering customers. ”Good afternoon, Your Highness!” he said with a bow, straightening his bowtie with two tugs. “I was not aware that you would be dining here, or else we could have made proper reservations…”

The Arcane Prince shook his head. “Am I not allowed to make casual visits?” he replied.

The man’s smile was renewed. “Well, I suppose you are at liberty to do as you please, Your Highness, and you are in luck for we do have vacancies,” he resumed. “Two dining?”

Aleigh nodded, and immediately the man called for a waiter to show them to a table. Ruthenia’s gaze wandered about while they wove between tables. Other guests’ gazes pinned the two, mouths opening.

“This place is a proper restaurant!” she exclaimed. More gazes came their way as they passed between the seats, but she was accustomed to it at this point. Ahead of them, their waiter gestured them towards a tiny two-seat table by the glass, where the empty Plaza and its forlorn fountain shone through.

She turned to the cold glass and watched the rain shimmer on granite paving stones, all across the deserted Helika Square. Occasionally pedestrians hustled by, with open umbrellas swelled by wind.

Unbuttoning her coat, Ruthenia grew self-conscious. This was no place for the likes of her to be dining. What was Aleigh thinking?

“So”—she said haltingly—”you have a number of useful things to share with me.”

He nodded, casting a glance about. “They leave at seven o’clock, as you must know,” he lowered his voice. “They intend to weaken her with a preliminary bombing, and then send Leon into the sea to incapacitate her. Once he’s returned to the vessel, they will send a second wave of explosives meant to disable her permanently—if the heart wound doesn’t already destroy her.”

She cringed. “That’s disgusting.”

“Leon will be in the ship leading the fleet, all Osprey as expected. He should be prepared on the deck, and will be sent into the sea once the first bombardment is complete. The shrapnel will rip apart anything within a radius of nearly fifty feet in the water, and it’d do you good to put as much distance as possible between yourself and any detonations.”

“Yes, I’m not stupid,” Ruthenia muttered.

“I know you're not, but you aren't discerning either,” he answered. “They will not launch the attack immediately: they intend to circle near the bay until eight o'clock, when they believe Lilin will cease her aggressive mood.”

“That gives me the perfect window of opportunity,” she put in. “But it’s important that I get that Glaive, otherwise there’s no freeing Lilin at all.”

A hand reached into their visions, presenting them a brown booklet. "Thank you sir,” she snatched the menu, and ran her fingers over the gold-embossed shop name: Limina.

“But how do you intend to execute any of this?” asked her companion. “I just want...assurance that you will survive.”

“I can’t give any,” she replied darkly. Fear was eating her up again. She fought not to show it. “I can’t promise anything. I have plans. Whether they’re enough depends entirely on the circumstances on the day itself.”

“You think nothing of death,” Aleigh muttered. ”As if it were a means to an end. As if you were a means to an end.”

“Hey! Just because I’m willing to take risks doesn’t mean I want to die!” she answered, bristling.

“I wish I’d been wrong,” he said.

“Wrong about what?”

“That your recklessness would get you killed.”

“Stop assuming I’ll die!”

“You are risking death for a minuscule chance of success."

"I have no choice!"

"You do have a choice!” he snapped.

Ruthenia growled. “How many times do I have to say this? It doesn’t matter what becomes of me! It’s all about sending a message, isn’t it? You’re the one who’s always going on about messages.”

He shook his head. “Please. You’re being impulsive.”

Their waiter chose to return at that point. On seeing her expression, he quickly doubled back.

“May I—take your orders?” his voice came, after five seconds of ice-cold silence.

Aleigh was first to lift his gaze. “I'll have coffee with milk and cream, and a wild berry cake,” he said in a single breath.

“One slice?”

“Two,” he answered, with what Ruthenia suspected was a glance for confirmation at her.

The waiter nodded, turning to her. “You?”

“Ah…” she consulted the menu again, “I’ll have this chocolate” —she twisted her lips at the next word—”or-queil?”

“Oerqaile,” corrected Aleigh in convincing Cerdolian, and Ruthenia rolled her eyes. As her companion confirmed the orders with the waiter, she steepled her fingers and began to study the profile of his face.

She tore her gaze away when his returned. Breathing out, she began to run her finger along the edge of the table.

”Tell me--what if you fail in this mission? And what if you succeed?”

”Well, if I fail,” she said, "then I may die, or swim back to Astra, to my imprisonment. Possibly be executed for escaping imprisonment. I acknowledge that. But—if I succeed in saving Lilin, then I’ll come back, and tell them they were wrong—”

“You’d have obstructed the military to save a monster that the clergy voted to kill, and you’d have broken house arrest. They will execute you, Ruthenia, your reasons notwithstanding. They will...” He could not finish his sentence.

“I—well—” Ruthenia blinked, swallowing. “I'll just—”

How about justice? The message? Lilin? Her parents?

Her parents?

Suddenly, Ruthenia knew she couldn't.

There were people around her now. The world was so warm. The world wasn’t something she wanted to escape any longer, as she had six years ago. She felt her heart roar for life, living. Living. She wanted to live. Free as a bird. Not chase her cause doggedly till she died. Not die chained to Freedom.

But she'd be a prisoner by next Monday. Lilin would die in five days. Or she would die. No, she would die, one way or another. In the sea, or before the barrels of ten guns.

“I don’t know,” she croaked, and was horrified to feel her eyes suddenly stinging hot. “I don't know—I don’t know what I want.”

Ruthenia swallowed to ease the ache in her throat. But sobs broke through like spears, and they drew tears, like blood. She tried to wipe them off before anyone saw them.

“I’m sorry,” said Aleigh’s voice, slightly muffled in her ears.

Ruthenia blinked the next wave of tears out of her eyes. The café came into focus again, as did that half-horrified look on her companion’s face.

“No, don’t be, I’m—” she whispered—voice cracking on the last word— "I'm terrified.”

“I don’t wish to see you die,” his blurry voice went on. “I don’t want you to go. It was selfishness on my part. Ruthenia, I...”

“No, you’re right.” She stared at her hands, and all she felt was the roiling of waters around her, and all she heard was Lilin crying. “I’ll die if I go.”

“If there’s anyone who could survive, it’s you,” replied Aleigh, trying to smile—an effort she repaid in kind. “You've always survived. You'll survive again, I'm certain.”

She swiped her sleeve over her wet eyelids, sniffling with no small measure of embarrassment. "And if I don't?"

"It would destroy me."

Ruthenia smiled tearfully. “Would it really?”

“It very much would.”

“Oh? Funny that you never bothered mentioning before.”

“I never had any reason to,” he replied, quite seriously. “But I suppose things are different when you’re on the brink of collapsing.”

“Damn it!” she growled, scouring those incriminating tears off her eyelids and cheeks and glaring back. “There—now you can stop coddling me.”

“I think I quite enjoy being sincere, thank you very much,” answered her companion, and he smiled the way no one else quite could. Ruthenia fought down the pangs of joy.

“Why?”

“I’m indebted to you--”

"Not this talk of debts again--"

"--indebted to you for your friendship."

At that, she looked up in surprise, and shook her head. “I’ve ever been any more than a nuisance to you,” she said.

“You have, unfortunately, been more than a nuisance,” said Aleigh.

She shrugged. “I suppose I showed you how to buy milkshake once,” she said.

“You did.” He met her gaze with unfamiliar meekness. “Meeting you, I realise now, turned me into someone quite different. Someone better, I like to think.”

A grin spread across Ruthenia’s face. “Then that’s both of us,” she admitted. ”I’ve changed so much, you know?"

"I know."

"It’s like I crossed a line. Like I learnt something that I’ll never unlearn, and it's turned me into a different person. It makes me so angry sometimes—but glad, too. Because I’m no longer that ignorant fool you knew back in July.”

The beginnings of a smile touched his face. “Oh, and was I any less of a fool? One thing I learnt from you was that royals aren't beyond utter idiocy.”

“It took you that long?” Ruthenia laughed.

“I was incorrigibly stubborn at the time.”

“I'm glad you're aware now!” Then the warmth was eclipsed by sadness and finality, and a thousand other things she was trying to ignore. “Well—but after tomorrow, all that—” She attempted a smile, since it was all she could offer.

She already knew what she had to do.

Martyrs gave their lives up because they believed in things far greater than themselves—things that wouldn't die when they did, that lived long and far beyond. Her defiance meant nothing when she thought of it as an act of personal vengeance. But it might mean something to Astra. To her friends. And that was good enough for her.

“I'll find a way to make it work, for the better of all of us,” she said with force. ”That's what rebels must do until the law favours them.”

“And when will that be? Laws don't change for a person, Ruth.”

“They can, Ihir willing,” she said. “Thank you, Aleigh. I'm glad to have watched you become the person you are now.” She didn't say everything she wanted to. “I don’t deserve the help of the Arcane Prince of Astra.”

“You deserve the help of an infinitely grateful friend.”

When the drinks in glass flutes finally arrived on a waiter's tray, each placed on their tabletop with a rich clink, it was a welcome diversion. Even staring on into the swirling cream flowers in the drink, the ribbons of chocolate that curled from within the glass, she couldn't forget that the meal lain before them was the very last they'd share.

“Ruthenia? Why don't you have yours first?” He met her eye.

Watching Aleigh slide the saucer carrying two slices of cake across the glass, she became devastatingly aware of how much she was in love with this boy, and how pointless it was to deny it now.

Ruthenia snatched her spoon and began stuffing cake into her mouth before she could let anything slip. Ihir, how had it come to this? He took some of his own, though the dish was halfway across the table. He sliced the pieces delicately off with his fork.

He paused to swallow, lowering the utensil. ”Oh yes. Ruthenia, I have something for you…”

She perked up. He appeared to be searching his pocket. Half a minute later, he slid a small black box across the table, not unlike the one in which he’d delivered his mother’s heart.

“What's this?” she asked, lifting it and weighing it in her hand. From the size, it seemed almost astoundingly dense. Her eyes narrowed. ”Feels like lead inside. Is this a prank?”

“Think of it as a guarantee of my sincerity,” he answered. “So you may know I haven't persisted with this friendship for my gain. And because it seems my chances of meeting you again after this are—dismal.”

She ignored the sting of tears when he spoke those words. Instead she pried the lid open, and shook the concealed object out of its nest of rustling paper.

Out slid a glittering golden pendant bearing the image of some bird. She lifted it to the light. It was an eagle.

She grinned and felt tears spill from her eyes. “What do I use this for?”

He stared oddly at the gift in her hands. “I never thought about that,” he said. “It makes a good paperweight, I suppose. And it will sell for a good price, if you need the aurs.”

He opened his mouth again, as if to say something else, but then shut it and took to studying the tabletop instead.

Ruthenia pursed her lips. Why now, when this was the end of it—friendship, alliance, or anything more? She slipped it back into the box, the paper rustling.

“Thank you,” she breathed, and a pang of sadness stopped her from going on. All she did was carefully push the box into her coat pocket. "What does  it...what does it matter now? I'm going to be dead in a week's time." She began to sob mid-sentence. "I'll be gone."

He reached out to touch her hand, then to clasp it. She returned the gesture quietly.

By now, of course, several of the restaurant's patrons were looking their way, many seeming bewildered at he distress, and at the gestures passing between them. Ignoring them pointedly, she haltingly finished her slice of cake, and pushed the saucer back to her companion. It was suddenly so hard to believe he was the King’s brother. Here, sitting right across the table, calmly considering the dish, he seemed so ordinary.

Back to her drink she went. She savoured it like divine nectar. Who knew when she'd have anything so good again? Who knew?

They left their empty dishes and flutes on the tabletop, and Ruthenia found it somewhat alarming that you could do that without anyone yelling at you. The receptionist greeted them chirpily, and Aleigh offered a compliment as he paid their bill of near ten argents.

They left amidst a flurry of bows, from other entering customers and waiters alike, their chatter coming in a tumult of voices.

The steady shimmer of rain outside was silent in comparison. As the glass door swung shut behind them, she listened to her shoes on paving stones, and turned to see if Aleigh was going anywhere.

“I must return to the palace shortly,” he said when she did. “You...really are going to do what you mean to, aren’t you?”

Before she could speak, he’d taken her shoulder and pulled her to the edge of the sheltered ambulatory, to allow a suited man to pass. He tipped his hat to Aleigh before moving along.

Ruthenia lifted her umbrella, and he quickly let go. ”I—suppose I will have to go, since I’m not better off either way.” She paused. ”Sorry if I die.”

She thought of dying like that—of sinking, cold and dead, into the icy Deeps, body lost forever, or of debris exploding through the water in trails of bubbles, stabbing her through the gut. She cringed.

“It’s not going to be easy—and I—” her eyes grew wide, for she hadn’t expected to feel so hollow so suddenly—”You idiot! Why didn't you cancel your plans? Why couldn’t we have made this meeting longer? I’ll never talk to you again after this! Never! Once I leave, we’re done forever!”

Tears were spilling down her cheeks again. She was sputtering and choking on all her words—admonishments and apologies and angry accusations—until he gripped her shoulders to still her, and she stood staring right at him.

“I know,” he said, ”but I don’t think it’ll happen that way. You’re too powerful for that.”

She drew in a breath as he pulled her into a warm embrace, pressing a kiss into her hair—and she sobbed out of fear, and laughed because he still smelt of palace lavender. “I’m not that powerful,” she replied into his shoulder, eyes closing, moments before she reached out to return the hug. "I’m not the person you think I am.”

“I think you are more than you realise.”

Should she tell him he was the one thing that made her most afraid to die? What was the use? She tried to convey all her gratitude through the tightness of her grip, and wished she could soak in his very existence until time ended.

Ruthenia sank away when she realised she was enjoying it too much. She had absolutely no business caring about him as anything more than an ally, a business partner. Especially not now, when pursuit of friendship was more pointless than usual.

And so her very last half-hour in the company of Aleigh Luzerno drew to its close. Ruthenia wished it weren’t a permanent parting. But nothing in the world could change this—nothing short of Ihir coming down to Astra again and decreeing that it not be so.

“Well, I’ll see you,” Ruthenia said simply, “in the news or something.”

“Likewise,” answered Aleigh, who extended a hand in a small gesture of farewell.

The girl—now no more than a rebel and a criminal—took the Arcane Prince’s hand in both of hers, and bowed to kiss his fingertips. This was how a subordinate should address a royal, and starting today, she was no more a friend to him—him and the Astran government—than she was an enemy.

---

Chapter 31: Telegraphed Regret

Helika Morning Herald, Monday, 9th October 491.

Secret Plot Uncovered! Investigations into most recent flight machine case reveal connections with prominent inventor

On a late morning no more than a week ago, a man began to suspect that his acquaintance was dealing in illegal activities.

This man, Mr. Hem (pseudonym used for protection), is a manservant within the Legars household.

He claims to have overheard numerous conversations in which his employer seemed to be discussing steel prices.

“I’ve never known [Legars] to be a machinery enthusiast,” says Mr. Hem. “I had every intention to mind my own business, but I found suspicious the fact that he spent long hours missing from the household.

Mr. Hem tipped the police off on the matter, who then carried out an inquiry into the matter, entering his mansion near Palace Street on the Fourth of October.

Inside a safe in his study room, the investigators found two folders of receipts and accounts, all undisclosed. These receipts documented almost fifty separate purchases with various steel factories based in Sonora and Aora over the past two years, the total amount of money traded exceeding a hundred thousand aurs.

“We were as horrified to learn of Mr. Legars’ crime as any other Ihirin might be,” His Majesty, Arcane King Aligon asserts, eyes clouded. “He has been dismissed from his role with great prejudice, and is no longer welcome inside the palace. To think there was a traitor was right under our noses, handling our documents!”

The ex-secretary of the royal family has been arrested and taken into police custody. On interrogation, he confessed to funding the construction of what he then confirmed to be a flying machine.

However, he refused to disclose the location of the machine and the names of his collaborators.

Further investigations were conducted on Sunday, revealing more hidden documents within the Legars household bearing the names and signatures of Titanio Calied, Sharmon Aldo and Ruthenia Cendina, among others.

Inventor Calied is the apparent mastermind of the entire operation. His recent work played a key role in elucidating Lilin’s role in the recent crisis, despite the Aperture I being of a similarly controversial nature.

Aldo, 31, was a reputed Astran artist whose primary job was as the chief chemist of paint and dye company Illume. Illume has since employed a new chief chemist.

His assistant, Cendina, who previously gained prominence when she appeared alongside the Arcane Prince at the wedding of Lord Anio and Lady Cathia, is the daughter of scientist Lita Kyril, who was sentenced to death on similar grounds.

All are being detained in the Helika Police Unit Building, where they will be interrogated this afternoon, before the official court proceedings.

This event has already reignited debate over whether the law on mechanical flight should be abolished. It is based upon a line of the Holy Script stating that flight is sanctioned by Ihir and must at all times be practiced by holy means.

The official interpretation of the line has been met with much scepticism over the past centuries. Numerous rebels and activists have fought for the complete revocation of anti-flight laws, although both kings continue to err on the side of conservatism.

Nevertheless, it is not likely that these laws will be revoked anytime within the next week, during which Legars and collaborators will be put on trial, and if sentenced, may suffer lifetime imprisonment.

It all happened in a whirl of paper sheaves. Places in the sky, marble floors and old designs in ceilings and murals. When Ruthenia walked on the swirly marble of the floors, she saw reflections of herself inside, reflections of a person she didn’t quite know anymore.

She had slept in the guest room throughout the weekend. Maybe it was the comfort of stony walls, safe from the whims of the wind and noises through the cracks.

Every meal had been a struggle to swallow, her fingers so cold that she'd hardly felt the bread in her hands. The usual noises no longer pervaded the air: nothing but the crackle of static in the living room, like an erratic breath, trembling.

She woke, heart pounding, to a drizzly Monday morning. Marsh birds were calling through rain, no doubt building their nests at river bends where no one would find them. The wheat was drenched, and Tanio's turbine continued to creak in the howling gales.

In these last hours, they sat by the crackling radio, hiding behind his cushions as if the fort they formed would protect them from the law. Fragments of mundane news punctuated the minutes. They heard their names, tossed through the fuzz of noise.

And at ten o'clock, there were two knocks on the door.

They glanced at each other. At peace and at one with his fate at last, Tanio rose from his sofa. Before she next blinked, he had arrived at the door.

“Convicts are to take up permanent and unyielding residence in the properties owned as registered with the Ministry of Residence and Construction from today until the Ninth of October, Year Five Hundred and Eleven." I will be thirty-six then. "All necessities will be provided for by guards and servitors, whom will be stationed at all entryways to each residence. Convicts are not permitted to move beyond a hundred-foot radius around the residence, or make any material transactions with visitors. All visitors will be checked thoroughly, both before entry and after exit. All messages entering and leaving the residence, both on paper and on Threads, will be vetted. If rules stated herein are breached, all principals are liable to be transferred to the Helika Prison and suffer a sentence equivalent in years.”

Ruthenia snarled and snapped like an animal as she was flung onto her patio and shoved into her shed. She stumbled through into the dark of her own room, and unfamiliar men outside began dragging the doors shut. She watched as the line of light between her doors thinned to nothing.

The light in the window dimmed as another storm cloud passed in front of the sun.

Ruthenia did not spend a minute resting.

Her plan had moved from her mind onto paper. She wrote on sheets all over the floors, copying the Astra map from her Geography textbook and annotating important locations—the River Colura, Palace Street, the harbour of Centrelight, the Deeps beyond.

River. Flight. Ocean. Death. The rhythm of her plan chanted in her head, growing clearer and fiercer with every mark she placed with her pencil. Death. Death. Death. She was about to follow her parents into the dark.

At seven o’clock, apparently under Tanio’s instructions, her guards pushed her door open a crack, pointing bayonets that made her tremble and cover her eyes.

It was ten gruelling minutes before she dared approach her doorway, but only when they had placed their firearms on the floor.

The taller guard, the one with darker hair, goaded her across the bridge to Tanio’s with shouted instructions: bathe and have dinner with haste, get back before nine o’clock. She clenched her jaw and gathered up her dirty clothes in her arms. Her mind brewed as she crossed the rainy bridge ahead of them, feet almost slipping on the planks.

She figured from the crackle of alien voices under his door that Tanio had yet to turn his radio off. Indeed, as she entered, she found him kneeling beside it, a man’s voice murmuring in the hollow brass. He raised a hand in welcome, but barely moved otherwise.

Dinner was porridge of rice, stale meat and preserved vegetables.

There was no time to wait for the boiler. She burst from the bathing room full-dressed with chattering teeth and her towel about her head.

“Ruthenia,” called Tanio when she appeared.

Ruthenia scrubbed at her wet hair and stumbled over. “Yes?”

Her boss waved her over to his side. “There’s a programme coming on that may interest you,” he explained, gesturing at the radio. “In ten minutes.”

Her eyes found the clock on the table. Eight thirty-five.

While she settled herself on the carpet, under the scrutiny of both Tanio and the guards, Ruthenia hugged her knees close. “What’s it about?” she murmured, not meeting the man’s eye.

He stared at the tuning knobs of the contraption. “Some things have been going on in the palace, and your beloved Arcane Prince is involved.” Ruthenia drew a breath and held it. In spite of the gloom that sat heavy, like a blanket, upon the room, Tanio managed a smirk.

The girl only tapped her cold fingers soundlessly against the carpet, as the words of reporters hissed and shivered on the Threads, and this solid, unfaltering voice was replaced by another.

The static was like the clearing of a throat. “The Arcane King has officially confiscated his brother’s title and banished him from the Helika Royal Palace,” said the reporter.

Ruthenia’s eyes flew wide. “Why?” she found herself gasping at the speaker.

“This move follows the ex-Arcane Prince’s refusal to repudiate his friendship with a recently-convicted criminal, Ruthenia Cendina.”

She felt her face heat up, from shame or horror, something similar to both. She hid her face in the space behind her knees.

“Mister Luzerno has been ordered to leave his residence in the Palace, and will not be allowed into the building on pain of death.”

The track broke, and the sounds changed.

“I am sorry, Aleigh, but we both understand. I promise you, if circumstances change and Miss Cendina is acquitted of her crimes, you will be welcomed back with open arms. But meanwhile, I must denounce you, if you will not denounce her.”

Ruthenia felt her insides grow cold, curl up. She’d recognise Aligon’s sun-bright voice anywhere. He’d said he would do a great many things, and she knew that he could be held to every one of his promises.

“Mister Luzerno, what prompted this decision?”

A new voice came on the radio amplifier—Ruthenia felt herself stiffen. Even buried beneath interference, she’d know it anywhere.

“I did it because I am on her side.”

Her heart swelled with a storm of things she’d never felt before.

Voices were clamouring beside the ex-Arcane Prince’s own steadiness, begging for a word with him—but none could cut his answer short.

“I believe she knows this country just as well as we do, albeit from a radically different vantage point. She sees beyond the fog of pride and civility that blinds us all, kings and priests alike—blindness that is a gift at times, but a curse at others. She embraces things we do not wish to accept. I know she has the best of intentions for Astra, and I regret that I did not see that sooner. I do it because it is in my power to. The meaningless death has to stop.”

“Do you have personal reasons for doing so?”

“Perhaps. She is the only person in my life who ever treated me like a human being. And that is why I cannot sever this friendship on command.”

Stop being an idiot! Ruthenia almost wanted to yell at the bell-amplifier now, except she knew he wouldn’t hear a word. Without knowing why, she was a hair’s-breadth away from tears. Something squeezed on her heart, anger and shame both. What happened to the act? Your public image? Your pretences?

Questions had been flying in for the ex-Arcane Prince all this while. ”Do you harbour romantic feelings for her?” one particularly nosy interviewer asked.

How dare they ask him? She saw Tanio turn to her from the corner of her eye.

“I can’t say I don’t.”

She began tugging nervously at carpet fibres, fingers cold. She missed the last words of the interview. The radio clicked and the track switched once more. An unfamiliar voice telling unfamiliar tales drowned her friend's out. And then his presence—the warmth of knowing his existence persisted—was gone.

Ruthenia’s next glance at the clock warned her that she had barely three minutes to leave. By then Tanio was smiling at her, but he wouldn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said instead. Only now did she become sure that she had never hated his efforts to make her feel like family.

She paused a moment before rising. “Where did they leave your camera?” she whispered.

His eyes widened briefly. Then his mouth opened, and he nodded. “I left it in the basement; it might still be there,” he replied. Then his voice dropped. “Good luck.”

“Survive your first night and you’ve survived all twenty years,” she answered. Then the guards marched into the living room, and pierced them with glares, until she had stood, towel wrapped about her neck, and trudged out of the room into the coldly swirling rain.

When she returned to her hammock, Ruthenia found her umbrella cradled in its curve, its crook peeking over the edge. Picking it up, she expanded it with a click.

Seeing its orange canopy made her feel hollowed-out.

“Why did you think this umbrella was enough?” she growled, flinging it at the floor, where it clattered limply. Her throat burned, even though she didn’t want it to. “Why didn’t you leave me a home? Or some money? Or some food at least would’ve been nice! What was wrong with the two of you? It’s useless to me now!”

Blind with anger, she pulled a pair of scissors from among the heaps of paper in her drawer, then picked her umbrella up, shoving the edge of the cloth into the scissors' jaws, slitting the first seam.

Snip by snip her umbrella canopy bloomed. She dragged the scissor blades through the orange cloth in long straight lines, teeth bared, a surgeon slitting a body open. The lines in the fabric gaped like parting lips.

The canopy fell away, a bright orange circle amidst ribbon-shreds of cloth. By then, it was only an orange blur, glowing through the tears that had gathered beneath her eyelids uninvited.

Blinking them away, Ruthenia kicked her toolbox open and bent for a screwdriver. She spun it around in her hand and, with a few twists, drove out the screw securing the crook to the shaft.

When she tugged it off, something pale and cylindrical popped out, and rolled across the ground.

Ruthenia went still. She stared at the thing lying between her feet, heart racing.

A curled sheet of paper.

She stooped to pick it up, and unrolled it—slowly revealing rank upon rank of brittle black typewriter text, the old ink just starting to fade into oblivion, beginning with:

our dear Ruthenia Fulminare!

Her heart boomed. Ruthenia let out a whimper at the pang that stabbed her, right through her throat, out of nowhere.

The time has come when we must confess that we're about to do something you may never forgive us for. But we must, and will, and we pray you understand.

You see, we perform a greater deed in dying than in running away. You may not believe that now, but perhaps you will when you are older and have seen the world for all it is. You must understand. As refugees in Sonora we may be safe—but as martyrs in Astra we will be free, as will people like us. A life lost can be worth as much as a life kept.

Do not be tethered by our deeds, although it will be difficult. You live a life that is but your own. We know how heavily this will weigh upon you, but you must shed that burden eventually!

We are immensely sorry for having always been so far away. As death approaches, the extent of our mistakes becomes clear. We know this umbrella can't change that, only make it seem like we tried. It will protect you from the rain when we are no longer around to do so.

Someday, though, you must leave our protection. Why block the sky from view? It is a very pretty sky, and you're better off seeing it.

Mum + Dad

PS. please get a good job, and if you do get married, and make sure it’s to someone worthy of our bloodlines!

She let her gaze cross the text again. Her eyes darted from one word to another, trying to connect them. Every one of the memories was jammed at the gateway to her consciousness.

Nine years of utter, deafening silence from her parents. And now this.

Her gaze tunneled into the letter and the room grew bright, and the knowledge that they were gone, they were gone, finally came crashing through the walls of her mind—like a charging beast, smashing the fortifications she had spent the past six years building, to rubble.

“I know!” she snapped, slamming the letter against the desk with a palm, teeth gritted, lip trembling. “I’ve always known, and I don’t care!”

You live a life that is but your own.

“It was all for nothing, Lita!” she snarled. “They’re still doing it, the new kings are still killing us! Nothing’s changed, you idiot! You left me all alone in the world and I grew up hating the one person who could have saved me. And all for a big, fat, bleeding helping of nothing!”

She’d let her head drop to her desk by then, cheek to the tabletop, and she was clutching the sides of her seat, gasping as if everything she’d tried to suppress in the basement of her mind was coming back to choke her. Her body shook with tears.

“What am I to do? As soon I leave this house, my life is good as gone. But I can’t stay here. I can’t stay in this tiny shed for the next twenty years.”

She blinked wetly so the stars of faint light fragmented and coalesced again. Her jaw clenched.

“You never cared. All this while, you were just two idiots obsessed with becoming martyrs. I wasted my entire life trying to finish your work, you know that?” A sharp sob seized her. She clutched her head. “I thought—I thought I could look up to you. I thought—”

Suddenly too exhausted to speak, she let the sobs take hold of her. She lay at her table and cried for an hour, but no amount of crying, she realised, would be enough to make up for the six years she had spent on dreams that had not been her own, and on building a wall around the grief she’d thought would only distract her from her parents’ legacy.

The cold crept uninvited through the spaces in the window frame, chills rippling across her as she wept. The wheat stirred quietly outside.

Shuffling across the room at the turn of midnight, Ruthenia sank like a sock doll into her hammock. While her eyes sought sleep, her mind was restless with fragments of nameless terrors.

---

Chapter 32: Caging

Adjunct 01: Interventions, 23rd September 491

Dark cherry lips being pursed. “Alright, what’s the matter now, Cide?”

The furrowing of a brow. “I have reason to believe this has not been approved by Mister Marva.”

“Never mind what the boss said, I’m your boss for October.”

“This is against governmental stipulations. I don’t like it, Miss Breyte, all this.”

“We tell the people what’s happening, don’t we? We tell them the truth.”

“We can’t, the boss’ll sack us—”

“Do you hear yourself? You say we can’t tell the truth!”

“Yes, I understand, but the matter remains that the rules state—”

“Well, the rules are rubbish!”

She pulled a gleaming gun. A collective gasp, a synchronised cowering-away.

“Now, now, I won’t use this, dearies. I promise.” The gleam of a smile. “But if you should wish, you can tell Mister Marva that I held you at gunpoint, and had no choice but to follow my orders. If he has a problem with the articles, he can answer to me.”

***

The air of Wednesday, the Eleventh of October, was that sort of cold that made hair stand on end. The cold reminded Ruthenia that the world was boundless, even though it had never before seemed so small.

She paused at the window, where a thousand droplets of rain rolled down the glass. Beyond the glittery drops, Helika could be seen: its light had somehow crossed the twenty-mile distance between their windows and hers, and it was all she had left of Astra beyond these walls, where life and its myriad songs continued to seep through the fibres of time.

The evening passed, and the purpling of the sky turned her hands cold. The messages had been sent long ago, transmitted and dissipated, like light, leaving no imprints on the graphs.

At eight o'clock, the guards called her out for dinner, as they always did. When she stepped out into the balmy twilight, she found herself trembling, and looked down, hoping neither guard asked her any questions. There was perfect silence as they crossed to the other end of the bridge.

Ruthenia had, for the past two days, done her best to establish a pattern of early departure. She spent no more than five minutes in the bathroom, and ate hastily, but not suspiciously so. Tanio watched from across the dining table, blond mop dishevelled. As their gazes crossed, she caught a twitch at his mouth that could have been a smile.

She cast one back, mouthing “goodbye”.

She spared some minutes after dinner studying the newspapers. The front pages were occupied completely by updates from Centrelight Bay. The navy's plans were right on track.

So were hers.

On page four she found reports on an upsurge defiance and vandalism inside the capital itself, saw the burning eyes of upstarts in chains. In Candle a protest had been staged in Tanio’s name, and in hers. It no longer alarmed her, seeing their names in the papers. Nothing alarmed her, now that her end loomed over everything.

She strode to the doorway with her chin high and both fists curled, and let the guards escort her back, as any abiding prisoner would.

Door shut, winds dead about her, Ruthenia immediately began her very last preparations. She tugged both windows open, east and west both, so that a cool breeze billowed through, rustling her papers, flinging them across the floor. It was the sort of wind that seemed to change whatever it touched.

She opened her wardrobe and yanked her only coat from the hanger: a deep brown one, with black lapels and cuffs. She ran her hand quietly through the other shirts and trousers hanging inside.

At her desk, she reached into her drawer and withdrew the golden eagle pendant, clasping it around her neck and touching it, slipping it inside her shirt. Nothing seemed more important than having it upon her when she died.

Then she pulled her coat on, and snatched up a pair of socks at the door, wearing those with jittery hands, and her shoes over them.

Her watch read eight forty-five.

Breathing out—breathing in—so she'd always remember this precious scent of home—wood, smoke, rust, wheat—Ruthenia dropped to her knees beside her trapdoor.

She stared down at the steel bolt for a while—the one she kept kicking by accident, an inconvenience at best. Then she slid the bolt out soundlessly, and lifted the trapdoor with the most drawn-out of creaks.

A stinging gale slapped her. She studied the darkness. There it was: a telltale splash stirring the water a hundred feet below, where the lights of Tanio’s house glittered on the currents: a trail of crests, ploughing through the surface, and an irregular rippling, as if a large but invisible fish were breaching.

On the desk beside her, Ruthenia’s messenger flared bright blue.

All she could hear was her heart.

She swung her legs through the hole so she sat at the very edge, legs swaying in the battering wind. A shiver swept her, from her feet to the hairs on her scalp. She thought of Hyder. “I trust you,” Ruthenia said.

Then she shoved herself forward, and tipped horrifyingly towards the darkness, every nerve screaming—and then there was nothing beneath her, only blackness and wind.

“Ruthenia!” The whispered gasp caught her at the very same moment she began to feel like she was falling through quicksand.

While she slowed to a standstill, three feet above what she now saw was a tiny rowboat, an uncanny warmth came to enwrap her.

Ms. Decanda's Thread nets had felt like this, silken cocoons ensnaring her as she fell and tangled in them—yet not really, for this one crackled upon her skin, like electricity across hands. Beneath her, Hyder’s hands were spread. He began to Weave with careful tugs, and she felt herself sink through the fragrant night air, Threads shifting around her, just perceptibly.

“Thanks for coming,” she said softly.

“Oh, no, no trouble.” Tante looked up from the front of the rowboat. He quirked an eyebrow. “Finally doing something rebel-like, eh, Ruth?”

“She never stopped,” answered Hyder snappily, and with a last sweeping gesture he lowered her into the boat, her knees meeting the floor in the space between the stern and the seat. The boat bobbed and rocked on impact.

While the oars splashed quietly and Gordo began to steer it in a full turn, Ruthenia groaned and twisted, testing the damp woody space about her with her hands before shifting until she was sitting flat on her bottom. Her shoulders sagged, as the rush of excitement greyed to exhaustion, and the briefest comfort swathed her.

“So I heard you joined Derron,” she said.

Tante tilted his head to a side. “He gives us guns, that’s as good a reason as any to join,” he replied.

Frowning, she turned to Hyder, who sat nestled in the same space, legs propped up on the seat before him. “How are you?” she murmured.

“Welcome aboard,” he replied stiffly without turning.

For a while Ruthenia abandoned the conversation, watching the dark wheat stalks drift silently by on either side. She closed her eyes and rubbed her right temple with a finger, trying to come to terms with the mission she had just begun. But when she opened them, Hyder was still there, and a lump of regret still sat in her throat.

“Hyder,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

A pause.

“No, it's none of your fault,” he replied, although she heard his breaths growing irregular. They both seemed to know what they were discussing. “I don’t get to decide.”

“I just don’t feel that way about you.”

“You did. A while ago.”

She sighed. “I was twelve, and I was being stupid, because I only liked how you looked. I liked a bloody mask.”

He cast his gaze down, weaving his fingers together. “Should I not wear it?”

Her brow furrowed. “I always knew you were lying. Even to the people you claim to care for, you’re lying.”

He folded his arms, drawing away. “It pleases me to look this way, and pleases others too, and that's enough—right? Does it really matter what my real face looks like?”

“Yes!” she growled, her voice rending the night briefly. “You made a fool of me! What else are you lying about?”

“Nothing, I swear! I just didn’t think of it as lying—”

“How can I trust someone who’s wearing a mask all the time?”

He had no retort, only turned to look the other way.

An apology came to her throat, but she did not voice it, head drooping towards her knees.

The ride proceeded in silence, oars swishing through the current as the lights of the New Town blossomed into view. The wheat rustled again, the Bollard District saying goodbye.

“Do you trust the Arcane Prince?” Hyder finally asked.

Ruthenia turned, arms crossing. “Yes. I do.”

He nodded. “I couldn’t believe it, a month ago. But I do now.”

“He’s just a political ally. He no longer matters. Nor does anyone in this universe. Not anymore.”

Her words made Hyder’s gaze grow stormy, the horror swallowing him up—then she realised that all the sorrow she felt, he must feel twice as intensely—and a violent pang of loss wrenched her heart, so hard she could not breathe for seconds.

Ruthenia didn't have time to think of a proper response. She shifted instinctively across the planks, towards him, until they were side by side, and listlessly she leaned her head against his shoulder.

Carefully, Hyder slipped one arm about her, then the other, burying his nose in her hair. “I’m—” a sob broke his sentence in two— “I’m scared to lose you.”

“I’m not anyone’s,” she replied, closing her eyes so her own tears couldn’t come. “But I’m scared, too.”

He shivered with his sobs. She felt her hair grow damp. “What will I do without you?” Ruthenia had no answer.

The rhythm of oars around them was joined by the murmur of reeds outside the boat, and the soft laughter of Den.

Her eyelids drooped shut in the warmth of the embrace, neither romantic nor platonic, but tardy in any case. “Wake me up when we arrive,” she whispered. The last thing she felt was a hand brushing her hair.

---

Chapter 33: The Sea

A sharp jab at her shoulder came through her dreams, followed by the damp scent of mist, and the soft roar of what must be water.

Her eyes opened a crack, but no light flooded through. A few blinks cleared her vision. She was not in her shed.

The bare sky was deep black overhead, and the place about her was dim enough that the glowing points of the stars were visible from here, winding chains of light across the sky.

The world was bobbing up and down. At once, it all descended upon her—the memory of escape, falling, the boat. And then her muscles were pounded by aches.

“Ruth, we've arrived,” said a different voice from the one that had been there before she’d fallen asleep. Ruthenia rubbed her shoulder as she righted herself. The dark silhouette of Den looked upon her from the bench. Hyder was not beside her any longer.

She sighed, though it came out as more of an exhausted groan. Peeking over the edge of the boat, she was surprised to find the ground no more than a foot away.

Another glance about made Ruthenia realise that the rest were staring at her from different parts of the boat, most of them looking entirely beaten out by the journey.

Hurry. Her quest came pummeling its way into her memory. She struggled to a squat, and eventually managed to stand, almost tripping over a bench in the process. With a bound, she landed on the riverbank, feet crunching on wet gravel, dizzied by the sudden steadiness of earth.

“So, guys,” she announced, turning around while she straightened her coat. “This is where I must leave you.”

“I sense a soppy speech coming,” said Den.

Ruthenia rolled her eyes. “Due to logistical constraints, I'm going to have to do this alone,” she said. “It’s been a real pleasure, so—”

Her voice died in her throat. Oh, Ihir. She hadn't realised how hard this would be.

“…Please do good things with your lives, after I’m gone. I hope I'll have a funeral that you can attend.”

“What do you mean!” Hyder retorted. “You're not going to just—die!”

She watched as her oldest friends cast frantic glances at each other. The dim streetlight glowed across their faces, from a road passing just some yards behind. She saw brilliant worlds in their eyes: there were many things to be said, too many to be contained in this short time that remained between now and when her true test began.

“Well—we'll see you,” Tante muttered, with a trace of a grin. “Looks like you have us all beat, for the biggest anarchist prank of all. I’m proud of you.”

“We're honoured,” Den added, “that you spent these six years with us.”

“Stay safe, Ruth,” Gordo said with a wavering voice.

“You too,” she replied.

Hyder refused to meet her gaze. “I—I...am sorry,” he sputtered, voice ragged and hoarse, and when he finally looked up at her, his face had changed.

It was slashed with scars, across the cheeks, one along the forehead, one crossing his lips—all pale like moonlight brushstrokes. He had changed his eyes, smoothed the angle of his jaw, lifted his nose—but his smile, wan as it was, might as well have been the very same one.

“Is this it?” Ruthenia breathed.

From the bow of the rowboat, Hyder grinned, and nodded, eyes glittery with lamplight.

“Thank you.” She smiled. Her friends’ gazes affixed hers, as if this were another prank, and she was about to run off down back alleys on a harmless caper.

Not a minute later, a lone carriage came chugging up the alley, sputtering to a stop near the riverbank. Its driver, the lamplight revealed, was her friend Derron, in surprising finery.

All at once, her heart began to quail, and her legs begged her to flee—but it was a fleeting idea, and she abandoned it with a grin.

Kicking the door open, the man leapt off the carriage, lifting a hand to greet her. “Are you well, Cendina?”

“Very,” she replied.

“Ihir bless your cause!” called Hyder, the rest chorusing well wishes, as Derron opened the passenger door and gestured for her to board, like a personal chauffeur.

It was summer throughout the country. She felt the humid air soak into her hair, as the night grew deep, and the scent of old soot was joined by the smell of flowers opening their buds to the air.

Ruthenia continued to wave, as the carriage rattled away, and the four bright faces melted into the darkness around them.

“Miss Breyte has gone about this plan with remarkable resourcefulness,” was the first thing Derron said, once they were bumping along through dark fields towards the bright lights of Helika ahead. “She has a good head on her shoulders, that one. But she tells me you planned it all?”

Ruthenia felt her teeth rattle as the carriage trundled along. “I told her where everyone had to be by evening, and what had to be achieved by the end of the night. The rest was of her invention, and I trust she thought hard about it. She’d better have.”

The darkness grew uniform outside the windows, until they passed under the gateway into Helika, strings and arcs of light setting the garden aglow. As they coursed down the old main street beneath the Ministry of Flight, Derron glanced at her for directions. She gestured and pointed the way down the abandoned roads, and the carriage bounced and chugged, until they had pulled to a stop outside a familiar mansion.

“It’s so quiet,” she murmured, eyes trained upon the lit windows in the upper floors, above the vines. Her heartbeat thundered hot in her ears.

Derron alighted with a click of the door, crossing to her side of the carriage. “Reida says to tell you that the man’s mother is the provisional head.”

“Mother? Hm.” Ruthenia leapt off the carriage, reaching for her umbrella by instinct—remembering in a flash that it was no longer with her. “Thank you, Derron, and Ihir guide you tonight.”

“Ihir will not help us. Your courage shall guide us, Miss Cendina.”

With no more than a nod, Ruthenia turned to the towering mansion before her, producing her watch from her pocket for the time. One o’clock.

She paused beside the garden and picked up a handful of earth, rubbing a generous amount on her coat. Rising, she began down the garden pathway, tugging her hair out of her pony-tail and ruffling it so it sat in an unruly mop, some covering her eyes.

Her exchange with the doorman was short as it had to be. Clutching her hip, Ruthenia introduced herself as Miss Clau, seeking lodging for the night after having been stranded by an accident. He gave her no more than one quirked-eyebrow glance before escorting her into the dim entrance hall, everything silhouettes in the lights of the staircase beyond.

“Fine, wait here,” he muttered, then ascended to fetch the provisional head of the household.

The woman arrived in a pair of slippers, towering and bony, her nightcap sagging on her brow. “Oh, my,” she murmured, studying the guest. “Why don’t you take yourself to the shower while I fetch you some new clothes.”

“Thank you, madam, but I only need a place to sleep,” Ruthenia replied, head sinking. “It is late, and I am tired.”

Without grumbling, she endured the pleasantries, maintaining polite conversation with the lady while she showed her through candlelit corridors to the guest room, whose location she already knew.

Once the door had shut behind her, she unfolded the blanket and wrinkled the sheets, breaths shallow, watch in her hand. She felt each tick against her palm.

When two minutes were up, Ruthenia turned to the door and pushed it quietly open, just wide enough for her to slip through. With a glance left and right, she scurried down the long passageway, the way she always did, through alternating patches of darkness and orange firelight, every pattering footstep amplified by the echoes.

She found the study door unlocked. A glance inside revealed that the books and stationery stood where they always had, as if they had never been searched.

The first thing she did was shut the door. All at once, the room was silent and inky-dark. She felt with a hand for the corner of the desk, then for the container on the desktop, where the fountain pen lay still, perfectly inconspicuous.

“I’m sorry for lying,” Ruthenia murmured. Poor Mrs. Legars, sleeping soundly. She had no idea what she’d just aided her towards. She knew nothing of what was about to come.

With a single jab, she depressed the switch inside the container, and then swallowed, heart booming, as the floor began to descend.

It was strange how different the basement seemed when it wasn’t lit: cold, terrifying even. Features of the floor slowly began to define themselves—the hulking machine in the centre, its wings grazing the walls, metal parts and tools strewn everywhere. All untouched and undiscovered.

She felt her way through the darkness with her feet, dodging stray screws and nuts until she was beside the switch lever. She yanked down. In a humming twinkle, the lights burst to life all across the basement.

She sank to the floor, then, barely conscious enough to keep herself from collapsing on her side and resuming her interrupted nap. In the stupor of her drowsiness, she scrunched her leathery jacket up into a wrinkly ball, and laid it on the floor. Cold crept across her, amid the bright lights.

She didn’t notice the transition into sleep; it came so suddenly, like a pouncing black shadow. All she remembered, which persisted deep into her dreams, was the clawing perfume of grease.

Light splintered on Ruthenia’s eyelids, fragments slipping through the cracks. She blinked and was stirred awake, and lay there for some minutes, calmly contemplating the pipes of the ceiling.

She trawled through her fog of memory. Then panic swept up her mind in a stormy whirl, startling her upright.

She crawled to a kneel, then stood, every muscle protesting. Her coat was smudged black, as were her elbows, but the only thing that bothered her was the gnawing of her stomach.

She raced to the tool cupboard in the corner, where they kept a stock of emergency crackers and canned meat. She picked up a wirecutter on a lower shelf, wrenching the blade through the lid, then decided the blowtorch would have to do for cooking. She lit it with a hiss, and turned away, brushing the base of the can with the tip of the flame until she felt the alumin heat up in her fingers.

The meat was scalding; she dipped the crackers in the sauce and crunched on them with all the haste she could make.

Then she returned to the towering flight machine, which was all but ready, its great wingspan making her heart swell. Her modified engine sat beside it, alongside an unlabelled ten-gallon tin. Unscrewing the lid, she sniffed, recognising the faint tinge of Sharmon’s fuel. Her lips curved into a smile.

Up on a shelf in the corner lay the infamous Aperture I. The camera, for all its hype, was only a foot wide and half as tall, the majority of its bulk formed of a massive propellor connected to a tiny motor.

Smiling, Ruthenia stooped for a wrench and screwdriver and approached the camera, gripping the propellor while she began to detach it. The four screws holding the plates of the motor to the main camera body, she unscrewed with some effort.

Then she picked the motor up in her palm and turned it over. It continued to clatter and whirr in her hand, and unscrewing the back lid, she found what appeared to be a system of cogs spinning of their own accord. Just what she needed.

For half an hour then, she put the finishing touches on her modified four-piston engine, tightening exhaust pipes and beating the casing into shape. She hefted the fuel tin, and poured the transparent oil into the tank.

Then she unlocked the hatch on the underside and flipped it open, climbing up on a step ladder with the fuel tank under one arm. With a second great effort, she slid it into the dark hollow beneath the cockpit, before curling into the gap with a wrench and squinted eyes. She left to retrieve the engine, balancing it on her knee as she scaled the stepladder.

Although she had never assembled an internal combustion machine before, this wasn’t wholly different from the engines of the steam carriages she was occasionally commissioned to fix, only tighter and denser, with a massive exhaust.

By four o’clock, everything was bolted in and checked, and she was, amazingly, ready to fly. She gave the propellors a celebratory spin and cooked herself a feast out of the cupboard with the blowtorch. It wasn’t time to leave yet. That time would come soon.

For the remaining hours of the afternoon, Ruthenia waited. She peeked through the gaps around the edges of the runway gate, hand resting on a lever, watching as evening advanced upon the country. The air grew cool with the descent of the sun, her senses sharpened to fine points.

She thought, as the light began to dim to red, that she could feel a distant, hollow rumbling in her blood, like that of ship engines.

Journeys, hundreds of journeys, all waiting to be begin.

Six thirty. With finality, Ruthenia took the lever in both hands, and gave it a tug. The ceiling began to rise, groaning colossally, exposing the ramp to the orange sky.

She marched back to Tanio’s flying machine, picking up the work goggles that lay beside the toolbox, dusting them on her coat before pulling them over her eyes. Then she climbed again into the cockpit, shut the door, and locked it.

Heat swelled against her toes, through the canvas of her shoes. She withdrew her feet, clutching at the gears and pedals. There was a melange of sounds—hissing, humming, churning—sounds of hunger and delight—hunger for freedom—freedom—flight.

The engines were already fighting to propel her forward, and not denying them, she lifted the brake.

The machine began to careen across the stony floor, over dust and grease stains, called by the burning sky ahead. And she was trembling.

She briefly surveyed her visible route. The garden path led straight out onto the road, then field beyond—enough, she hoped, for a proper running start.

Light swelled across her as the cruise became a heart-pounding canter. She felt the lurch as the wheels bumped onto the ramp and up into the brilliant evening. Her mind raced with calculations, none of them enough.

But the sky billowed vast above her, waiting to welcome her back into its warm blue embrace.

Ruthenia felt an uncanny relief. It was like something lifting from her, like an old black shroud of wrath and bereavement. And as the machine bumped and bounced fifty-miles-an-hour from the road onto the field, she fixed her gaze on the blocks in the cloudy sky beyond, clutching at the joystick, feeling the sweep of the wings as if they were a part of her.

Townsfolk lowered their hats in the evening light to gape. A girl raced to her mother, frantic questions tumbling from her lips.

Its wings cast long shadows as it climbed, rumbling, into the evening air.

Ruthenia grinned in the wind, feeling her teeth grow cold, the scent of burning chemical oil cloying and suffocating and the smell of oncoming rain about her. Her heart pounded louder than the screaming wind, like the pulsing pistons at her feet, the metal vibrating beneath as air rushed through joints. Brilliant purple sky devoured her whole.

It wasn’t like flying on the umbrella—too much power in her forward thrust, too much noise, no fear.

Now Helika was only a cluster of tiny white specks in the valley between a mountain and a foothill; now the contours of Astra took shape, rising out of the land.

She saw things she'd only ever known through her textbook: Calmen Ihira sloping towards the coasts like a great heap of sugar, around that central peak a turbulence of foothills, rises and knolls. Then the New Town was blazing beneath her, then it was behind. The grey line of sea advanced on the east horizon, where the land was flat and the sky was darkest. A sparkle of brilliant gold marked the boundaries of Centrelight. The greedy inkiness had grown to claim a greater portion of the sky.

As Ruthenia passed the border of the coast, the panic reached a spike. At once her breaths grew shallow, eyes searching the black ocean beyond the lights of the jagged coast.

Almost instantly, she found a V formation of seven bright decks upon the dark eastern waters—half a mile out, by her estimates—still in the embrace of the bay, but quickly leaving it.

With a curse, she felt a fiery rush of blood fill her head. She trembled and gritted her teeth, wriggled her fingers to warm them, clenched her hands harder around the joystick.

She pitched forward once more, so the nose of her machine dipped into Centrelight's glow. Shivers rippled through her as she stared beyond the lights. Shooting past the glowing jetties of the coastline, she heard the roar of the waves, the wind growing damp in her lungs.

The sea was below her. Fright and thrill swelled from the centre of her gut.

Ruthenia tugged the joystick back with a clatter of cogs, yanking the aircraft back into horizontal flight. She gulped in the ocean air, soothing her head with the smell of brine, but she could not stop shaking.

It was a matter of minutes before the night grew truly deep, crystal-cold in this tiny space. Nothing but ocean lay for miles on either side, and the engine was emptying; she had barely five minutes of flight left.

Clenching her jaw with a narrowing of eyes, Ruthenia tugged the joystick right, listening as the elevators creaked and the plane yawed.

The bloody red lights had resolved into brilliant glass bulbs at the tops of warship superstructures. Paler lights glowed across the decks, and as she descended towards the central ship, they elongated into massive islands.

She hadn't thought any sound could overpower the chugging of her own engine, but all she could hear now was the roar of monstrous propellers churning up water at the stern of each ship. Their smokestacks spat lurid billows of sooty smoke into the air, nebulous white in the glow of their deck lights.

The lead ship thundered several yards ahead of the rest, frothy wave crests forming a V behind it. It was thronged with camera crews, their machines set up all along the deck, xenon flashes bursting across the water every half-minute or so.

There was a wave of silence as she approached. The cameras stopped, and for a moment she feared she had been seen.

She soon realised it was much worse.

She saw something crack the darkness before the hull. Something narrow and supreme.

She'd learnt the lesson of lightning and thunder as a child, because her second name meant “thunder”, and when she asked why she was named after thunder if lightning always came first, they told her it was because it was lightning that birthed thunder, just like how she'd come into this world beside the generator room of the laboratory.

As the metal shell slid into the water, and the impact sparked a chemical trigger deep inside, she learnt it again.

The vision registered before the sound. A monstrous swell of water that bulged like a dark hill from the ocean surface, tipping the warships aside like a careless hand would paper boxes. Or like tablecloth rising, knocking the glasses over. She plugged her ears with her fingers.

Something like metal plunged into each ear—except there was nothing, only a frenzied rippling of particles.

Ruthenia tipped back, body vibrating in agonising resonance with the boom. Her eardrums screamed against the assault of the noise.

Even after it had faded, her ears rang, and throbbed, and her breath came in desperate gasps.

“You’re going to finish this,” Ruthenia muttered between chattering teeth. “You were born to finish this.” She threw off her coat. From inside her pocket, she retrieved the uncovered camera motor, and slid her finger in among its mechanisms, struggling to find a grip on the slippery Thread inside. She hooked and swirled, sweat breaking out on her brow, teeth gritted. “Ihir, help me out for once!”

Several seconds later, she’d managed to tangle enough around her index finger for a proper grip.

And that was done. Now, all that was left was for her to take the leap.

“Time to lose everything you haven’t already lost,” she muttered with a grin.

Sucking in her breath, Ruthenia snatched and yanked the thrust lever at her right.

The machine began to throttle against the wind. The dashboard flickered. The flyer swung into its final trajectory, towards the pylon atop the lead ship’s superstructure.

In a single sweep of her arm, she tugged all the Thread out of the Aperture’s motor. She pulled and flung, every inch of the endless length unspooling, and where she had never felt it before, she began to detect, amid the ethereal hollowness, the teeming energy of the strand fluttering from the tip of her finger.

While the machine whistled towards the pylon, she stood. And as it passed, she tossed the trembling loop of Thread into the air, letting it catch on the pylon in a massive tangle she could not see, but could feel.

Closing her eyes, clenching her jaw so hard it hurt, she swept her hand through the air, and felt her heart swell as it found purchase on the Threads.

Then she Wove.

The ship swung unexpectedly, falling into a descending orbit around the pylon. Beneath her she heard voices, clamouring and thickening at the base of the superstructure.

She Wove the flyer into a clumsy arc, the way she always did, barely managing to release it as it swung towards the bow, where cameramen and naval officers were scrambling out of her path.

All at once, she was careening through the air in what had in a split second become deadweight.

A bang that jarred the entire body of the machine was followed by a screech that put her teeth on edge, setting the entire deck rocking.

She leveraged her body weight into slamming the wheel brake forward, and groaned with her stomach against the gear as her wheels skidded past four gun turrets, stopping five feet from the very tip of the ship’s bow.

Springing from her seat, she clawed the goggles off with trembling hands and lunged for the door latch. Then out she leapt into the light, where she found herself pinned by the stares of a dozen officers.

Something cold struck her arm, then another, and then a proper barrage of drops from the sky.

Everything in her screamed for her to run.

Rain splashed and pounded at her face, seeping into her eyes and threatening to blind her—beneath her too the rain was a threat, slippery beneath her shoes. She saw no one but Leon Alemer—Leon, at the edge of the bow, beside the captain, skin gleaming in lights, the holy Glaive glowing like a torch in fog.

The uniformed captain turned just in time for his eyes to widen with horror. “Go!” he bellowed to Leon as she plunged through the broken lines of navy men. “Dive!”

The hunter shouted a frantic “yes sir”, and in a flash, had vanished through the gap in the railing, taking the Glaive with him.

At the same moment, the first gunshot exploded. Lightning-strike. Ruthenia swung out of the way, almost slipping on the deck. But the bullet flew far wide of its target, and the ocean devoured it like a benevolent beast.

The threat was enough to thrust her off the deck without a second though.

Ruthenia had never dived before, or quite known this sensation—air rushing down her throat, sea-spray and rain dancing about her in a glorious tumult. She didn't know how to anticipate it—the approach of the black wall beneath her, lost in the ship’s shadow.

Waves shattered beneath her shoulder and her body jarred, and she gasped a last time before the black water engulfed her head.

Up above her, she heard a frenzy of bellows upon the deck: don't shoot! Who in Ihir's name is she?

“Leon!” she screamed again, spitting saltwater off her tongue as she kicked and thrashed towards that other head in the water.

“Who are you?” Leon answered over the shower of rain, eyes wide.

With a yell, Ruthenia lunged at him, fingers curling into talons.

Leon yelped when her hands clamped down on his arm, chest convulsing. “Stay away!” he shouted between pants, struggling to twist his arm out of hers. Buffeted by waves, her grip moved to the weapon clasped in his fist.

“Can you really do this?” she asked, stammering with cold. “Murder a goddess? Tear her apart from inside her?”

“You're crazy! Lilin is going to destroy Astra!” The diver gasped, water streaming from his hair. The rain pounded yet, drowning the bellows from above. “Leave me be, leave me be—they hired me for this—I'll do my work—”

A gunshot boomed. His words were broken by a rasping cry.

Before she knew it, thick black rivulets were flooding out of his right shoulder and dissolving in the sea.

At once she lunged through the water and yanked the Glaive out of the man’s grip, stomach churning from the scent of blood and nervousness both.

“Damn it! I told you not to shoot!”

“She’s the escaped convict, sir—”

Leon moaned again, and clenched his teeth; his left hand was on his right shoulder, his grip so deep in his skin that it seemed he was trying to rip his arm off.

“You got our diver, you understand? You shot a serviceman! Throw in the emergency ladders!”

“Sir!”

“What is it?”

“Lilin is surfacing! “

Ruthenia stiffened.

“Get out of my face, you bloody fool! Once Alemer's out, I want the second round of bombs deployed. The girl's not worth saving. Go!”

Immediately Ruthenia felt terror girdle her; she fought it with a yell, gulping all the air she could.

Then she clamped her eyes shut, fingers curling around the Glaive of Laveda. She pulled her lips tight, and plunged into the sea.

Water swallowed her hair, fought into the cracks of her eyes, pressed into her nose reeking of algae, flooded her mouth with the taste of salt. She went blind while the water dragged her down.

The thought of the explosion made her eyes open, and at once the water stung. She kicked up a thrash of bubbles behind her, fighting through the cold blackness. Before her the shimmering Glaive slit the water as if it were silk, setting a halo of particles aglow.

She tunneled deeper into the water. For these seconds she forgot how to do all else. She fought with all that her body could offer her, the whole sea grinding against her head.

Ahead of her, something flashed, piercing clean through the surface.

A silver fish-like projectile with beautiful fins dove through the murk in a trail of bubbles, plunging almost as deep as she.

Her blood roared as she watched it descend, and she was seized with an emotion too strong to be reckoned with. It wasn't terror, and wasn't rage. It was something akin to regret.

Her heart pounded faster than it ever had before. Her skin shone and burned, like furnace coals. Like a ballroom chandelier.

She heard the world roaring by around her, the ocean subliming into an infinity of frothing bubbles and sparkling steel fragments.

Something slit through the back of her calf—just a graze, but the wound throbbed, and she knew she bled.

The second was not over.

Ruthenia turned blind in a torrent of burning seawater, and finally breathed.

---

Chapter 34: The Helika Waltz

Adjunct 02: Patron

“Would you lodge with us?”

“Are you sure you would welcome a traitor into your midst?”

“Of course, and we're not alone. There's been quite an uproar over recent events. The people fancy you some sort of patron, and we no less.”

“Oh, no—I couldn't—”

“I will not be pleased with less! Please feel welcome; it is the least we can offer.”

***

Ruthenia?

The world trembled gently, like a child shivering with cold.

Ruthenia thought she must be dead, because she was hearing voices, and something was glowing behind her eyelids.

Things faded off to darkness at the edges of her mind.

Ruthenia, you came, like you promised.

Was it her mother, now, calling her under Ihir's wings?

Oh, no. She faintly recognized that voice, and this pungent wetness beneath her…and briny air…

Air. Her head throbbed, steady and warm. She coughed and water sputtered from her throat. Ruthenia found her fingers trawling through wet, leafy dirt. She removed her hand from knuckle-deep in the stuff.

Did you come to save me?

She  flipped over and, with a few dizzy sways, pulled herself up on both knees. Her fingers ran over her throbbing calf, and found a sticky gash right there. The Glaive glowed from her left, its blade the only fresh gleaming thing in her vicinity. Digging it from the muck, she picked it up.

As Ruthenia rose, a shiver wracked her, and she swung forward in a coughing fit, each making water spurt out between her lips onto the sea-dirt below. She began to gasp midway, throat rasping, before her lungs convulsed again and threw up more water.

Wiping her mouth as she rose to stand on trembling knees, she surveyed the area. Thin mist washed across her, so thick she could not see beyond a few feet laterally. But she saw the roof of the chamber, silvery and dimly glowing. Whatever ground she saw was carpeted with seaweed, algae, a mass of muck.

Wandering with a slight limp some ways through the mist, she found herself passing by rotting tables with seaweed for tablecloth, tarnished telescopes, even shards of dinner plates, all foundering in sea-scum.

Ruthenia shivered and stumbled on, through a maze of scattered furniture, discarded cloth. Ahead of her, an odd shadow loomed, jagged and dented, towering many times taller than herself.

Another smell assaulted her nose then, surging above the pungent algae: the thick, nauseating scent of rust.

It was a ship. The remains of one, anyway—its steel hull, crusted with a bumpy corruption of rust, was old enough not to have arrived in the past year. She moved a little further down the  length of the hull, coming to a rust-ringed pothole that she peered through.

She felt a dreadful chill creep over her when she came face to face with a shadowy gambling room, the skeletons of gamblers slumped across their decaying table.

“Lilin!” Ruthenia glared, raising her head to the ceiling, which must be the roof of her mouth, or her stomach. “Lilin! Yes, I'm here to save you!”

Ruthenia.

She hadn't thought an answer would come—she staggered back, and drew in a breath. In the river, the voice had only seemed distant and ethereal—now it almost solidified in the air, walls of sound on either side.

“I don't understand,” she said, drawing away from the window and the accursed ship. “Why do you do this?”

No answer.

As she stepped over shattered compasses lost in the mist and dirt, she began to shiver. She'd reached the edge of this cavern, or Lilin's mouth. Close to the wall, the mist thinned to nothing, and all was visible along its length. Her skin seemed more like porcelain than anything resembling flesh, a single great tooth the size of Tanio’s house towering beside her. Trickles of seawater poured from between her lips, swamping the sea-scum and the broken furniture.

Loneliness, she finally replied.

“I have a plan to get you free,” Ruthenia said. “I have the Glaive here, and I can use it to cut your chain. That might work, won't it?”

Will it?

“It's the best chance we have now. And it's worth a try.”

There was a period of silence from Lilin, just a soft, steady tremble beneath Ruthenia's feet.

Her heart pounded. “Let me into the sea, Lilin. I'll do my best. Let me go in now!”

At the centre.

An enormous gurgling began—Ruthenia gasped again—a frothing wall of water had broken through her lips, like an avalanche of snow. Ruthenia tried to imagine the collision, the creak of her bones, the pummel of the tide—

The water crashed straight into her, smashed to pieces against her side, knocking the air from her lungs. She gulped another lungful, like a stranded fish—and felt it buoy her upward above the shipwreck, towards the roof of her mouth—the pressure building against her—

Flung by a blinding torrent, Ruthenia found herself out in the immenseness of the sea again. A great glowing wall flooded her vision, dressed in scales. She kicked and swam, the Glaive cutting the currents while she followed the monumental curve of Lilin’s flank to where it faded off into the dark. Lilin began to swim as well, the great pale globe of her eye passing her, and then her gills.

She stopped when she met the silhouette of a chain beneath a single vast white wing, heart racing.

It was much larger than she’d expected. Each link was as thick as she was tall, running straight into Lilin’s flank like an insidious burrowing worm. Lilin's flesh had grown around the chain, accommodating it—but there were cracks through her skin, cracks where she'd struggled too hard and it had begun to tear her. The metal was rough, but there were no welding seams, no irregularities, no rust even in these briny waters.

Glancing at the Glaive in her right hand, feeling the air expire slowly in her lungs, Ruthenia felt the despair crawl over her again—but this time, she beat it down with a surge of determination and a clenching of her jaw.

Ruthenia landed upon her flank and slid along the goddess’ skin, towards the closest link of the chain. She heard it grinding against her flesh, flecks of scales crushed between steel and muscle. Gritting her teeth, she hooked an arm around the first link, and drove the Glaive’s blade with a clatter against the chain.

Like a woodworker she sawed at the link—back, forth, back, forth against the resistance of water, shoulder straining as the blade screeched. The gurgle of water was poor encouragement, but it was all she had.

Time kept stretching and buckling. She worked the blade against the metal, deepening the crack stroke by stroke.

It was difficult, accepting her failure slowly.

Here under so much dark roaring water, Ruthenia already knew she would never finish. Not in time. Not before she drowned.

Yet she continued to saw anyway, like a machine built to a single purpose, paying no heed to the convulsions as they grew more violent and the fanged ache in her shoulder began to blaze.

As she did, her vision began to sparkle and sway, and her lungs began to hurt. Things were darkening at the corners again, slipping out of her mind’s grasp, as if ink were being spilt over patches of her consciousness. She only barely felt the shaft of the Glaive, but even now her grasp was loosening.

Lavender-purple sparks swallowed her vision whole, and her limbs began to lock up. Even then, she worked away at the crack in the chain. She would let nothing stop her, now that she’d gotten this far—

***

When next she woke, Ruthenia was staring up at the roof of Lilin's mouth.

She kicked convulsively twice, as if she were still in the sea, choking and gulping. But then she became aware that her right hand was empty, and that the Glaive of Laveda was not beside her.

“No, no!” The scream burst out of her at once, then became choking, as ocean water spurted out from between her lips. She coughed until her lungs no longer hurt.

She rolled over and sprung to her knees in the scum, ripping seaweed from the ground, ploughing through fronds and dirt. But the fog was as forbidding as ever, and nothing was there. Nothing but she.

The cold barreled her to the ground, and she let it knock her down, curling up among the devoured things. Sobs seared her lungs. Her head burnt hot and cold; colours swam through her vision. She clawed about in the muddy muck for something to hold, trembling while the cold and nausea wracked her body, wave after wave.

“Lilin,” she croaked. “Kill me. Kill me, Lilin. Drown me.” Her voice broke on the last word, fading to convulsive sobs.

No, Ruthenia. I won’t kill you.

“I should’ve known it was always beyond me! I was so—so proud. I really thought I could save you. I really did. Ha! And now I'm as good as dead, so just do me a favour and end it. End it.”

I won’t kill you, she replied, the chamber trembling about her. You came here to save me, so I can’t kill you.

“And what good did that do you?” she laughed, then screamed herself hoarse.

Everything was cloudy in the fog, now—every sensation, every thought.

Ruthenia gasped, and screamed, and gasped, and felt her breathing grow level as her fit slowly drained out of her. Now nothing but an immense exhaustion sat upon her, pinning her to the ground.

Why have you fought so hard for me?

“I hate—” she fought her own sobbing down— ”I hate Ihir. He took my parents, and my home. He turned our friends against us. I haven’t forgiven them, and I haven’t forgiven him. And I thought saving you would be the best way to spite him.”

Pausing momentarily to let the last of her quivering subside, Ruthenia began to scoop the muddy grime beneath her aside, till a glow of blue peeked through the mat of decaying leaves, barely three inches down. She swept the debris aside and laid her head in the depression, closing her eyes.

I hate him too. The curtness of her voice belay a writhing, thick hatred. The mist thickened to storm, the glow of the chamber dimming, the air flaring warm. I wish I had known, Ruthenia. I wish I had known what he had meant, when he said forever. I thought surely he would not be so cruel, for I adored him and he adored me. I thought it was but brief penance for my insolence and I laughed when he left. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, when he chained me, I didn’t know, didn’t know—

She sent up a wail that Ruthenia listened to, an anguished keening that felt so familiar it was as if there were a space in her soul meant to house it. She felt tears of her own grow hot in her eyes and spill out to meet the dampness beneath her.

“I loved my mother, too. But now it’s clear she never cared about me.”

In the depths of the murk and silence, a faint rhythm rose into audibility. It came from deep within Lilin's flesh, where her ear met the glowing smoothness. Soft and rousing.

She felt it vibrate through her fingers, faintly, too. It seeped through her bones and fibres like warmth.

It was the beat of the Helika Waltz.

“Your heartbeat sounds like...the beat of a dance I know,” she said. “I danced to it once, at a private palace function. A wedding.”

She paused to let it wash over her. It was there, this ancient dance. She lay there for several minutes, closing her eyes, letting it ease the despair from her blood.

“I went there to tell the king I would not take Ihir’s word as law. But something else happened on that day. I began to realise Arcanes were people, like me. I began to see that they weren’t really trying to hurt me. They were just...blind, and ignorant, because they’d been living in white towers all their lives.”

It is funny to me that your people have ceded their freedom to the kings.

“I know, but I think I understand now.” She rolled over so she lay on her back and saw just the dimly-glowing ceiling. “I’m...a stupid person. If I had lived my life as I had liked, I would have hurt so many people.”

The law orphaned you.

“It did, but now that I’m here, and dying, it’s become obvious how ridiculous it was—that I let that one event dictate the course of my life. That I let it make me cruel. That I let it take me here. To my end.”

Were you happy, she asked, when you learned that they were not truly cruel?

“No. I wanted to believe they were evil. It made things...easier.” She paused. “They think you’re evil. Isn’t it funny how bad we are at judging the motives of others?”

For an hour or so, Ruthenia lay in the old scum, talking to Lilin, about ordinary things. Because lying here, with the last vestige of her life burning out, talking helped her feel like she wasn’t about to be extinguished. And Lilin begged to hear it all, every detail she had to offer.

Standing was not nearly as easy as it should have been, particularly not in her hunger.

Stumbling towards the ship in the murk, Ruthenia clambered through a pothole into a cabin. Traces of its old lavishness hung still upon the walls when she entered. It must be an Arcane ship. She found, gleaming in a shallow puddle on the carpet, the shards of an old beer bottle, and picked one up.

She picked her way past piles of bones into the darkness, shivering as she splashed into the cargo hold. She stood squinting at the shapes she could barely make out, scattered across the room. With the glass, she slit the rope bindings of several chests, finding by touch a few bottles of rum in one, a meat skewer and some spoiled meat in another, and a gold-leafed tinderbox in yet another. Once treasures, worthless now.

She cut threads off the frayed end of a rope, and twisted them into a single strand, tying a knot in it. Then she pierced the cork of a rum bottle with the meat skewer, and pricked the knotted thread through. Once it was damp, she lit her makeshift lamp.

Things around her glittered gently in the firelight. By its light, she found some old preserved fruit and meat, none too difficult to ingest—particularly not when she had been running on nothing but crackers and canned beef for...for who knew how long?

“Hey, Lilin,” she said.

Ruthenia?

“Do you think...your father is like the people I know?” she asked as she munched on the fruit. “That he might not be evil—just flawed, and mistaken? I’ve been under the illusion that he is all-knowing, but I don’t know terribly much about deities.”

It doesn’t matter, answered Lilin. I am trapped here forever.

“But if he were to plead for forgiveness, would you forgive him?”

He would not, so it doesn’t matter.

“But if he did?”

A long silence followed. Without waiting for an answer, Ruthenia tugged a gleaming jar open and picked a piece of peach from inside it, nibbling it in the dim light of her makeshift lamp.

He will always hate me, and I shall return his hatred.

Her eyes widened as something dawned upon her, a memory that was all but faded now.

“No...no, Lilin.” The sound of Lilin’s heartbeat boomed louder, a dance without fixed measure. “I think he wants you back. I...I know he does.”

Who chained me here? Who cursed me to rot?

“It’s been raining for so long, Lilin. Almost every day. The puddles and fountains are overflowing. There are bluebells everywhere...the...the symbol of mourning. But they’re not yours, are they? You didn’t send the rain nor the flowers.”

A tremor rocked the ground, making crates slide about. Fog was pouring in through the doorway.

“It was your father.”

Lilin was silent for a minute. Ruthenia continued to eat pensively.

His sorrow is wasted on me. I don’t want to be his daughter.

“He wants you to be his daughter. He has been sending you apologies for several months now.”

What use are apologies? She could hear it everywhere, now—the Helika Waltz, thundering in the air, and in her blood. Why are you telling me this?

“Because, Lilin, if you are to live trapped forever, you are better off living it knowing the truth. I don’t think he hates you, Lilin. I think you misunderstand each other.” Her vision blurred as she passed through the doorway. “Streets are flooded and buildings are falling. He’s destroying his own nest in his grief--that sad, sad creature--and the fields are full of bluebells. I don’t think he can bear not seeing you any longer.”

In the silence, the fog showed no signs of settling. The air was thick with eddies and swirls, and as Ruthenia stood in the abandoned corridor, she stared out through the dim windows and pretended the sky were beyond.

What is there left to do?

I’m trapped.

He trapped me here.

As she watched the mist tide over the ship and break into tiny swirls on the sills, an idea dawned upon her.

“I...think I know. Deities are held together by their wills, aren’t they? So surely they are able to will themselves apart as well. Could you do that? Just for a minute? What is a minute to a goddess who has lived three hundred years?”

It might kill me.

“But it’s worth the risk isn’t it?”

The fog began to pour through the windows like froth, swirling so thick that she began to choke. She could no longer see the windows, but the white billows of cloud glowed with the light from her lamp. She stumbled down the corridor towards the room from which she’d entered.

I’m afraid.

I’ve never thought about dying.

I’m afraid to imagine it.

“I know,” answered Ruthenia. “The first time I thought about death, really thought about it, I was paralysed with fear for days. But that changed, as I lived more, and people  around me left. It became a necessary threat that lingered on the edge of my mind, giving meaning to everything I did.”

I’m not as brave as you are.

“There are things you must want. Things you live for. The sky—do it for the sky.”

She felt the floor rock to a side, and she thrust out her arms to keep her balance.

“For your freedom. For happiness.”

No. I shall do it for you.

Ruthenia smiled, and with her smile came a cascade of tears. Once Lilin vanished, she’d be under a hundred feet of ocean, and who knew how she’d survive the trip back to Astra? But better to die like this than to die for nothing.

I’m ready.

Ruthenia watched her life unravel from her memory. All the words she’d hurled in hate. All the chains, the basements, the cages, the graves—the memory of grief and guns. Her work shed. Her umbrella.

Lilin was already dissolving into the finest, most brilliant dust. It tumbled through the potholes into the dim chamber and curled around her fingers as she lifted herself onto a desk and slid one foot through the pothole, rising upwards as if drawn to the sky. When she clambered out into the open, her feet sank through it as if it were quicksand.

Down she sank, through a universe of whirling glitter, the roar of the sea growing louder in her ears. Everything was bright and stormy. Flecks of Lilin got caught in her hair. The world was singing.

Until the bubble of dust and light that was Lilin began to flicker.

“Lilin?” Ruthenia shouted. It was something about the air. The wind was shrieking. Lilin was beginning to thin and scatter.

Ru— —

she cried beyond the hurricane of water, froth and mist, but her voice sputtered, as if heard through a faulty radio.

Ruthenia, I can’t—

Ruthenia screamed blindly as the light faded from the whirl of glitter around her and Lilin’s will began to decay. “Lilin!” she yelled, every syllable tearing at her throat. “Think about freedom! Lilin, don’t you dare!”

But the glowing dust could not hear her voice, and the sea continued to crash inwards, breaking the eddies of particles as they tried to coalesce.

“Lilin, you’re going to live--as you were always meant to--Lilin--”

***

There were wings.

Gauzy, misty wings. Burning white wings.

Light unfolding from the swell of the ocean beyond. An infinite wrath trying to tear the ocean in two.

Lilin!

cried a voice of twenty different tones, twenty different versions of the same sorrow. It came upon them like rain upon flowers, weeping and singing, a swan song.

The whiteness circled and whirled and bloomed and slashed at the jaws of the Deeps.

Ruthenia heard the voice return. She knew it was Ihir, the patron god of Astra, of Cado Ihira.

But Ihir sounded like her mother, and her mother was speaking to her.

“You have always been wrong,” said Lita. “I love you, and always have!”

“Then why did you abandon me?” answered Ruthenia. “Why did you vanish without a word? Do you know how angry I was?”

“Because I knew you would be angry when you learned that I had chosen something over you. And I was afraid to watch you stop loving me.”

She wanted to spit all the vileness in her at her mother. All the vileness she deserved. Her grief turned to hatred, the hatred that was the only thing she’d known how to feel for all of six years. Hatred that had defined her, defined Ruthenia Cendina.

But she could not, and she realized then that it was not hatred that blazed in her throat now, but rue.

“No,” answered Ruthenia, achingly. “I was afraid that you had lost your love for me.”

Then her mother was gone, and all that was left were Ihir and Lilin, dancing around each other.

And Ihir said, “Will you forgive me?”

And Lilin replied, “I will try to.”

And it was Ruthenia’s own voice that had spoken those words.

Then she crashed out of the dream, the matter that formed her rippling and trembling. The light deserted her eyes.

Ruthenia felt her death begin—the pressure of the sea or some similar darkness, like claws in her chest.

She let herself enter it.

***

A universe expanded, right before her eyes, complete and developed and complex, pulsing with self-awareness—then was shattered by the crush of the tides. A castle of blue light stirred into a hurricane blur.

In Astra, a storm began—a storm to destroy as none ever had before, a poem without rhyme. Lightning struck the pinnacles of towers, and every Thread creaked, making buildings sway through the air like birds.

It was like a stormy ballroom, all of the world dancing across its floor to the beat of Ihir’s heart. Two flourishes, two leaps. Lightning slit the skin of the sky like a scalpel. But it was the thunder that shook the skeletons of buildings and snapped the pillars.

---

Chapter 35: the sky has no boundaries

Adjunct 03: The Uncaging

The storm had raged since yesterday evening, the Twelfth of October. It had broken upon Astra like falcons snatched their prey from the sky.

Hollia heard a high lamenting cry in her sleep—a frightful sound that shook her straight out of her nightmares, thrust her headfirst into the night.

Rubbing her eyes, she stumbled out of her room and towards the kitchen—and her mind was occupied with the thought of just one thing: her mourning doves.

They’d been building a nest before the rain had begun, and it had suddenly become so clear, their singing, his flying, her brooding. She was about to lay. Hollia had found the beginnings of a nest in the upper branches of the great circling tree, and her heart had grown tender with joy.

That joy was all but absent in this booming darkness. Snatching a lantern and a box of matches from the mantel, Hollia struck a flame and lit it. She crept into the kitchen and through the back door.

A second bright cry startled her straight—a cry that travelled across the shivering netting. She gasped and scurried outside, forgetting her slippers and umbrella.

Rain immediately tumbled upon her, soaking her gown and her hair. But for once the rain did not bother her.

The cry had been a mourning dove’s. But strange, strained. Distorted.

She raced between roots and over low bushes, twigs tangling in her rain-soaked gown, just as the dove raised another rumbling cry through the rain—where are you? Where are you?

She glanced up through the branches. The male dove sat alone in their half-built nest. But his mate—

Hollia could only listen, helpless, wide-eyed, dizzied, as an answering cry shrieked softly through the rain from far, far away, from the great tree down the sandy road, here, I’m here, seconds before lightning struck it.

And that night, a great rattling boom shook the entire beech cottage—followed quickly by the snapping wood and twanging of wires and a tumult of crying birds. Hollia tossed in her sleep; she did not know it but tears were beading on her eyelashes.

That night, the lightning struck the tallest pole of the aviary. Down the pole crashed, cracking through the middle. Down through the wires it tore, ripping them from their joints, plucking them from the wood as if they were no more than hairs.

The roar of light and gushing rain ascended, and for the first time in half a millennium—for the first time since this visionary group of dreaming Ihirin had strung these wires up and sawed the wood into pillars—the aviary split wide open.

***

…wake up…wake up…

All was trapped in glowing stasis. Nothing seemed to move or breathe, not the icy air itself.

The creature could not blink—it hardly even knew what blink meant. What the world meant. It lay supine, like a limp doll.

…awake…

The pealing resonated through the white room of imagined noise. But it felt no more significant, or sensible, than a stone.

Something was creeping across its eyelids now—snowy light.

It blinked this unremembrance away.

It became she.

She drew breath through her mouth. She knew this feeling; the place that cradled her was coming into focus, too, along with her knowledge—arching white walls, flawlessly shimmering floors (marble without veins? What was marble?), the scent of rain, a chill down the spine, frigid cold…

She yelped, flipping on the floor and realizing she could move. The floor was cold. Pulling herself up onto her bottom and hunching over her crossed legs, she rubbed at her arms, as the remains of her memory trickled back through the maze of her brain.

Name: Ruthenia Fulminare Cendina.

Age: sixteen, sixteen and a half? Too easy.

Hates: I hate being ordered about. This came with a flare of anger.

Loves: I love flying on my umbrella—

…my umbrella…

…is gone.

Like a cold slap in the face, the thought jerked Ruthenia's mind back through the layers of hazy unconsciousness, landing it right where it belonged inside her skull.

“Is this death?”

Her eyes shot up to survey her surroundings, tracing the pillars and searching for detail to remember—but deeper inspection only revealed a lack of it. The network of archways on either side of her seemed almost nondescript, smooth, impossible to pin down exactly. The clear blue sky glowed in them.

The quality of the floor, seamless and smooth, was such that the light split into glittery pieces inside it. Blank lace banners rippled like ghosts overhead. Farther down the corridor, there was a sort of altar raised on a rectangular dais, carrying a single rectangular artifact she couldn't make out.

The faraway dais was white, too. Lights glittered across the steps, and further looking made her realise that that light came straight through the space of the ceiling: more sky shone through, blue without summer heat.

Ruthenia blinked.

She certainly remembered the gushing of water into her lungs, the slow squeezing and crushing of the sea. But now as she dragged herself to her feet and stood up, she felt as tireless as a child.

She broke into a dash, and dozens of pillars rushed past her, all the same. The dais and the object on it began to drift into focus, details beginning to clarify themselves. Ruthenia's heart jumped: like an apparition, a person had shimmered into being upon that box she'd only just realised was a throne.

More details rose out of the pool of light. The person—or humanoid being, in any case—sat straight backed, feet flat on the ground. She smiled briefly. He—or she—seemed neither male nor female; their robes glowed so white she imagined any sort of stain would sooner cower from it than attempt to mar its purity.

But that was not all. A second figure blurred into being at the foot of the throne, like a mirage. By the skirts and the style of the hair, all decked in jewels, Ruthenia supposed she was a girl. But it was not her skirts or her jewels that drew her in, and held her fast. In the middle of her abdomen, like a rose, bloomed a bright patch of blood.

Her eyes were shut. The enthroned person's hand sat in the silver locks of her hair. They had no eyes for the visitor, only eyes for the girl by their feet.

Ruthenia really hated to break their calm. "Excuse me!" she yelled, racing down the slippery floor, but without once slipping. "May I know where I am, and how I may leave?"

She stumbled to a stop, three feet from the dais, gripping her knees and bending over to pant. Suddenly Ruthenia felt terribly small, and devastatingly unworthy of the spot on which she stood.

"I see you are awake," they answered instead, in a voice both ordinary and distinctly ethereal.

Ruthenia quailed, and stepped back. Her eyes moved to the girl beside his throne, bleeding more profusely now, the red blood seeping down into her skirt. She looked about eleven, twelve.

"Li—Lilin?"

The girl's eyelids did not stir; her sleep was deeper than the sea.

Above her, Ihir nodded, with a wayward glance that could almost have been sadness. "I am surprised," He said, while Ruthenia averted her eyes, "but so it is, that I find myself in your debt, the debt of a mortal. And that absolutely will not do."

She stared up at him oddly. "For saving her?" she asked, and choked back a guilty laugh. "All I did was convince her to kill herself. I almost ended her life!" She paused for breath, and shivered. Real. He was real. "Your…Majesty."

He shook His head. "Yet you freed her, with simple words, where I have spent three hundred years fighting with every drop of my power to revoke a curse I cast in my rage." His eyes closed, almost refusing to see her. "I must thank you."

Ruthenia bowed deeply to receive His thanks, deeper than she remembered ever bowing before—but she felt so awkward, and little, here before the God of the Sky—that her courtesy only seemed crude and clumsy.

"Now," He said. "Your act has brought to my attention a problem of negligence on my part, and I need you to send a message to my people."

"Me?” she shouted. “Your Majesty, there are many much greater people in the country who could do that job better!"

A flourishing sweep of robes, and Ihir had stood from His throne. Both continued to refuse to notice the unconscious figure of Lilin at the throne's foot.

"Perhaps so," He said, quite gravely. "But if I were to make you my messenger, that would effectively save your life, would it not? It is the least I could do, to repay your favour."

"But I am a sinner, a blasphemer—I have done things to spite your name! Doesn't that matter?”

While she shook, Ihir strode to the edge of the dais. If He had divine shoes, or divine feet for that matter, His divine robes did not reveal them, though they were beginning to flutter as if tossed by eddying gales.

"You may not love me," He said, cloak billowing with wind behind Him, "but I do not ask for love. You do not love nor hate, you who are your own. And I am flawed. It is in your refusal to delude yourself with visions of my flawlessness that you are powerful yourself. It is a truth few others have ever dared embrace.

"So I say this to you. My old laws are no longer sufficient, nor relevant, to the country that Astra has become. Tell the authorities of your nation that it is not sin to ride the changing tides of the world. Go to the palace, and tell them it is so!"

---

Chapter 36: Lightning Strikes Twice

Ruthenia burst from troubled sleep. She came out of it as if breaking through the surface of a cold lake, from the longest nightmare.

There'd been all sorts of things in this nightmare: ocean and crushed ribs and a shipwreck in a goddess' mouth and dead people at poker and a bullet in a diver's shoulder. And Ihir.

It all replayed in her memory, over and over—surreal and strange and suffocating. It floated in the ether of her subconscious as the memory of a dream did.

But when she strained and twisted, all tangled in linty greyish blankets—and when gashes of pain lit up all across her ribcage, front and back—Ruthenia was forced to realise that the dream had been real.

She had to gasp for breath. She didn't know she was free yet, not when she didn't even know where she was.

She quickly began to take interest in her immediate surroundings, dragging herself with bumps and moans into a sitting position. There wasn't a window; the space was lit by a clean white Thread lamps floating overhead. The room was nothing more than what it had to be. Austere grey walls grazed both head and foot of her bed. The bedposts were wooden stumps. The door at the far corner was no better-worked. Adjacent to her bed, a simple dresser stood with its rectangular mirror turned towards her.

She stared into her own face for a while, bruised on her left cheek.

Three knocks clattered against the door, followed by a rusty creak. "Good morning, Miss Cendina," a voice muttered perfunctorily from the open doorway, snatching her gaze. Ruthenia stared on as a uniformed man she did not know, stocky and greying on the head, marched into her room with a tray. "Breakfast."

The tray carried what-smelled-like-gruel and a steaming drink. Her stomach growled.

The man smiled wanly at her eagerness, laying the tray upon the dresser. Grudgingly and with moans of exhaustion, she stumbled onto her feet and crossed to where her tray of consumables gleamed.

She gobbled all the gruel while she stood, like livestock guzzling feed. The scalding heat of the water was only enough to deter her from gulping it down in mouthfuls.

With the food sitting warm in her belly, she felt a liberating comfort that she'd not been able to till now.

"Miss Cendina," the man said once she was done, "please be informed that you are scheduled to be transferred to the holding room in ten minutes."

"Holding room?" Ruthenia shot back. "What holding room? What for?"

"Your execution," he replied.

The gruel turned cold in Ruthenia's stomach. She found her limbs locked in place. Half of her heart had been ready; the other half had been clinging to the hope that they'd known about her conversation with Ihir somehow. This half felt as if it had just been thrown off a cliff, and this was the half that took control her now, making her skull feel too small and the air too tight in her ears.

She only dropped onto the bed, hoping she hadn't paled though she felt so dizzy. "Alright, then," she replied. "I will...I will be there. Where do I go?"

"There is no need for you to know," answered the man—the warden. "You will be escorted."

He nodded and turned to depart. She hardly heard the slam of the door, or the turn of the key. She bowed her head and stared at the grey fabric of her pants, spotted with teardrops.

Curling up both fists, Ruthenia pulled her feet onto the bed's edge so she could hug her knees.

Executions of this sort were never kept quiet about. Who knew who'd be watching—her friends? Her foes? The ones who'd always told her she couldn't be more than a schoolgirl? They'd finally know how wrong they were, and they’d also watch her die for it.

Ruthenia scrubbed uninvited tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. Why cry, when she had nothing to lose?

Then she began to think of how Tanio might finally shed a tear when she died. Or Aleigh. Or Iurita even. For no reason a laugh seized her at the thought—a laugh interspersed with violent sobs, tears suddenly reigniting her eyes and flooding down her chin to stain her grey shirt collar.

Like the idiot she knew she had become, Ruthenia squandered the rest of her last ten minutes crying her heart empty. She lay in bed among the covers, sobbing and clenching her fingers deep inside the layers of linty grey cloth, thinking suddenly how wonderful it was to feel their texture and this spearlike pain inside her head, to know this sharpness of sensation.

She watched how the light sparkled dazzlingly through her tears. She loved how the bulb became a burst of flowers in her eyes, and blinked so their petals changed, again and again. In minutes she would no longer know this vividness. In minutes she'd no longer…be.

And it should not matter—because you are the hero you wanted to be! The thought pounded in her head. You have done more than a lifetime's worth. You were brave enough to give everything.

They'll always remember Ruthenia Cendina now.

Yet the loss engulfed the second of bravado, and she bent to her knees again. She didn’t want to die. Life had only just become something she enjoyed.

***

Ruthenia was glad that she managed to choke back her last sob before the escort entered. They marched in—six of them—faces clean-shaven and hair cropped, the metal of their boots clinking. Rifles with bayonets were held against their shoulders, but they wouldn't dare use their weapons on her until she was out in the plaza. If she was meant to die before a crowd, then she would. She wasn't just a criminal now: she was a message to be sent.

She tightened her fists as she held her wrists out behind her for the handcuffs. One of them shoved her head down, and before she had caught her breath, she felt the steel collar click around her neck.

He tugged on the jangling chain to test it, jerking the ring sharply against bones. "Get her moving," one man snapped. The metal abraded her skin as they made her march.

Head bowed with the weight of the ring, Ruthenia glared up at her handler as her feet began to move. They shoved her out of her room. She let them.

The prison floors gleamed around her, made of rock that wasn't marble nor granite. She saw no cell doors on the way to the holding room. They took her up ramps and stairs, rough hands pushing her on course at every bend, bruising her shoulders, then through a heavy door that they locked thrice over. Everything turned muffled.

Then the fifteen minutes were up, and she was flung off the bench to stand. They flicked the steel door open as if it were paper. The chains began to drag. When the entrance loomed up, bright with day, she went almost blind.

The prison exited from the side of a low cliff, the door facing a long clay wall that girt the perimeter of the foothill. A thick-barred gate was set in the wall some way ahead of them. Ruthenia could not shade her eyes from the blaze as they dragged her by the chain, and she yelped, the bones at the base of her head lighting up with pain.

They marched half a mile on cobblestones. She thought she saw many places pass as they walked, but she forgot them after they flashed by—a deserted candy stand, a row of old furniture shops, an empty street corner—all devoid of life. They must have cleared the roads for her passage, the way they did for monarchs.

On and on the long march wore. Her feet were about to give way, when a faraway sound rekindled her blood.

It was the noise of a crowd. It rose from somewhere far beyond this row of empty Candle shophouses. At once the escort men’s strides turned robust and purposeful. They kicked at her heels, and she found herself being dragged more often, her thin prison shoes scraping dirt. She fought to keep up, but it was clear they meant for her to stumble.

Ruthenia fought their callous yanking, and found her footing every time they made her lose it. Put up the fight of a hero, Ruth. Even if you are hero to no one else.

As the road emerged from behind shophouses into Candle Plaza, the roar of crowds swelled, making her dizzy. The throngs slid apart at the approach of the escort, like cloth before a blade. They were chanting, although the words were lost in the havoc.

They marched to the centre of historic Candle Plaza, the heart of which had been cleared, four gunmen waiting with bayonets glittering on rifles for their fellows to join them. Her escort dragged her into their midst, but she refused to stumble.

"You have no power over me!" she yelled. In retaliation, the head of the escort grinned and yanked on the chain so she choked.

"Ruthenia Cendina!" she thought she heard someone in the crowd bellow in answer. There was a flash of colour, and a red bouquet landed at the edge of the space, some way to her right. The guards on its perimeter barked at each other, and the offender was quickly removed, along with the accursed bouquet.

But it had been there, and everyone had seen it. The crowd roared and surged in answer, like a fire fed oil.

"This isn't how it usually goes,” muttered one guard to another.

“Why do they care? She’s just another criminal.”

"Ihir bless you!" a man shouted.

"Ihir bless you!" the cry did not cease.

So she set her jaw and dragged herself forward, raising her face to glare at the squad that had lined up, the way they had before her mother and her father.

"Down!" The bellow came seconds before she was kicked to her knees, and lights flashed through her vision as her manacled arms swung futilely to break her fall, head colliding with the dirty cobblestones. Before she could steady her breathing, hands had grabbed her shoulders to straighten her into a kneel.

A frigid rush of blood and a surge of her pulse threw sparks in her gaze. Panic finally engulfed her bodily. The fact and reality. The despair and the smell of her end.

Involuntarily, Ruthenia began to sob. The crowd's noise surged in answer.

Her skin bloomed cold with sweat as the guards lined up, cocking their rifles in a chorus of clicks. Just like six years ago. Just like when it had been Lita Kyril and Ira Cendina kneeling on this plaza.

Her tears splashed black circles on the floor. "No—no—" She could not breathe. Her limbs twitched against steel. "Please! Ihir will free me—Ihir—please!"

"Ihir won’t save a heretic and traitor to the state," growled the head guard against the roar of the audience. "Last words?"

"Ihir, I beg of you—" Clenching her fists till her nails tore her skin, she let out a screech that rent her throat, amid the noise of rifles being cocked.

And she was answered.

By a dozen lightning bolts, leaping out of the sky, and thunder rolling like a gun salute.

The longest second in the universe followed thereafter. She heard the entire world rush through her ears. She tasted the sea splitting the skin on her lips. She smelt the rain. She felt her eyes fly wide open. She watched a blinding spear of lightning shoot out of the sky and connect with her.

Gunpowder boomed, but the bullets exploded in midair. The air hummed, like the tuning of strings before a concert—and all about her, there were thousands of feathers—white and brown, eagle’s feathers—swirling and fluttering in a thundering whirlwind.

A swell of hot wind lifted her bodily into the air, and a furnace lit up inside her belly, the flames licking at her throat, roaring to be released.

In a lurch, she felt her limbs spread as the fire flared from inside her.

She felt her arms lift, and with a blazing lurch, she began to speak.

“This I tell you!” she bellowed in twenty voices, glowing with every word. Her mind was her own but her throat no longer was. “I have said it is sin to trust an external power not of my making. But time dashes these powers against each other; they dance, weave, and the thorns turn to verdance. There is no sin in inviting tides instead of resisting them, no sin in accepting gifts, no sin in progress!

“I never meant for homicide to be committed in my name. The laws are old, and now unsuitable to govern you, and so I give you a new one: It is not sin to embrace change! It is not sin to welcome that which will lead my nation to prosperity!

“Let it be yours; let it raise you, and let it be your flight!”

As sudden as it had come, the blazing heat deserted her, and she felt herself fall back to the cobblestones with a thud that knocked all the breath from her lungs. She lay there for a minute, heat and pain banging on her skull, as the lights swam and swirled and slowly began to make sense.

Then the sky itself exploded upon Candle Plaza. With a vast boom of lightning, rain began to gush down upon the stones, upon heads and shirts and cloaks, washing everything cold and clean.

A tug at the ring on her neck startled a yelp out of her. "Up! We're not done, convict," snapped the head guard as she ascended on her knees. "We don't know what strange kinds of Weaving you've got in you, but it's not rewriting your death warrant—"

"It is."

The interruption made the head guard drop the chain. Simultaneously, the entire party turned, as did Ruthenia.

It was the Archbishop who had stepped into their midst, white robes greyed by the dampness of rain.

"Miss Cendina’s death sentence must be revoked," he repeated, walking serenely into the midst of the ten guards, any of whom could have shot him to death in a second. But Archbishop Tiel lifted his hand, and they bowed their heads meekly in response. He turned to Ruthenia, who knelt trembling, struggling to stay upright. "My good sister, I shall have you transferred to the cathedral house."

Only the head guard did not back down. "Good afternoon, Your Holy Grace." He barely offered the courtesy of a bow. "I am the official in charge of this execution. Meaning no disrespect, but who grants you the authority to decide what is to be done with the convict?"

"I do," said a voice from behind him. Again they turned. King Hazen had entered their midst, grave as he'd always been. The Ordinary King came to a halt, brown stare going cold. "Ihir has spoken. I, too, wish for Miss Cendina to be held at the cathedral house, lest we incur His wrath."

"I—if you so command," muttered the man, dissent melted to nothing. He held an open hand in Ruthenia's direction. "Please—take the convict wherever it pleases you."

***

Ruthenia breathed deep, counting the seconds. She counted steadily and faithfully, hoping that the methodical and endless chore would somehow reinstate some semblance of order to her mind.

She felt the wardens taking all the chains off her. Some period of dazed staring and being-stared-at after, a carriage of the cloister arrived on the square in a smooth clatter, and Ruthenia found herself being escorted aboard by a woman in the grey-and-white cathedral service garb.

She continued to be exhausted beyond comprehension as the carriage lifted away from the plaza, slumping in the seat despite the Archbishop’s presence.

"Good afternoon, Miss Cendina," said Tiel, once Centrelight had sunk out of the windows. "I hope you are well, in spite of all that has transpired."

His voice was muffled and faint in her mind. She'd been staring at her lap, studying the rough weave of the pants.

"Miss Cendina, you seem tired."

This time the question came with a dash of concern, and she straightened.

"I am," she answered, no drop of life to her words. "Your Holy Grace."

“Are you aware that Ihir just spoke through you?”

"I am," she answered. “It wasn't so shocking, though...I’ve met him once before.”

The surprise finally emerged upon her face, and she pulled her shoulders back against her seat.

"I did," she murmured, and suddenly feared to meet the Archbishop's eye.

"Proving it will be trivial, I imagine, considering the number of witnesses," he said. “As Saint Somnia’s successor, I must offer you my mantle.”

---

Chapter 37: News from the Source

Ruthenia was ever so glad for the privacy of a room at the cloister by the cathedral. The maids serving her—Nerita and Riun—were eager to take her straight to a cosy vacancy in the east side of the building. A window without grills was set in the wall, overlooked the sprawling cloister gardens and it had a good blue wallpaper reminiscent of the sky, but paler.

She had vehemently refused Tiel’s offer of the title of Archbishop yesterday, but on having had the offer of priesthood pressed unto her, she had been unable to do the same.

As she had begun to understand, from her interactions with various devotees around the cloister, meeting Ihir had made her an icon of His power, and it would be irresponsible—and dangerous—to pretend it meant nothing.

Well, icon or not, Ruthenia was still a sixteen-year-old girl. She went to sleep after lunch, and did not stop sleeping for more than a day.

The sky was pale and cold when she woke. A breakfast of cheese rolls and hot chocolate awaited her, left by whom, she didn’t know. The cheese rolls were scrumptious; the hot chocolate had become lukewarm chocolate but it was satisfying enough.

At about nine o’clock, her room was paid a visit by Nerita, who informed her of the presence of two visitors at the lobby.

Within the minute, she was limping after the maid through the corridors, bare feet freezing on the tiles. They passed empty glass globes that glowed golden from the inside, and other dark wood doors just like hers, each with a numbered plaque. Stopping by the archway at the end, the maid had her put on a pair of slippers from one of the shoe racks lining the walls outside.

They emerged into the marble-floored lobby through a pair of double doors, and by the doorway, beside a couch and a potted plant, there stood a familiar figure dressed in green.

“Hollia,” Ruthenia breathed, and Hollia dashed forward and snatched her up in an unabashedly fierce hug.

"I’m so glad you’re back!” she gasped. Her sentence disintegrated to convulsive sobbing midway, and Ruthenia patted her on the back while she cried into her shoulder.

“Yes, I am,” she replied, rather more lifelessly than she should have, hugging her back. “I’m so glad to be back, too.”

Stepping away so they were an arm’s length apart, Hollia’s eyes lit up, wet and bright. “I got so frightened when they suspended you,” she said. “They’re saying you attacked the ship and stopped Leon—that you took the Glaive—"

"It’s a really, really long story," Ruthenia answered, still wrestling with memories of the black ocean around her. “I’ll tell you more sometime.”

Hollia’s jaw dropped. "Then it's true? It's all true?"

"Yes,” she answered, “but all that matters is that we're all safe now—Lilin included."

Hollia smiled back in silence, gaze holding Ruthenia's for five seconds. "Well, not quite," she said. "I mean, there was a huge riot last night.”

“What?” Ruthenia breathed, rubbing her head. Dread welled up in her. “What happened?”

“They say the Swan’s Post organised and incited it. Folks were furious about your near-execution, saying you were right all along. It made them brave. Everything exploded last night. The rioters shot the mayoress and torched her office—"

“What? But—Derron didn’t say—”

It was hard to feel anything for a death so far-removed, particularly not after the ordeal she had suffered. But she couldn’t help but feel like she had to shoulder the responsibility.

“That isn’t what I set out to achieve, I never meant for anyone to die—”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Ruthenia shook her head. “I let Derron proceed with the plan, when I should have known—”

"Well, I do hope they figure everything out in the courtroom.”

“Courtroom?”

“That’s why I’m here. They’re here to officially have you acquitted of all your crimes. We’re leaving at ten o’clock.”

“Well, I’m not dressed for it—”

Hollia beamed. “And that’s why I have this!” she thrust a paper bag into Ruthenia’s arms, which she grabbed. Right then, she caught sight of a person she hadn’t been expecting to see, over Hollia’s shoulder.

“Hyder?”

The boy lifted his head and smiled, somewhat timidly. Ruthenia sucked in a gasp. It was Hyder indeed, with the Mask-face on again. But she might not have recognised him if not for his voice, for he wore the crispest brown jacket, looking like a truly respectable citizen.

She barely spared a thought before launching forward to engulf him in an embrace and a laugh.

“I told you you’d be alright,” he said as she released him, but some sliver of the sadness never deserted his eyes.

"Where are the rest?" she said.

"I’m representing them," he replied. “Den’s already at the courtroom.”

Ruthenia frowned, because Hyder was doing a terrible job of concealing the fact that he wasn’t saying everything. “What’s going on?” she asked, patting his shoulder. “There’s more to this. What happened?”

He shook his head and pursed his lips in an attempt to smile. She went still when two glittering tears rolled down his cheeks. “It went bad,” he gasped. “I hid—I saved myself, but they—”

At once she snatched him by the shoulders. “They joined Derron—didn’t they? They went all in, they—Ihir, Hyder, what did they do?”

He grimaced, as if trying to prevent himself from crying, but to no avail. He had to obscure his eyes from sight with his hands. “It got so—bad,” he said between sobs. “We lost control, everything was a mess, and they tried to shoot, Ruth—but they never got out of it, they never got out of Candelabra last night, Tante, and Gordo—”

“Calm down,” she exclaimed, but tears were welling in her own eyes, and an ache clawed at her throat. “We don’t know where they are, that’s all.” But she knew she was lying to the both of them--herself, and him. Never again would she see either face, she began to realise.

“I’m...I’m so glad you’re alive,” he answered, voice trembling. “I thought I’d lose all three of you.” She caught him about the shoulders in a hug, and she felt his body convulse with violent sobs against her, felt him strain with the effort of not letting his grief burst through.

“Let’s do what we can with what we have, the three of us.”

The door swung open to admit a newcomer, and Hyder released her from his arms, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

Ruthenia turned. “Aleigh,” she said, and Hyder immediately withdrew, looking the other way.

He stepped away at the sight of her tear-stained face. “I hope...I am not interrupting?” he said.

“We’ll be fine,” she replied.

It was a quiet fifteen or so minutes, in which each of her companions mumbled brief questions, about her health and her general state of mind, and Ruthenia gave equally short answers, revelling in their very presence. She felt quite light in the head, and the world seemed so quiet and so still around her, without the roar of wind or tides to fill it.

Eventually, recalling the bag of clothes in her hand, she excused herself and shuffled out the back of the lobby in search of a bathing room, sighing.

Ruthenia unpacked the contents of the bag. There was a blouse—thick brown fabric, two rows of shiny black buttons—and a matching skirt with a side split. Could have been worse. She replaced her slippers with the biting court shoes, and tottered back towards the lobby, practicing her walk as she crossed the suspended bridges.

She tripped into the lobby, cursing as she went, and was surprised to discover that a fourth person had joined the gathering—her boss Tanio—and that they were finally engaging in polite conversation—conversation that dwindled to nothing when she arrived.

At once she felt them all studying her new outfit, different opinions coming to each of their faces.

“Ruthenia!” Her boss grinned. “I’m not saying I condone what you did, but congratulations on surviving. Work starts again next week.”

She groaned. “That’s only if we’re acquitted,” she said as she entered their midst with wobbling steps. “Are we leaving?”

“Of course,” he answered. “But it’s too late for a ferry, now, and we must do something about your lack of a flight mount, and Hyder’s. I do have room on my surfboard. And I’m sure an equine could carry two.” He cast Aleigh a glance. “Well, one of us must take the loudmouthed firebrand.”

Ruthenia bristled. “What did you call me?”

“We ought to let them decide,” the ex-Arcane Prince replied hastily.

Hyder straightened when he realised everyone was looking at him. “I—well—” he exchanged a look with Ruthenia. “I think I’d rather fly with Mister Calied.”

“Come, now, we’re on a tight schedule.”

"How are you?" Aleigh said, mounting the equine.

“Alive,” she replied with a wry smile.

He extended a hand to help her aboard. She ignored it as she always did, swinging herself up onto the stirrup. After pausing to oscillate once, she leapt over onto the saddle. The equine whinnied when she landed with a thump.

"I'm sorry, but you'll need to hold on," said her companion.

"And I am sorry too," she said, grabbing a handful of his shirt, a gesture that he answered with a short exclamation of her name. She grinned and took hold of his elbows instead.

Without warning, the beast cantered and lurched, wings sprawled to the wind. The flight curved into a glide. She felt her stomach lurch with the changing gravity, and made a gagging sound.

"Are you well?" he called.

"I almost died thrice," she retorted. “Your terrible flying can’t hurt me.”

From then the flight went level, and they soared off over the houses of the Ihira Circle towards the heart of Astra, the afternoon heat warming them.

Seeming incapable of resisting, he turned back the very instant they had entered open sky. The first look they exchanged was brimming with relief. “Almost died thrice! I am immensely pleased to see you alive and well, then,” he said.

Long ago, she might have shrugged the statement off, but this time she let herself smile. “I’m pleased to not be dead,” she replied.

“I’m very curious as to how you managed to save Lilin.”

“I’m too tired to tell the whole story.”

“You need not tell the whole story.”

“Well...the plans were made two weeks in advance.”

“I must have severely underestimated your ability to plan.” There was a smile to his voice.

“I’m good at using what I have. There's a reason I'm likely the best engineer you know.”

He leaned forward, as if concealing a laugh. “I do not doubt that.”

A somewhat old nag of a thought resurfaced right then. “How about you?” she replied. "You didn't have to leave your family for me.”

“You listened to that interview?” His shoulders tensed. "Well, how would I have explained myself to you when you returned?"

“Assuming I would return.”

“You did.”

There was a long silence. Now that the interview had been brought up, it was hard not to think about it, and hard not to know it was also on his mind. But neither of them made to discuss it, and so it was not discussed. At the corners of Ruthenia's eyes, white clouds streaked by. The sun was growing hot.

"I suppose I felt I'd owed you for too long, too," he finally admitted.

"What, still?" she snorted. "I thought we were done with that! And now I'm indebted to you, aren't I? None of what I've done equals your title and your family."

"Well, once you’re acquitted, my title and my family will be returned to me," he said. "I promise I shall stop talking of debts then."

Ruthenia sighed a sigh that became a laugh midway. “Finally,” she said. “I feel like we’ve been talking about debts the entire time we’ve known each other.”

“Before yours, I had known no friendship that did not come with conditions.”

“That’s sad.” She wasn’t really thinking about her words at this point, because she was thinking about other things. Specifically, the other things she wanted their friendship to become.

Ruthenia flushed. A long pause ensued between them, as the hills flattened out into farmland.

“I missed you,” Aleigh murmured.

Ruthenia was glad he could not see her face right now. “It's been a week,” she said, laughing oddly.

“Long enough,” he replied.

***

It seemed the entire Astran administration was in the courtroom that way: the Kings, the Archbishop, the Ministry of Flight, the admiral, and every manner of witness they had thought to pull in. Even Ruthenia’s new least favourite person, the guard in charge of her execution, was there.

At the lobby, Ruthenia was approached by no small number of reporters, waving recorders in her face. Most asked after her feelings about the moment, and she gave short answers that amounted to “relieved” or “grateful”, despite the warnings of Aleigh beside her.

Proceedings took place over the course of four hours, throughout which Ruthenia struggled with every fibre of her being against the urge to fidget.

Eventually, Chief Justice Ceidana ruled that all charges against Ruthenia and against the machine company should be dropped in light of the new holy law—a pardon which, they claimed on the technicalities of Ihir’s phrasing, should also extend to every charge that had been made since the start of the Science movement, and reparations paid to the affected.

The Swan’s Post, however, was found guilty of deliberately disturbing order in the New Town with various inflammatory articles, samples of which were read in court, and for inciting riots, which had resulted in the death of Eina Astrapia, mayoress of Candelabra.

The publication, on account of these charges, was to be defunded.

The subject of the Kings’ attempt to kill Lilin was never broached.

Luce Marva stormed red-faced out of the courtroom. Ruthenia caught him in the midst of delivering a vociferous lecture unto Reida in the hallway—one that she was deflecting with exasperated nods.

“I trusted you to do good things for this company!” he snapped, spittle raining.

“I did the best thing I could.”

“I was a fool! You had me for a fool! Your betrayal has lost you all my goodwill, you understand?”

“I am grateful for the opportunities you have provided me, but I no longer need your goodwill.”

He stormed off fuming through the crowd, in time for Reida to catch Ruthenia’s eye.

“Oh, don’t you mind my ex-boss,” she muttered, flicking her hand in his direction. “He just informed me that he’s dissolving the company. He can’t handle just a little honest reporting. It’s unbelievable.”

“It’s just not worth working for a man like that,” Ruthenia agreed. She paused. “You didn’t say Mayoress Astrapia would be targeted.”

“No one said, but it didn’t surprise me when it happened.”

“It probably lost us some support.”

“It probably stirred some people out of their slumber.” Reida sounded curt, but ambivalent. “In any case, it was outside my power to prevent. I don’t think Derron’s intentions are completely noble, either.” She paused. “How are you coping? With...”

“A lot has happened in the past week,” she replied. “I’m still reeling. I’m waiting for the shock to sink in. But...well, you know I’m no stranger to losing people. How are you?”

“Getting by,” she answered, face going grim. “Hyder isn’t taking it well, and I’ve been talking to him every minute I can. It doesn’t help that his opinion of himself is dismal.” She shook her head.

Ruthenia sighed and nodded. “What will you do, now that it’s over?”

Reida shrugged. “My talents are better spent elsewhere,” she replied. “I might even work as a publicist for the illustrious Calied Company.”

“As shall I,” a new voice cut in, a hand clapping her shoulder that she quickly discovered belonged to Den.

“Oh, hey, Den,” Ruthenia said, glancing between Reida and the newcomer. “Well? The game’s up. You can’t take the reins of a company that doesn’t exist. Why don’t you tell Reida about your real intentions now?”

“Oh, what? My intentions with Reida?” he answered, glancing at the woman in question. “No, Ruth, you misunderstand. Access to my father’s company would have been the cherry on the cake, but I was never here for that.”

“Were you not?” asked Reida, eyebrows rising in genuine surprise.

"I was not,” he replied, with a look that she answered with a smile and a full-mouthed, lipsticky kiss.

---

Chapter 38: Titles, Glories and Other Inconsequential Things

“It’s ironic. I'll have a title. And the worst title too—something that ties me inseparably to the religion and the state. I barely know if it’s a victory.”

Chancing upon Aligon in the lobby amidst his entourage of Weavers, Ruthenia managed to catch his attention and his greeting, and he invited her into their tight circle--an invitation she knew better than to refuse.

“Power can be powerlessness,” said the Arcane King as they walked and braved a stampede of journalists. He spoke with a jovial smile and swept his furry red cloak out for the cameras, and she walked straighter just so she would not look like a fool this time.

“So, is it likely that you will be inviting your brother to rejoin your family? Seeing as I was the cause of his expulsion in the first place…”

“How kind of you to care!” he laughed. “My condition for Aleigh's return was that you be acquitted of all your crimes. I did not veto the jury's decision, did I?” He grinned, and she nodded. “Congratulations, Ruthenia. You have quite thoroughly turned the tables on me. That does not frequently happen.”

She shook her head. “There is a lot of suppressed discontent in the country, and you ought to heed it. It’s only just beginning.”

Recognising the threat, Aligon sighed. “Oh, I know it is. And now that you’re a holy emissary, we are almost on equal footing. That ought to make things interesting, eh? Blessed Ruthenia, patron of scientific inquiry?”

She cringed. “That sounds terrible,” she muttered.

“You will grow accustomed to it eventually.” He smiled. “Also, congratulations on the marked improvements you have made upon your tone and bearing. A proper diplomat you’ll become!”

A sickening feeling of defeat washed over her. But she did not get a chance to reel with it, for the Arcane King gestured to dismiss her, and she took the cue, reentering the fray.

At once, Ruthenia found herself being assaulted with the most unalike of exclamations and inquiries from the crowd. Hazen’s son, the ten-year-old Ordinary Prince Liae, made very sure to inform her that he still believed her message had been a well-planned light show. At the gateway, Caela begged her to repeat the words of Ihir’s message in her “spooky voice”, which she, sadly, found she could not. A reporter attacked her with a conical radio receiver.

“Miss Cendina, how do you explain this very sudden turn in your fortune?” she shouted, pointing the brass tool at her mouth.

Ruthenia shrugged. “I had the help of a lot of friends,” she replied. “And a lot of planning.”

She braced herself for the barrage of questions that would follow. Some other time—some four months ago, maybe—this attention, the camera flashes, the swinging of open receivers, would have been thrilling. The thrill was there, alright, but it wasn’t nearly as pleasant as she’d expected, and by the twentieth question she was twitching to escape.

“That is all!” she snapped at the next one who approached. “Aren't you all engorged with information already? Go use what you have! I'd like to talk to my friends!”

They hounded her still, but in thinner groups. Ruthenia was almost glad for the bottleneck of the bridge to the flight deck, where no more than two could follow directly behind, and those two happened to be Anio and Cathia, squeezing themselves in behind her before the mayhem could follow.

“Oh, I am so relieved to see you,” Ruthenia gasped. “Those reporters just don’t know when enough’s enough.”

“It's not unbearable,” added Anio, “but they can get pesky very fast.”

Cathia giggled. “Tell them. Some of the younger ones get scared and run off.”

When Ruthenia finally escaped the bridge into the air at the other end, she stretched her arms with a deep breath to welcome the warm afternoon—but promptly went still at the sight of the Arcane King conversing with his brother at the edge of the premise.

Cathia quickly interrupted Ruthenia's motionlessness staring with a nudge. "Does His Highness not look terribly discomfited? The poor boy. Ruthenia, you must go remedy his mood at once."

Nodding quickly, she slowed into a tentative advance in their direction, passing through the throng, which parted for her. Aligon was first to notice her approach; his face lit up with a smile as he turned. “Ruthenia Cendina,” he said, and only then did Aleigh turn as well. “Shall I stay, or are there matters to be discussed in private?”

“Stay if you want,” Ruthenia muttered when she arrived beside him, wrinkling her nose at his furry cloak.

“Oh, your affairs do not concern me. I only ask that you not implicate my brother in yet another of your heinous plots,” answered the King with a trace of a smirk. A snap of his fingers brought his royal guard again. He turned to his brother. “I sincerely hope only pleasant interactions pave the way forward.”

With one last pointed smile at Ruthenia, the Arcane King glided away in a rustle of cloaks, his guards encircling him once more.

“I hope things are fine with you all now,” she said, watching to ensure he had left, before turning to the brother.

With a sigh, Aleigh turned to the city beyond the platform. “Legally and officially, yes,” he replied. “This entire business with you and Lilin has proven to be a diplomatic disaster for my family, and Aligon is convinced you are a curse upon us.”

“Hey, I can’t help being a curse, can I?” she answered with a grin.

“He’s determined to turn the curse around.”

"For such a shrewd man, he can be idiotically stubborn."

"I can hardly bear to speak to him on the people of Astra. He reminds me of my previous folly."

"Well, he can change, right? Maybe it's your turn to teach someone." She shook her head. “What will you do when you’re home?”

“Home? I shall set myself to becoming a broader-minded council member.”

“I was referring to what you’d do once you arrived at home this evening,” she laughed. “But tell me more about your political plans, if they interest you more.”

He blinked. “Oh. Well...unfortunately, it appears that over the past week, I have made myself a symbol of something, in saying what I did in the broadcast, and in rejecting my brother. Of Arcane reformation, or so I hear. In any case, I do agree that my brother could use a better understanding of the plights of the people he rules, and I intend to be that voice unto him.”

Ruthenia nodded. “I know politics aren’t the sort of thing we can settle between friends like dinner plans...but I could advise you on that.”

He nodded once. “I would be pleased to hear your advice.”

In the pause that followed, they found no words to say, only exchanged a long look with each other.

“You are fine, are you not?” asked Aleigh. “You have been incredibly quiet all day.”

She shook her head. Visions and sensations of swirling ocean currents enwrapped her, and she shivered. “I'm tired.”

He paused, perhaps to consider his words, before finally settling on a simple, “Have yourself a proper rest when you arrive at home.”

Walking up to the edge of the deck, Ruthenia watched a distant ferry pass between high blocks and towers of Helika City. The sky was so unbelievably, immensely blue. She wished she could dive into it.

Perhaps realising then that Ruthenia would not be offering any more conversation, Aleigh excused himself. Too late she turned, watching him weave away through the crowd. Ihir, the boy certainly had a habit of leaving without warning, didn't he?

“What's he like?” She leapt at the sound of the voice from behind her. A startled glance about revealed that the question’s asker was Iurita, who stood behind her with her arms folded.

“Who, Aleigh?”

Sweeping her skirt out, Iurita nodded. “We all know how he is to officials and to regular acquaintances. But how does he treat people he particularly likes?”

“Me? He doesn't particularly like me.”

At this she laughed. “No, I think you will find he holds you in higher regard than any other person in this world. He gave his title up for you, did he not? Is there a gesture less ambiguous?”

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this. Aligon will pick a noblewoman for him and the matter will be laid to rest.”

"Oh, Ruthenia, I never did say anything about romance, now, did I?" Iurita sang. "I think you have betrayed your own feelings on the subject."

"I..." She felt herself go hot. "I...yes, well..."

“Well, you know class is no object, in today’s social climate,” Iurita replied with a knowing smile.

“And he’s not just some lord,” Ruthenia muttered, and found that emptiness and regret gnawed hard on her. She took it upon herself to steer the conversation away. “Well, what are you doing, talking to me, anyway? Last time we spoke, we were sworn enemies.”

“Well, I have come to realise that I was--I suppose--wrong about you, and that I grossly misjudged your character.”

Her brow furrowed. “Oh? I would’ve thought my deeds would have made you angrier.”

To her surprise, Iurita shook her head. “Many things happened in the past week, Ruthenia. I never did understand your unbridled disregard, your rage. It was incomprehensible to me, and it made me terrified. But I cannot help but to understand, now.” She cleared her throat. “Not that this exempts you of basic standards of courtesy, of course.”

It was only then that it dawned on her that Iurita—Iurita Astrapia—had just lost her mother.

“I’m sorry,” she replied meekly. “I never meant for any of that to happen. I didn’t want any of that.”

“None of it was your fault. Anger and hatred are difficult to rein, and big groups of angry people feel safe doing things they normally would not.” The Arcane girl’s smile was strained, her voice constricted. “Let us call a truce.”

“That sounds good to me.”

A shadow crossed them. Both turned.

“Oh, good afternoon, Your Highness.”

He extended a hand, and Iurita bowed to kiss it, lowering her left knee, as she should.

“Good afternoon, Miss Astrapia,” said Aleigh. “My sincerest condolences.”

Iurita touched a hand to her heart. “I appreciate it, Your Highness.”

Benedice peered over his shoulder. Wind whirled round across the platform, fluttering the equine’s feathers, and the hem of Ruthenia’s skirt.

Iurita glanced from Aleigh to Ruthenia. “Oh, yes! I was just leaving.” She lowered her head in a bow. “I shall see the both of you in class.”

Before departing, she fired Ruthenia another smile, to which she felt herself once again blushing in indignation. They watched while their classmate drifted back into the crowd, her long silk gown fluttering behind her.

“Well, I imagine much is to change between the both of you, following this entire...happening.”

She turned. “One less battle to fight.”

“So...you will be returning home now, won't you?” asked Aleigh. “You ought to find a new flight mount.”

For some seconds, Ruthenia stood stone-still as it dawned upon her that she'd have to learn to fly, all over again. She reserved her regret to a shrug. “Eventually,” she sighed. “Would you...would you mind acting as my escort again?”

“With pleasure,” answered the Arcane Prince of Astra, extending a hand, which she took.

Ruthenia spent the flight trying not to notice how close Aleigh was. Or how much narrower that distance became when their flight lurched and she bumped against him.

They followed the winding of the River Colura, and at Ruthenia’s request, the flight sank low so they could listen to its burbling. She tilted out over Benedice’s right flank to stare at her reflection. “Don't go falling off,” warned the Arcane Prince over his shoulder, as Benedice’s hooves skimmed the water. “I don't think you survived your adventure with Lilin only to lose your life here.”

She swatted his gaze away. “I’m no child!” she exclaimed. In answer, he flicked the reins, and their flight ascended suddenly. Ruthenia yelled, snatching for her companion’s waist while her shout turned to laughter.

By the twentieth minute of their flight, the sky had turned gold around them. The warmth made her feel lazy, and she yawned. “How are you feeling, Blessed Lady?” he asked.

"Please, don't call me that." Ruthenia watched Helika's border segue into sinking grassland beneath Benedice’s hooves. “I'm content—I think. I’m happy I’ll never have to do it again. At least I dearly hope I won't.”

For many minutes, she listened to the beating of Benedice’s wings and the rustle of the wheat below. Then Beacon Way appeared at the horizon, houses queued in an undulating line through the sky. And there, among them, was her home.

“The shed,” she said, leaning out to the right, one arm still hooked around his waist. “That’s mine.”

“It’s smaller than I’d anticipated,” he replied.

“Everything’s smaller than you’d anticipate.”

With a tug of the reins, Benedice lifted from the wheat in a billowing of wings and a grand rustle of leaves and stalks. He climbed through the sky in a dizzying lurch, and circled Tanio’s house once, showing her the back views of their homes, before braking and landing on her patio, hooves clopping across the wood.

Ruthenia slid off Benedice's back and landed with a thump on her patio. Without the wind in her face, heat crept back into the blouse she wore, and the air went still around her. Then the sound of marsh birds in the bubbling river grew into audibility, alongside the rustle of wheat, ready for harvest, and the creaking moan of Tanio's turbine overhead.

It was as if she had never left. The place looked and sounded as it had before.

Well, almost. She heard Aleigh dismount behind her, and turned to find him examining the tiny wooden building. Standing there, all dressed in the stern formality of upper Helika, the Arcane Prince looked out of place beside the poorly-sawed wood.

Ruthenia stared as he crossed the porch and lifted his gaze to regard the sunset, where it spilled red and purple all over the sky. Again she found herself standing mesmerised. Ihir, people weren't supposed to look as good as they did in their portraits.

“Ruth?” She hardly noticed Aleigh turning to her. “You really ought to take a rest. You seem more dazed than I have ever seen you.”

“I’ll do that after my bath.” Ruthenia forced herself to smile. “Why don’t you come inside? Since you’re here. I’d, well, I’d like to show you my home.”

His eyebrows rose, and he said, “I would love to see it.”

Heart leaping, Ruthenia slipped in through her front door, and he followed, the sound of his shoes unfamiliar on the wood.

The light of the sunset cast a golden streak across the dim room that was briefly broken as they entered. Ruthenia pulled the switch. Aleigh stared at the electric filament as it flickered to life, quickly assuming a steady glow.

“Well, here we are,” she said, turning to him with a grin. She kicked papers out of the way. “Sorry about the mess.”

He regarded her for a second, before laughing softly. “I expected one.”

Giddy with the sound of his laughter, Ruthenia walked to her workbench and pointed at it. “That’s where I build and repair things,” she said. “People bring stuff in, and I beat it into shape, weld it, tighten screws, whatever it needs.” Then she pointed a thumb at the hammock behind her. “And that’s where I sleep.”

“In that? How?” he said.

“Somehow,” she replied, grinning at his perplexion.

Meanwhile, she crossed the room to her desk, and leapt onto it with a thud. The sunlight was orange as fire, warming the back of her head. She leaned back on her palms, soaking in the balminess. From here she could see her entire room, light and shadow in sharp contrast, and Aleigh by her work bench, inspecting the space with growing surprise. He made everything in the room look grander than it was, as if his very presence made it fit for royalty. Motes of dust danced through the air like sparks.

“Here’s where I do my homework,” she said, patting her desktop. “What do you think?”

Aleigh’s gaze moved to her desk, and then to her. They stared at each other across the glowing room for a while, beginning to smile, before he finally decided to cross to where she was. “Your home is lovely,” he said, eyes still trained on her. “And it is patently yours.”

Ruthenia snorted. “Because it’s crudely-made?” she replied, trying to ignore his gaze. The birds in the river beneath chorused.

"It’s everything it has to be, nothing more. Not like the palace at all.”

“No, it’s nothing like the palace,” Ruthenia said. “I wish I could see your home. But I guess I never will, and I’ll just have to accept that.”

“That depends,” he replied. “Well, my room is somewhat larger than this one--”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Really? Surely not!”

“It’s not big enough for a banquet table, no,” he replied, with a mirthful smile. “It has several bookshelves--”

“Bookshelves,” she sniffed. “How predictable.”

"I do admit I am not a terribly surprising person," he said, before casting another glance about. “This has been a very interesting tour. Thank you.”

“Of course,” she said, unable to find the right words for a coda to their conversation. By now, he was barely a foot from where she sat. Ihir help her, he was in her room. In her shed on Beacon Way. And the way he was looking-- “Thank you for taking me here on Benedice.”

“Unfortunately, I must be leaving soon.”

She began to wish him goodbye, but the impulse to keep him here overthrew her sensibilities. “That’s a pity!” she replied. “Couldn’t you stay a little longer?” The scent of the afternoon overwhelmed her senses.

“A minute more, perhaps?” he replied.

“A minute is good, very good,” she answered in a breath.

It was perhaps inevitable, then, when Ruthenia snatched Aleigh's shoulders and pulled him forcefully towards herself to kiss him full on the mouth. Or, she tried to, but her lips met his at an awkward angle and because she’d never done it before, she suddenly found herself at a complete loss as to how to proceed, all her thoughts beginning to scream. But then she felt his fingers clasp the back of her head, and he leant into her invitation, lips parting, to return the kiss with conviction. His body bore against hers, knee pressing into her shin.

She felt his tongue push against hers, and at once her eyes went wide, as did his.

Stiffening, Ruthenia shoved him away by the shoulders, face and neck blazing. “Damn it!” she shouted, gasping for breath, mouth tasting slightly unfamiliar.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, covering his eyes with a hand, although that did nothing to hide his steadily reddening blush.

Ruthenia caught her breath. "No, don’t be!” she replied.

He shook his head. “Please forget this, I barely knew what I was doing—”

“Why?” She sat paralysed while he began towards the door, and her heart sank when she realised that none of her questions had been answered by that stupid gesture. She only barely found it in herself to leap off her desk and escort him out, laughing nervously beside him, and she watched him mount Benedice in the reddening light.

“Well, I must be leaving,” he called down. “Good evening to you.” He was in far too much of a hurry to leave; the equine leapt into the sky barely seconds later, white wings unfurling about him.

When he’d vanished from view, Ruthenia buried her face in her hands and sighed. “Ihir, save me!” she shouted.

The next time they met, Ruthenia realised with a sinking of her heart, it'd be in school.

Remembering the afternoon still drove chills through her, so she tried not to. It all seemed much too dreamlike in her memory, anyway, all full of strange light and unimportant details—so perhaps that’s all it had been.

Ruthenia spent the remains of the Saturday in Tanio's living room, trying to reconcile herself with all these incongruities that had sprung up. She was some public figure now. Some creature to be adored. The thought made her sick in the stomach. Everything she did had to mean something. She would be given no time to acclimatise, or to mourn everything, everyone she’d lost. Her first class at the Ihira Circle began in two weeks.

Did Ihir change His law just so that the entire country could be privy to my blunders? Is this His idea of a good cosmic joke?

That evening, Tanio introduced her to the tower of signed letters that had built itself on his coffee table. A good majority were overwhelmingly pacific, even adulatory. A number were job offers, reinstatements of membership, well-veiled pleas for partnership, and others regarded her christening. Majority of them were from people whom they’d never met.

Enclosed, for your perusal, is an introductory guide to clerichood and the religious doctrines, laws and behavioural codes associated with the position.

Amidst the piles of envelopes there was a slender paperback guidebook on behaviour, courtesy of one Iurita Astrapia. The most precious of the pack was the official release and acquittal warrant, which was stiff and card-like, and smelt of palace-lavender.

One particularly important-looking letter among them bore the Sign of the Swan in many places—in the seal, the watermark, the letterhead, and stamped beneath two very pretty signatures. It was the formal apologies of the royal families, printed on the sort of paper that she imagined was reserved for diplomatic letters.

A sigh left her. She wielded so much power that she didn't understand, like an invisible rapier she swung wherever she turned. She only hoped she wouldn't accidentally thrust it straight into someone's gut.

***

Ruthenia was almost afraid to arrive in school on Monday morning. This fear was quite a trivial thing in comparison with what she’d suffered in the past week, and yet she almost believed she would never live through it at all.

The sort of fear Hollia suffered on a daily basis, or so the epiphany came while she was clinging for her dear life to the sides of Tanio's surfboard on her way to school. She slid queasily off the surfboard at the arch, and offered him a wave goodbye.

Almost at once, she was greeted by Mr. Nychus, who offered her a bow despite her being alone. She returned it with a bewildered smile, and dashed off through the corridors.

The welcome she got was resounding. Hollia obliged to hug her, as did Telis and Caela, queueing after her best friend to pounce on her with hugs of their own. People she’d never thought would care expressed relief for her safety. All day, she was on the receiving end of embraces and kisses on her cheeks.

It was tempting to think they were merely courting her favour because of her newfound fame. But she chose to believe it genuine, that her absence truly had rent their hearts. It was better that way.

Although none of the teachers addressed her any differently, they let her be when she fell asleep at the desk. Tea break, she spent alone, for she could not bring herself to speak to the Arcane Prince.

At the chime of the five-thirty bell, Ruthenia packed her bag and sighed in the golden light, the exhaustion still hanging on her bones. She had another interview at seven o’clock, one she had tried to refuse until the journalist had kindly offered to meet her close to Beacon Way.

She froze when she found Aleigh awaiting her by the doorway, books stacked in his arms. Well, there was no avoiding him now, then. He cast a glance about, as if for invisible accosters, before deciding to bring his full focus to her.

“Where were you at teatime?” he said. “I wished to talk to you.”

The pleading in his voice made her heart ache. “I couldn't do it,” she replied. Even looking him in the eye was a mistake.

As before, they took the walk to the stables together. Ruthenia recalled the first time she’d spoken to him here, back when she'd thought of him as a symbol and not a person. Someone she’d had no business bothering.

"I'm sorry," he said, all of a sudden.

"Don't be sorry," she snapped. "None of it mattered, if you don’t want it to matter." She paused, trying to think of some topic with which to remedy their moods. But her companion had departed for the stables.

As usual, Ruthenia found herself awaiting him on the steps to the platform, until he reappeared with his equine, who nuzzled her hair as she stood. She didn't pull away like she'd once have.

“I’m sorry that your family is getting implicated by my deeds,” she said.

"Your concern is appreciated," Aleigh replied, slipping comfortably into his diplomat’s persona at once, "but the Kings chose what they did of their own accord, and it's only fair they deal with the consequences."

"If only I'd stayed put in my shed, and not tried anything," she muttered. “Maybe Aligon wouldn’t think me an enemy now. Maybe he’d be the best Arcane monarch we’ve ever had.”

"You're devaluing everything you almost gave your life for," he answered.

"I was an idiot."

"You're always going to be an idiot, some way or another. You’ll always manage to convince yourself of it, even when you did much good."

"Well, never mind that. I meant to ask about something else too."

"What about?"

“The interview,” she replied. “And what you said. About me. Including the part at the end.”

“Ah.” He pursed his lips. “Could we...discuss this tomorrow?” She nodded, only barely quelling her frustration.

Their goodbye was without any sudden outbursts. Aleigh mounted Benedice and slid the briefcase into the saddlebag, while Ruthenia watched, none of the ideas in her head making her brave enough to speak.

Of course, they were not to speak of it again for almost two weeks.

---

Chapter 39: An Open Cage

Ruthenia was only just beginning to come to terms with the fact that her life would never again be peaceful.

The politics of 2-I were shifting. Strangers smiled now. They looked at her a second time, and paid attention without her demanding it, and didn't turn their noses up when she looked their ways. No one cared that she dressed like a worker or that she cursed like one. The invisible wall that had once divided the classroom into left and right was crumbling.

Discussion of national history under Mr. Caeben inevitably led to classmates making unconcealed allusions to her deeds, which—she was only just becoming aware—were soon to become part of textbook history itself. Together with her parents’.

She didn’t feel textbook-worthy. She was just a student.

It became apparent that not a single person in this room was the same person they’d been at the start of things. Lora and Orrem sat together. Iurita did not glare. Hollia did not smile. Calan and Alacero talked over her desk.

But more than all else, Ruthenia felt her own change, like an ache in her bones—the weariness and weight to everything she did and tried, the exhaustion that kept her head down and her voice low. She wasn’t sure if she liked it. But she supposed there wasn’t any choosing.

***

"Ruth, could I have a minute?"

As it was, and as Ruthenia soon found out, Hollia Canavere had had a huge party in the works for nearly two weeks.

Now, in the minutes before the first lesson of the day, the birdkeeper girl pressed the invitation eagerly unto the mechanic—and appeared from the hugeness of her grey eyes unwilling to leave without a definitive "yes".

Ruthenia wasn't all that reluctant to go either, considering the party sounded suspiciously like it was being thrown in celebration of her.

What was there to celebrate? After all the fire she'd started, she was finally feeling her burns.

Since coming to terms with the fact that rules existed to keep people from screwing around with perfectly good order, Ruthenia had expected to go on living, pleased to be a little less reckless. Yet it was all frustrating her. Living like a rogue had given her life. She was a radical; she couldn't just stop.

Funnily enough, a new class of particles with that same name had just been discovered by scientists in Cin about five days ago, or so the recently-reinstated boss of Illume Paints and Pigments had told her on the way to their first official company meeting.

Well—radicals, that same chemist had said, were very determined particles known to leap about a mixture of oils and not stop till they'd reacted with every molecule in the pool, changing the nature of the entire brew.

Radicals had to know their limits too. That was when they'd done all they could.

For a second Ruthenia wanted to hit herself for ever giving all this up. For not being more headstrong, for not refusing the title when Tiel had offered it. For letting them absorb her into their world of glories and deceits and images.

But then, I suppose, there’s a difference between being headstrong and being stupid. I'd be a public figure either way. I'd have my liabilities. I sealed that by throwing myself between them and Lilin.

Oh, Ihir, will you tell me what to do?

She snapped from her daze and looked up for an answer—and saw only Hollia, dear Hollia with her pleading grey eyes. Perhaps this was Ihir's answer.

"Fine, yes." Ruthenia's lips curved. "I wouldn't say no, would I? Who else is going?"

"Classmates!" she exclaimed. "Everyone you know!" Ruthenia winced. "I'll be sending one to Mister Calied soon, and I—would ask myself, but—could—you invite His Highness for me?"

“Oh, I’ll do that.” That helped her make up her mind.

***

That evening, she found on her messenger a note from Reida about a funeral to be held tomorrow evening. Reading the words made her stomach clench. Saying goodbye was something she had never found particularly easy, but here and now she was having to learn how to, so quickly. How to unwrap the baggage and discard it. She spent the rest of the day exchanging words with Reida.

It’s Hyder you should speak to.

On the evening of the nineteenth of October, as planned, the friends gathered in the pink light at the end of their alley, their home, with flowers and flower chains. It had been a week, but Tante and Gordo has not reappeared, and it was difficult to imagine any other fate had befallen them.

This was not an Ihirin funeral. There was no smoke. The final rite was the laying of fresh flowers on the fence, which joined the withered old ones up there, and there was much talking and laughter. They talked, even with tears in their eyes, about the good, and the good only.

While Ruthenia had never liked Tante in his life, she knew he was part of the reason she was still alive, and that, too, she spoke up about. Small things that meant everything now. They found their belongings--an old gun, a book Gordo had been trying to read, a pack of cigarettes--and wrapped them in paper, to be given to the people they knew, for what use was burning them like the Ihirin did? Only the wealthy burned what the dead used to own. Only they saw meaning in empty poetry.

Ruthenia stayed until midnight was almost upon them. Reida had already gone home, Den accompanying her to her door, and without them Hyder sat all alone in his corner of the alley staring at the narrow rectangle of sky three stories above.

Instead of going home, she sat with him, saying nothing. She caught him closing his eyes with his face raised to the stars, whispering words as if in prayer.

“I thought you didn’t like Ihir,” she murmured when he finally turned to her.

“Well, not until He saved your life, I didn’t,” Hyder answered simply, and they exchanged quiet smiles, all the things they’d shared and never shared passing between them through their gazes.

***

Hollia's party sailed along, unavoidable, upon that Friday, after another week of encounters with the press and filling-out of documents, and bumpy downhill-rolling through stories and speculation that she hadn't realised had gotten so wild.

Tanio was getting sick of having to deliver Ruthenia everywhere she wished on a whim to go.

"I might as well be your father," he muttered as they landed at the door to Hollia’s cottage, Ruthenia leaping off the surfboard before he could snatch it from under them.

He stood a step behind her, dressed up like a dignitary, and she was outfitted no worse, in a dark brown puff-sleeved dress that glittered. Upon her neck hung the eagle pendant that the prison had returned to her last week.

The cottage was bursting with guests; three concurrent conversations were audible from the doorstep. But outside the walls, there was not a sound besides the rustle of the grey field.

Ruthenia frowned. "Isn't it a little quiet for an aviary?"

Both their voices fell. The edge of the enclosure peeked from over the rooftop, silhouetted in the purpling sky. No birds hung from the netting by their claws today. No chattering of sparrows. No shrieks or caws.

Right then, the door handle clicked and they both straightened. The birdkeeper emerged in a whirl of deep green silk. "I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "Welcome, Ruthenia! Welcome, Mister Calied! I hope you did not wait long!”

“Miss Canavere,” Tanio replied, bowing deeply. “You look lovely tonight.”

“Why, I’m glad you think so,” She turned to Ruthenia. “Please, do go see the rest; everyone’s been waiting for you!”

While she and Tanio entered a polite conversation, Ruthenia slipped past, making it to the drinks table before they'd even noticed her absence.

The coffee table in Hollia’s living room was laden with empty glasses and a large ewer of what must have been cordial. She picked out a glass and poured the golden liquid into it, sniffing it once to discover the aroma of apples.

While she sipped the drink, a black-haired guest bumped her shoulder. Some of the drink sloshed over the rim and onto her hand, and she whirled around with a glare.

“Den!” she gasped.

He smiled back, brushing hair behind his ear. "Good evening, Blessed Ruthenia."

She gaped. "How did Hollia find you?"

“Well, it was Reida who informed me of the existence of the party, so you ought to ask her.” He turned to the woman, who—sure enough—stood pouring herself some cordial some way down the table. Den swirled his glass as if it carried wine. "Congratulations on your good fortune."

Ruthenia sniffed. "I wouldn’t call it good fortune, so much as unforgiving torment.”

“I can only imagine,” he answered. “You were always so eager to be visible. I thought you, of all people, would enjoy it.”

"It is a valuable opportunity, particularly considering your close association with the Arcane Prince,” Reida put in suddenly from over her other shoulder. She stepped into their midst, exchanging glances with them both. “Although I’m certain it accords him greater benefit than it does you—”

Growling, Ruthenia drained her glass in three gulps and dumped it in the basket with a clink. "I don't care about benefits!" she snapped, and with that, she had lost sight of the two on her way into the fray.

An odd assortment of guests was in attendance today. As she passed through the crowd, she bumped into Orrem; he offered her congratulations with a hand to his heart. “We’re glad to have you back,” he said. Past Caela and her partner she ghosted, both enjoying a cake at the dining table. They were both beaming, so perfectly pleased with each other.

In the living room, she chanced upon Dariano, who was in the process of entertaining a gathering of 2-I students with a trick involving vanishing utensils. Iurita applauded loudest of all.

The strangest meeting of all occurred right by the study door. It was there—as she passed through the crowd, and she caught a few well wishes—that she noticed Hyder, Masked to his old perfection.

"Hello," murmured Ruthenia as she paused beside him. Turning, he nodded once, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. She felt a sort of emptiness as she met his eye, and she knew he felt it too. "Aren't you going to meet some of the other guests?"

The Masker smiled; it wasn't like his old smiles for her—all those pretty lovesick grins—but it was natural at least. "I don't think they'll like me much," he replied. "Half of them are Arcanes, aren't they? I bet they can tell I’m from the street."

Ruthenia glanced about. “Arcanes aren’t all terrible people.”

“Of course you’d say that,” he replied with a frown, casting a glance about as if searching for someone.

She let her gaze follow, but did not find him either. "Are you that unhappy about it?"

Hyder shrugged. "I'm just disappointed, I guess," he said. "Sometimes, when I’m feeling really selfish, I start wishing you’d never left. Things could’ve been different."

"I understand," she replied.

"Do you really, though?" he asked. "Do you see your future in him?"

"Well, not my entire future but--" She supposed it was time she admitted it aloud. "I want him in it. Well, I want all of you in it, but..."

"I get it. As long as you're certain of your happiness." He sighed. "I'll miss you."

"Well, it’s not as if you can’t leave the street," Ruthenia said promptly. "You're not tethered to the New Town. Don't let it hold you down."

"I know, I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “Den and I, we’ve been scavenging the Town for small jobs. He knows what he wants. He has big plans. And he has Reida. I’m just...wandering about, hoping to hit gold somewhere.”

“Well, you’re an amazing Weaver,” Ruthenia said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve told you enough times, but you’re so good at it. Go get trained in it, you could make a real difference.”

“As an honest person?” He cast his eyes down. “But I don’t want to help the people who killed them.”

“I know. But you’re not helping them as much as you’re helping yourself. And that’s important, sometimes.”

He tilted his head, smiling oddly. “I don’t know where you got all these ideas. You weren’t like this before.”

She shrugged. “Me neither, but I suppose almost dying just does that to you,” she replied. “I’ve been given a chance to do all the things I didn’t get to do. And I barely know where to begin.”

“You’re really growing into your priestess role, aren’t you?” he laughed.

“Maybe getting the role was a result of the change, not the cause of it,” she replied. “Maybe it all came wrapped up in the one big package that was learning that the world isn’t so simple?”

“I’m just glad you came back,” he said, extending his arms, as if inviting her to hug him. She accepted it. He was warm, just like the evenings they had spent in the company of each other, five years ago.

“Hyder?” said a soft voice from behind Ruthenia. They released each other, and turned simultaneously, to whom they soon discovered was Hollia, waiting expectantly with bright eyes.

“That’s me,” replied Hyder, patting his chest.

“Thank you so much for visiting!” said the blonde girl. “You and Ruthenia seem to be getting on well!”

“We go back six years,” Ruthenia answered with a laugh. “It’s funny I’ve never introduced you.”

“It’s never too late,” Hollia replied. “We can meet each other now!”

The boy nodded. “I’m sorry about the aviary,” he said.

The aviary? Ruthenia glanced from one to another, but all she got were rueful looks all around. She had been so caught up in dealing with her own troubles that she had not had the time to think about anyone else’s.

“Don’t you worry,” answered Hollia with a good-natured smile that barely masked sorrow. “Are you well? You seemed distraught at the cloister.”

“I’m coping,” he replied.

Without warning, Hollia glided forward to hug him. She rubbed his back, the way she did when she hugged Ruthenia, as if she had known Hyder all her life. His eyes were very wide. “Why don’t you come have some apple cordial?” said Hollia as she let go.

“Oh...let’s!” He cast a glance of surprise at Ruthenia.

"She means it," she answered. Hyder nodded.

Hollia took three steps into the crowd, before turning back to call out to him, waving. Exchanging a final smile with Ruthenia, he followed the hostess away through the crowd beneath the golden lights of the cabin.

Ruthenia proceeded with her rounds, greeting other partygoers and receiving their congratulations with smiles she tried not to force. She passed Tanio and Reida, who were chattering merrily about the painting of Hollia’s great-grandmother over the mantel. In the kitchen she brushed by Vesta, who pointed her towards the aviary door behind and said she’d seen Aleigh go that way.

“I know you’re looking for him,” the girl drawled.

Ruthenia frowned. “Well, I could be looking for anyone,” she snapped.

Nevertheless, she followed her classmate’s directions, passing through the humble door and into the evening, dusting out her skirts as she went.

As she stepped out into the darkness, she blinked. The wires that had previously netted the sky had sunk aside, a gaping mouth in which all the unguarded stars shone.

Ruthenia stared up into its void for a while, growing cold—because now, she understood the garden’s silence, which grew vaster as the party’s bustle sank away, replaced by the lonely crunch of her shoes on grass.

She entered the abandoned garden, staring down the length of that great tear in the net. Not a bird answered as she strode by sweeps of vines; none flitted as she passed beneath the great curled tree, whose first new branches were just learning of the world beyond the cage. But traces remained: scratches on the wood, old dishes where they had bathed, feathers, all barely visible in the moonlight.

Everything here, Ruthenia saw for a blinding second, had been suppressed by the great sprawling cage. Everything had shrunk to match its confines.

She turned the corner, and finally found the end of the gash in the net—a place where a support pillar had snapped and ripped from the wires, stars erupting from its fracture.

A swing hung beside the wreckage, upon a horizontal beam bearing four chains. There, upon it, sat a figure dressed in swan-white, not looking terribly attentive.

“Is that who I think it is?” she called. Her voice carried all the way across the garden, making the figure’s head turn. She raced through the grass, and watched as the apparition resolved into a person.

“Good evening, Ruthenia,” answered Aleigh as she arrived. “I’m surprised you found me.” His white suit—paired with a black shirt whose collar peeked from under the lapels—was a change from the uniform he’d worn to Anio and Cathia’s wedding, but no less flattering.

She dropped into the seat beside him. “Some of the others saw you leave,” she said.

He frowned. “I was seen leaving? Well, then, I shall have to make apologies when I return.”

“Then shouldn’t you be inside?” Ruthenia dug the heel of her boot into the grass and turned to him. “You’re dressed so nicely today. It’d be such a waste if you didn’t let them see you.”

“I could say the same of you. You look like a dream.”

Her face might as well have turned to cinders in that instant. “Do not try that on me,” she gasped. "Do you think your flattery very charming?"

"For you I try my best," he replied, which robbed of her the last of her will to obscure her embarrassment.

Just outside the fence, the cicadas were chirping to celebrate the summer as it arrived on the plains. Tiny clouds swirled and knotted in the black above them, blotting out scatterings of stars. Reclining, she let her head tip backwards so she saw nothing but sky beyond the beam of the swing. Hollia truly did have the most scenic of homes.

“There are more stars here than I’ve ever seen,” Aleigh said absently, and she turned to find him staring upward as well.

“You’re missing out,” she replied, pulling her gaze away from him. “Astra’s named after them for a reason.”

As they sat in silence, Ruthenia toyed with the idea of asking him all of the questions she had. About the past two weeks. About the interviews. About the afternoon in her shed. About whether it mattered that she was a commoner, the lowliest sort there was, born in a laboratory and raised on the street. But each gust carried the urge away, and she let the silence seep into her, savouring the quiet warmth of her companion’s presence without trying to break it.

“Two weeks ago, you mentioned meaning to ask me about the interview,” he said, then.

Well, that made things significantly easier.

“Yes,” Ruthenia answered. “No, actually, I meant to ask about your recklessness. Barely days before had you been lecturing me on recklessness, and yet you gave your title up later that week! What possessed you?”

“Well, your courage did,” he replied. “And the friendship you offered me, which you must not know meant the world to me, since you are still asking me these questions.”

“Friendship? All I did was do you favours. And buy milkshake for you.”

“That was more than anyone else has ever done for me.”

She sniffed. “Please, you have servants, and a butler. They’ve done a lot for you.”

“For the Arcane Prince, perhaps, but not for me.”

His words made her turn, and she stared, trying to make sense of what she saw--to separate the glamour from the person beneath it, for only now was she beginning to comprehend how he saw himself: as a duality. It was true; few masked themselves better than Arcane Prince Aleigh Luzerno. Few played the part of the royal so well, becoming the star, the swan of Astra, symbol and image. King Aligon may be an excellent actor, but even he did not command imagery the way his younger brother did.

He was all those things embodied, and she hated it, and she loved it.

“Ruthenia,” he said all of a sudden, an attentive look on his face.

"Yes?"

“If you will allow me to be so forward as to say this--I wish I could spend every minute with you.”

It seemed he had an endless compendium of lines to embarrass her with. "You're joking, or else you're simply saying it to please me." She giggled like a fool at the earnestness in his words nevertheless. “Me? The loudmouthed firebrand?”

He had the wide-eyed look of someone whose sincerity had been spurned, and for a moment Ruthenia began to regret her response. “I do mean it, though.”

She bit her lip. The way he leant towards her, forward but not too much, and the way he cast his eyes down, made her entire being blaze with wanting. “Why have you been coy about it, then?” she said.

“About what?”

“About, well, the fact that my friendship has been so important to you?”

“Before this, it was because I feared the implications of close friendship with you on my family, although I do not think that will pose an obstacle any longer.”

“Oh?”

“My brother sent me to this party to inform the new Blessed Lady that she has the love of the Arcane royal family. And I know he would be very pleased if you accepted it.”

“I’m not sure if accepting is entirely wise an idea,” she said.

He regarded her for nearly a minute, before finally glancing away. “My family’s approval is not my chiefest worry, particularly not now,” he said in a sigh. “It was that you would take poorly to knowing how intensely I enjoy your companionship...that you would become terrified, and want nothing more to do with me.”

Ruthenia could not help but snort with laughter. “You can enjoy my company as much as you damn well want!” she laughed. “I most definitely would not be terrified. Why would I be?”

“Would you not be terrified if you learned that someone was in love with you?”

Heat rushed to her face. "No, you silly boy," she said. "Especially not if it were you."

At these words, a look of embarrassment came over him. It was the most wonderfully horrifying minute, as they exchanged sheepish stares, as if daring each other to utter confirmation. "Ruthenia," he finally said, "forgive my forwardness again, but think much has to be said that I have long prevented myself from saying, the most important of those being that I admire you immensely, and that I would feel privileged if you would deign to accept an offer of attachment from me..."

Her head spun; she no longer felt the bench beneath her. "What did I spend the past two months in self-deception for, then?" she gasped. "All that time spent trying to remove you from your schedules, just so that I could have more of you to myself. Yes, of course I'll accept."

He laughed, embarrassment deepened by pleasure. "I thought you might never forgive me for being a royal."

"I thought I'd never forgive myself for falling for one." She offered a teasing smile, and her breath caught as he leant towards her, mouth finding hers.

This time, she did not abandon the conquest halfway. She kissed him angrily, making up for the times she’d convinced herself that no good would come from this. Their fingers tangled, then their arms, and the world swung around them. Suddenly she was pinning him against the arm of the swing, all fire and nothing else. She let him kiss her with all the determination she’d always wanted to see in him.

When Ruthenia eventually dragged herself away, like the tide from the shore, he was smiling at her, quite unbecomingly for someone of his station. And she obliged to answer him, crashing back towards him with a second kiss, which he returned with more ardence than she'd ever thought him capable of mustering.

They pulled apart again, as in a dance. She could not resist the pull, met him for a third, sky whirling overhead.

Ruthenia finally threw herself back, head as hot as a lit lamp. The roar of blood began to desert her ears. The swing beneath them creaked back and forth, and they could not pull their gazes apart or stop beaming. They spent a minute in blissful silence, until she turned to meet her partner's eye once more, taking his hands in hers. "You must tell me, though, why? What makes you esteem me so highly?”

"Your earnestness," he said at once. "Resolve, steadfastness. Loyalty to your beliefs, family, and friends. Your unrelenting sense of justice. The fact that you are yourself, Ruthenia. I love the person you are and I can't put a single definitive reason to it." She had to turn away; she was smiling too hard. "How about me? Surely a person like you ought to aspire for someone greater."

"I don't care for greatness," she replied. "I know how it is to be an Arcane, all buoyed upon your own pride and self-congratulation, but you were completely ready to put that behind you when I questioned it. You really surprised me. It made me very hopeful. Readier to forgive."

"More Arcanes could stand to learn to be less proud, certainly." He smiled. "Speaking of which...I hope you will consider accepting my family's offer of friendship."

She reached out to straighten Aleigh’s suit jacket, while he tidied his hair. When she was done, she sidled over and curled up against him, head against his shoulder. “I’d be happy to, if it means more kisses like that," she said in a syrupy voice.

“I would be delighted to kiss you as often as you liked.”

She was beginning to feel all hot again. “How about now?” she asked, looking up. And he did as instructed, with less vigour and more care, pressing his lips to hers before finally pulling away once again. She beamed, clasping both her hands around his and rubbing her thumb against his palm. “So? When do I get my deposit?”

“You have already received it,” he said, then paused to lift her hand to his lips. “I simply did not say that that was what it was.”

She closed her eyes while he ran his lips along her fingers. “The pendant?” She touched it with her free hand, through the fabric of her dress. “I had a feeling it was special somehow.”

He laughed softly, that rare warm laugh that made everything seem easier. “Does it make a good paperweight?”

“I’m sure it would,” she replied, “but I’ve been wearing it too much to know."

He pressed his nose into her hair, and she pulled up even closer, staring absently at Hollia’s back door. A smile curved her lips, and she closed her eyes, letting the movement of the swing lull her.

They were interrupted by a call from among the leaves of the bowing tree.

Ruthenia cast a glance at Aleigh, then in the direction of the noise, extracting herself from his arms. “You heard that, right?” she said, straightening.

“A bird?” he replied, lifting his gaze as well.

Rising from the seat, they began to cross the garden, hands locked together. They passed through grass and vines, under the broken branches, till eventually they reached the shortest one. Another rumbling call came from behind the leaves.

Ruthenia lifted a curtain of leaves to reveal a swirl of twigs, upon which a dove sat, staring at the newcomers with unblinking eyes.

“Hello there,” she whispered. “What’s the matter?” It did not answer, but continued to breathe softly, blinking its eyes.

While they studied the creature, there was a creak of a door behind them, and the rustle of footsteps across the garden.

“You heard him too?” came a whispering voice. Both turned, to discover Hollia approaching, eyes bright with fear. She paused when she saw that their hands were in each other’s. “Oh! Am I—interrupting?”

“No!” she exclaimed.

They moved apart to let Hollia pass, and she seemed hesitant to accept the gesture initially, but eventually glided forward with several bows in Aleigh’s direction, which he accepted graciously.

“Every now and then, he sings for his mate,” said Hollia as she approached the nest. “But she’s left him. She was on the tree out there—” she pointed at the silhouette down the road— “when the lightning hit. He will have to raise them alone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruthenia, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“There’s only the four of them, now, and unless they inbreed, there will not be any left in ten years’ time.”

“That won’t happen—”

“It will.” A pang tore at Ruthenia’s heart, for she had never heard Hollia sound so defeated before. “But that’s how it is with life—extinction and death—isn’t it? I have no right to prevent that. I never did. We never did.”

Ruthenia wanted to understand, but she knew she did not, however many crises of her own she had suffered. She did not understand compassion like Hollia’s, and did not understand being tethered to a place, a profession, this way, independent of ideology—not in the way Hollia did. Now that they were gone, where had she to go?

Swallowing, Ruthenia draped an arm about the girl’s shoulders. “They’re alive right now, aren’t they?” she said. Hollia nodded. “And so are the rest of the birds, for today. Some will die, and that’s inevitable. But some of them won’t, and they’ll have offspring of their own. I’m sure of it. And they’ll be making their nests in the next town. In the forest. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Despite the darkness in her eyes, Hollia smiled waveringly. “I think it could be.”

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