It wasn’t the usual evening for Captain Yue’s tests, but Song was in no position to argue.
Besides, the Thirteenth was headed into exile at the cottage so it suited her fine to get it over with early. The longer they stayed in town, the more they risked the stares of the townsfolk turning into stones. The thought of fleeing did not make her balk, not when she understood what carrying a people’s anger really meant. We can’t, meimei, don’t even ask Father, she remembered Haoran whispering. They took Nianzu to the festival of Smooth Crossings when he was small and people set fire to the shrine.
With those memories so close to the skin it had been discomforting to be ordered to undress. To take off her cloak and coat, her belt and blade. To set aside all the layers but the shift and sit on bare stone like a lamb for the altar. So even as her arm was pricked, Song made herself look past the Navigator using her as a specimen and focus on her surroundings. Captain Yue’s study, she found, appeared to be following the trend of the year: the mess had gotten worse.
The dirty dishes had multiplied and one of the lamps had run out of oil two weeks past and yet to be refilled, to her nearly physical indignation. The lamp, really? She needed it to see! Instead Captain Yue had stolen a candle from sconces in the hallway and shoved it into the lamp holder, something that would become a punishable crime if Song ever came to command a majority of votes in the Conclave.
Yue finished prodding at the wet clump of red-stained powder in the middle of a plate with her small brass wand, setting aside to the wand to pick up pincers. She removed a touch of powder and dropped it in the dish positioned besides the plate, where it dissolved in the milky and almost opalescent liquid inside without so much as a sound.
“You can dress,” Captain Yue said, smoothing her braid back in place after stepping away from the table she’d been bending over.
It set the black hair to hide most of the burn scars on the side of her face again, the gesture so unthinking it must have grown past habit into the realm of reflex. Song pushed off the stone slab she had been sitting on and quickly set to dressing again.
“No trace of Gloam in your blood,” Yue informed her, sounding pensive as she began scribbling notes.
“There were not the previous two instances you took my blood either,” Song pointed out. “Why does this surprise you?”
The powder on the plate was palestone dust, which Yue had sprinkled over drops of Song’s blood. The powder would hiss if put in contact with sufficient concentration of Gloam, which made it a cheap and mostly reliable way to test if a substance had Gloam in it. For additional precision, Yue then dropped the stained powder into some sort of metaphysically neutral alchemical mixture. Gloam and Glare both would have changed the color from milky pale to muddy.
“We’re late in your purge cycle, if there was ever going to be a moment where the presence of Gloam in your blood became demonstrable it’s now,” Yue dismissed. “The other takes were just being thorough in case of anomalies.”
The older woman hummed.
“A shame I only have you for the year, considering the likely trajectory of your situation. I expect in a decade you’ll be purging every other day if the curse hasn’t killed you, I’d be most interested to see if that changes the Gloam concentration in your body.”
Song swallowed anything she might have answered, as that was useful information. So should the curse kept progressing at this rate she had around a decade to live unless she found a workaround – either redeeming the Ren name enough to weaken the curse or securing a way to seal its physical effects. One would be the labor of her lifetime, however long or short, but the other... A seal could buy her time to fix things, buy her family long enough they could be saved. The Book of the Lofty Mountain would have the means, it must.
She just needed to get into the Repository to get it.
“You’ve told me before that all of the Ren are anchors for nascent the curse-god,” Song said, buckling her belt and somehow feeling sturdier for it. “But the effects will progress quicker in Tianxia, won’t they? Distance from the divine cradle matters.”
“It does,” Yue agreed. “Worried about your family?”
Song refused to give her the pleasure of outright admitting as much.
“If I have a decade, how long do they have?” she asked.
“It would be difficult to tell without examining them,” Yue mused. “And it’s not like the situation will be set in stone, either: if the curse-god accelerates its formation, the effects will get worse. If it slows down, the lifespan improves.”
“If you had to guess,” Song pressed.
“They’ll get half to two thirds of what you do,” Captain Yue said.
The mathematics were as easy as they were brutal: five to seven years, more or less. Song swallowed. It was better than what she had been bracing for, but still so very little. In five years I’ll only be two years out of Scholomance. How much could the Thirteenth possibly have accomplished, by then?
“Convince your family to leave Tianxia and you improve their chances,” Yue said, quill rising from the page of her book. “But with how tightly wound you are, I’m guessing they’re not the sort to leave.”
“They are not,” Song said, tone forcefully even.
Song hadn’t even been born back then, but Nianzu had once told her that Mother hadn’t even wanted to leave Jigong after the Dimming. It had been a violent argument and Father threatening to leave with the children for her to give in and agree to take refuge with his kin in Mazu. No, Mother would rather be buried in the Republics than leave them and her father still loved her too much to go without her. She swallowed.
“How long before a pregnancy becomes dangerous?” she quietly asked.
The Navigator eyed her around the corner of her braid.
“That’s an interesting question,” Captain Yue said, folding her arms. “Almost all the studies about the effects of Gloam on pregnancies are about those of Gloam-wielders.”
Which Professor Artigas had covered, however quickly, in Metaphysics.
“Controlled exposure to Gloam while in the belly improves chances of being born with the talent to manipulate it, which in practice tends to encourage matrilineal witch lineages,” Song said.
It wasn’t that there was an advantage to any gender when it came to wielding Gloam; sex made no difference. But mother-to-daughter lineages tended to be the most successful means of transmitting the talent generation after generation, and thus to accumulate the know-how to make the lineage stable and powerful. It had been a shock for Song to learn this, as in Tianxia the wielding of Gloam was not seen as womanly in the slightest. It was instead associated with mountain bandits and unorthodox sects, both of which were usually led by men.
“That’s with practitioners who have some means of obscuration,” Yue told her. “Meaning the distribution of Gloam taint in the body is controlled, or at least managed. What your family suffers from is closer to, well, being cursed. We don’t have nearly as many scrolls about that.”
Yue smiled ghoulishly at her.
“The good people of Vesper get twitchy about letting you open up dead mothers to check their unborn children’s insides.”
Song refused to rise to the bait.
“If I were to fall pregnant,” she said. “How would you rate the chances of the child surviving?”
“You?” Yue mused. “Maybe two in three, but then you have an exceptionally sensitive Navigator living under the same roof who would keep an eye on it and tell you when and how to purge.”
She shot Song a knowing look.
“I’d rate your chances at one in three if you were back in Tianxia, though.”
And losing the child meant taking the chance of losing Aihan as well. Her fingers clenched. It was as Song had suspected: a wedding would kill her sister as surely as a dagger to the heart.
“You’re not pregnant,” Captain Yue noted. “And I seem to recall that Cao was asking around about the Book of the Lofty Mountain at the start of the year, which I’m now guessing had something to do with you. Who is it you’re trying keep alive, Ren?”
Song swallowed and looked down. Why even put her cloak back on, if she was to feel naked like this?
“My younger sister,” she finally said, “is engaged.”
Yue whistled.
“Now there’s a fit of stupidity by your parents,” she said. “Or ruthlessness. Why are they pushing for that?”
“They’ve run out of funds and the curse has ruined the estate,” Song tiredly said. “They now need to live on the charity of my father’s kin and it is running increasingly thin. They’re marrying her into a wealthy family.”
“I’m guessing those wealthy souls have a reason to agree,” Yue said. “I can’t imagine a Ren daughter is worth much on the marriage market at the moment.”
Not even half as much as they would be on the bounty board, Song grimly thought.
“The Guan have property in Asphodel that they cannot access because of the aftermath of the coup,” she explained. “But after last year...”
“It might be the one island in the world where calling on the Ren name would open doors instead of the other way around,” Yue amusedly said.
“It’s my fault,” Song miserably confessed. “They can only do it because of me.”
Yue spat on the floor, the sudden and unexpected crudity of which startled Song into standing at attention.
“They do it because they can,” she said. “Because in the Republics the fools who whelped you can barter you away if they feel like it. But they also do it, Song Ren, because the girl is letting them. Maybe you’ve a share of the blame, but you do not own it.”
Captain Yue blew at the fresh ink on her page, then rose to her feet.
“Anyhow, Momu the Lame was a better exorcist than cursewright but her work probably does have decent methods to seal the curse in you. It would buy you time.”
Yue hummed.
“Your doing it is the least interesting option for me, though,” she said. “I’d rather you went the other way around.”
“Pardon?”
“There are Akelarre that would kill for your situation,” Yue noted. “You have a god that keeps shoving Gloam into you continuously. It nixes one of the greatest weakness of signifiers, which is that when standing under direct Glare light we are severely curtailed. An Akelarre with your curse would essentially have an endless private reservoir of Gloam inside them that they can draw on.”
“I am not a signifier,” Song stiffly replied.
“No,” Yue agreed. “It’s more interesting than that.”
Her hand danced across the air for a moment and Song let out a gasp as Gloam slid out of her own palm, coming out in droplets that flew away to coalesce into a sphere above Yue’s palm.
“You’re like a barrel of powder for one, in places where we can’t freely draw,” Yue informed her. “Mind you, getting emptied and filled back up will accelerate how soon you need to purge and probably taint your body. It’s not a trick to use often.”
Her teeth clenched.
“Gloam is rarely in short supply, where the Thirteenth fights,” Song said.
“Well, a lemure wouldn’t enjoy being on your end of connection with the curse god either,” Yue amusedly noted. “You’re a lucent with a soul, it can only affect you through the Gloam it pushes in. A lemure with the darkness already in their veins, though? It’d get to spread like disease.”
Song’s lips thinned. She saw no humor in giving the curse god a toehold in the Material by letting it break some lemure’s mind. Given the nature of the god, odds were there would be nothing left but the all-consuming urge to kill the Ren in the monster by the time the work was done. Yue eyed her, then shrugged.
“We’re done for the night,” she said. “Go back to your brigade.”
She paused in her dismissal, though, and sighed.
“Parents are a sort of curse as well, girl,” Captain Yue said. “And copies of Momu’s book are in short supply, but they sell bullets by the box near the docks. Think on that, maybe.”
--
By the time Izel got back to the cottage, supper was cold.
That was fine. He was too exhausted to be hungry, anyhow, and would simply cram some leftovers down his gullet before dropping into his bed. There was still a conversation he needed to have, however, so he was glad to see that no one had retired for the night.
Song was reading, sitting in that very still way she did when cramming her mind full with lessons to avoid leaving room for anything else, and Maryam was glaring at her Mandate essay like it had personally slighted her under her sister’s amused gaze. Tristan was by the window, staring into the dark like a man considering walking out into it. Angharad had been a good sport on their way here, refraining from asking the questions she clearly wanted to, so he figured that ought to be where he started,
Izel set down the sheathed saber on the dinner table, which claimed everyone’s attention.
“I’ve reforged it,” he told Angharad. “And added something to Okuhle’s fine work.”
Angharad blinked at him in surprise, reaching for the blade then looking askance. He nodded and she took the sheath, drawing the steel that was not only that anymore. Along the edge of the saber, from the point to the hilt, was a length of paler grey with faint wave marks. The tomic alloy, which he had added after meticulously shaving off the old steel edge. The blade had still needed reforging after, but he’d been able to weld the metals seamlessly and limit the added weight – which he’d compensated for by adding a small band of steel to the pommel to restore the balance.
Angharad carved away at the air with a slow, measured cut.
“It does not pass through the air as steel would,” she said.
“The edge is tomic, now,” Izel said. “I cannot swear it will go through Cai Wei’s body, but I can assure you that: if you get to what lies beneath the aether shell, this blade will cut it.”
“Thank you,” Angharad croaked. “Where did you even-”
“He found a piece inside Scholomance,” Tristan said. “During the scrapyard melee.”
He’d drifted away from the window, standing with his arms crossed. Gray eyes studied Izel.
“It was yours by right, and worth a great deal of gold,” Tristan stated/
“Gold can be made again,” Izel said. “Time is spent only once.”
Angharad looked about to speak again but he cleared his throat and looked away. This was getting embarrassing.
“I have been avoiding talking about the lenslight,” Izel abruptly said. “That was unfair of me.”
“It wasn’t,” Maryam grunted out, looking glad to have an excuse to bury her essay under a book. “We’re allowed to keep quiet about covenant work.”
“That secrecy was not forced on me,” he said. “I chose it, because it became clear to me that the lenslight can very easily be made into a weapon.”
No one looked entirely surprised by that. He’d not been the subtlest about his fears, it seemed. Izel laid it out for them in laymen’s terms, how by using aether-forged lenses he had stumbled onto a property of the Glare that allowed its strength to be increased more than linearly through the use of cheap gas. How it burned physical materials when focused and outright vaporized Gloam it came into touch with. He explained it all until he was left to pant.
“Izel is telling us this,” Song spoke into the silence that followed, “because I pressed him to take his lenslight and install it on the skimmer so we might field it against the ketos.”
She had not said it with guilt, he thought, but like someone taking responsibility. Like an officer. He could respect that more than feigned regret for something she still wanted to happen.
“And I don’t want to,” Izel said, passing a hand through his stubble, “because if I do use it, within a decade someone will have used a lenslight to set fire to a city.”
Across much of Vesper, roofs were still thatched. For the price of a pair of cannons, a clever tinker could make a lenslight-like machine that would set a thatched roof on fire from a mile away on a clear night – assuming the scaling held up. The bottleneck would be getting aether-forged glass lenses of the right size, but their current rarity was not because the means to make such pieces did not exist. It was because no one really had a use for such large lenses.
“I left Izcalli in no small part because I did not want to make weapons for my father,” Izel admitted. “I struggle with the notion of joining the Watch to make weapons anyhow.”
Maryam stirred in her seat again.
“No one else has been asked to cross their lines in the sand over this mess,” she said, eyeing Song. “It’s not right to ask it of you, any more than we would ask Angharad to break her word or myself to turn on my countrymen.”
“I don’t say this to shame Song out of the request,” Izel hastily said.
He licked his lips.
“I- I’d like your help,” Izel said. “I’m asking for it.”
“I am not sure how I can help you,” Angharad slowly said, “but you can take my aid as a given.”
“What is it you’re asking, Izel?” Tristan plainly said.
“The design is mine for five years,” he blurted out. “After that it’s open to all tinkers. Before the years are passed, I need to have made the lenslight into something that’s so much more useful outside the battlefield that it’d be a waste to use them on one.”
He wrung his hands.
“I’m going to need materials for my tests,” he said. ‘’Expensive things, or restricted. Some that aren’t even sold. And I’m going to need access to archives and other tinkers. Even if you can’t help me with the designs, you can all help me get to things and people who can.”
“That seems a reasonable enough request,” Song slowly said.
“It’s too nice,” Maryam complained.
“You should charge a fee, at least,” Hooks agreed.
“It is rare that I should be requested for my penmanship instead of my sword hand, but I can put you in touch with my uncle,” Angharad promised.
Only Tristan remained silent.
“There can’t be any guarantees for something like this,” he finally said.
“Tristan,” Angharad reproached, but the Sacromontan raised a hand to stall her.
“There’s no certainty you’ll succeed in your five years,” he told Izel. “Or that we can pull through on our end of the bargain, or that in a few years we’ll still be able or willing to. You’d still make the offer, knowing this?”
Izel looked down at his hands.
“What’s the point, if I don’t trust you?” he simply said.
The thief’s face spasmed, for an instant, before Tristan shook his head.
“Then you have my word, whatever that’s worth,” he said.
“Enough,” Izel told him, and somehow that seemed to make things worse.
There was an awkward silence after, no one quite sure what to say, so he took it on himself to break it.
“No to be crude,” Izel said, “but the current lenslight is too small to be entirely feasible as a weapon against the ketos. I will need to enlarge it, which will require gold.”
“How much?” Song asked.
“About twenty ramas for everything,” he said. “Aether-forged lenses are not inexpensive.”
“We can’t afford that,” she said.
“We’ll be able to.”
Eyes swiveled back to Tristan, whose still-hoarse voice and pale face inspired little trust – until one saw the eyes. The gray had gone cold.
“Should I ask?” Song said.
--
Picking the lock would have hinted at professional work. So instead Tristan picked up a cobblestone, wrapped it in cloth and smashed in the window of the Colored Arches. A restaurant that high-end always kept enough gold on hand to cover enough for expensive imports.
--
“Best that you don’t,” Tristan replied.
Song cleared her throat.
“We also need funds for a large dose of plousperi,” she admitted. “It’s currently our only means of keeping the ketos from submerging at will.”
--
The lock on the strongbox popped open with a smooth click. The sheath of paper money stood in the corner, the corners slightly crumpled. Tristan was going to take a massive loss on the sum when fencing this through the Chimerical but, hey, it was Cao’s emergency funds.
--
“Fortunately, I’m about to come into some money,” Tristan smoothly replied.
“Whose?” Izel couldn’t resist asking.
“Ours,” he said. “Anything else pressing?”
Maryam cleared her throat.
“If we are going to take the Orels into combat, I would like to arm them,” she admitted.
--
A minute into picking the lock he lost patience, put his pistol against the slit and pulled the trigger. Tristan kicked open the door of the Warfare supply shed and opened his bag to begin shoving in swords, muskets and pistols.
--
“I know where some spares can be found,” Tristan blandly said. “The utility of all this, of course, rests on there being a plan to kill that thing – or at least drive it off.”
“I have one,” Song said. “It is... risky, however.”
“Insane,” Maryam flatly said. “I still can’t believe you asked me that.”
“It will work,” Song said. “The trouble is that we are going to need a boarding crew for it.”
Angharad cleared her throat.
“Here I believe I can lend a hand,” she said. “How many do you need?”
“At least three besides you,” Song said.
“I will take care of it,” Angharad said.
“I can have the modified lenslight installed within three days of paying for the materials,” Izel volunteered.
“Then you’ll have the money come morning,” Tristan evenly said.
Maryam sighed.
“I’ll talk the Orels, find out how many are willing to sail into combat.”
Song Ren smiled coldly.
“Then it is on me to find us ships.”
--
Blade rang against blade.
Angharad gave a step and broke the lock, baiting a cut, but Lindiwe declined to be baited. Instead she feinted high and the mirror-dancer struggled to position her wrist to block it, getting a flick at her face for it – she managed to pull back at the last moment, avoiding a cut on her cheek, but only narrowly. She was just a hair too slow on the riposte, Lindiwe dancing out of the way and snorting as she casually tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear.
“Sloppy,” Lindiwe Sarru said. “You’re not used to the weight yet.”
“It is heavier than my usual,” Angharad admitted.
Izel had done beautiful work in replacing her saber’s edge with tomic alloy, but however light the Antediluvian metal was it still added weight. He’d compensated by adding a touch of weight to the pommel, which had maintained the balance but also left the blade slightly heavier than she preferred.
“It’s too heavy to be a proper dueling saber now,” Lindiwe said.
Angharad opened her mouth to object, but the other woman rolled her eyes.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you can drill to compensate for it,” she said. “A few months of practice should mostly make up for the difference. But that’s avoiding the point, which is that Coyac turned your pretty saber into a very fine monster-killing blade.”
Lindiwe clicked her tongue in distaste.
“A little more weight lets you carve through hide properly and the tomic edge will let you cut even spirits,” she said. “It might not be mirror-dancer’s blade, but it is the blade of watchwoman.”
“One can be both, Lindiwe,” Angharad flatly replied.
“We can be all sorts of things,” Lindiwe agreed. “But there’s an order to the list of our allegiances, Tredegar. That blade puts Skiritai above duelist, which is a welcome change.”
Biting down on a dozen unkind answers, Angharad forced herself to let it go. There was no victory to be had in a philosophy debate. She took a step back instead, catching her breath.
“Thank you for the spar.”
“It’s only sensible to test your new tomic edge against a match,” Lindiwe said, tapping the side of her own saber. “I was curious how it would take to candlesteel myself, but they don’t seem to be reacting to each other at all.”
Angharad had been curious as well. Tomic alloy, the very wonder that allowed one to build skimmers, was said to ‘cut’ through both the aether and material realms in a way that allowed those wondrous ships to have nearly unparalleled speed at sea. Candlesteel, on the other hand, was not said to have any particular physical properties beyond being lighter than standard steel – its was famous because its mere proximity was disruptive to both aether and Gloam.
“There is a sense to it,” Angharad noted. “Candlesteel affects metaphysical forces, which tomic materials are not even though they affect them as well.”
“I don’t expect it’s been studied in detail,” Lindiwe dismissed. “Candlesteel is tightly restricted and tomic alloys so expensive I can’t recall hearing of another sword worked with it.”
Angharad ceded the point with a nod.
“How did you get such a blade, anyhow?” she curiously asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“My great-grandfather warred in Izcalli,” she proudly said. “He slew a Crocodile Society champion in single combat and claimed her weapon as a prize. There was just enough candlesteel in the spearhead to forge this blade.”
A family heirloom, then. Angharad was surprised it would be allowed into the hands of a Sarru scion headed into the Watch, but then she knew next to nothing of Lindiwe Sarru’s house.
“But we’re not here for you to paw at my family history, you Pereduri country mouse,” Lindiwe conversationally added. “You said you had an offer for me – what is it?”
Her smile turned barbed.
“You must be quite desperate to come begging to me for help after abandoning me to the Acallar hunts.”
Angharad watched her, jaw clenched, and saw that once more Lindiwe Sarru was tripping on her own pride. The same way she had at the table with Musa, Alizia and Tall Bibek when instead of trading for what she wanted she had made demands and antagonized all those whose help she wanted before spurning even Angharad’s consolation.
Lindiwe might not be wearing bandages on her head anymore, but Shalini had been clear that her hunting crew’s attempts on Steel list beasts had stalled. Her allies had taken too many wounds and the group she had cobbled together after the hunt and delve drew Skiritai away from the Acallar was not anywhere as tightly-knight and motivated as the one she had begun the year with.
If she kept pushing them, they would leave.
And still Angharad could see that Lindiwe had come here this morning mostly for the pleasure of refusing her. Of, the way she saw it, evening the score for earlier this year. Only Angharad had not come here to rope the Tenth Brigade in through an acquaintance, and she knew exactly how to pay for what she wanted.
“I want your help against the ketos,” she said.
Lindiwe smiled beatifically.
“No,” she said, and immediately began to walk away.
“Not your brigade,” Angharad said. “Yours.”
The steps stuttered, out of surprise, but did not stop.
“In exchange, I will join your hunting crew until your loss is redeemed,” she offered.
Lindiwe stopped. She turned around, face disbelieving.
“These exact terms?” she said.
Angharad did not grimace, though she felt like it. Lindiwe was fighting to revive the member of her hunting crew who had died last year, but the span of time for it was narrowing. The phrasing Angharad had given implied that should that opportunity pass, she would remain part of Lindiwe’s hunting crew as a subordinate. There was a natural cutoff there, as when they graduated Scholomance there would no longer be hunting crews and thus the promise came at an end, but it was still putting her remaining years here on the line.
“These exact terms,” she forced herself to reply.
Lindiwe let out a low whistle.
“You are more desperate than I thought,” Lindiwe said. “Or more impressed by me than you’re willing to admit. You’re willing to pay this much for myself alone?”
“For the plan my captain has put together to work, we need a Skiritai band to take the lead,” Angharad said.
At least four. Fewer than that and there would be gaps. Lindiwe’s brow rose.
“Who else do you have?”
“Shalini,” she said, then stalled.
“Salvador blew you off,” Lindiwe guessed with a sharp-toothed grin.
“He declined,” Angharad sharply corrected. “And I have other prospects, I simply came to you early.”
Lindiwe cocked her head to the side.
“Tall Bibek?”
Angharad kept her face blank, refusing to answer. Else she would have to admit he had already refused as well. The potential fourth was an... unexpected turn, but Izel had been firm..
“You say your captain has a plan?” Lindiwe probed.
“One I believe will work,” Angharad said.
The other woman worried her lip.
“It’s a pretty offer you make me,” Lindiwe admitted. “But I will not commit to putting my life on the line before hearing what bold folly the Thirteenth has cooked up this time.”
Angharad’s eyes narrowed at her. Lindiwe was angling to get to sit on the coming conversation without committing anything, clearly. And though Angharad badly needed the sword-arm, she could not allow that. She pressed the other woman for an agreement-in-principle, the promise to go through with the deal under the current terms if the plan was acceptable, and though Lindiwe tried to wriggle out Angharad put her foot down and the other Skiritai had to consider whether blowing this up now was really what she wanted.
It was not.
It meant, unfortunately, that as Angharad began her trek to the Dregs she was accompanied by a smiling Lindiwe Sarru – whose irritation at having given her agreement-in-principle vanished into smoke around the first time someone pointed at Angharad. As Captain Wen had predicted, it’d gotten worse after news of Izel’s protection of Young Koval spread around town. Considering violence had been resorted to only in order to prevent the abduction of a child Angharad would have expected the people of Allazei to see the sense in it, but no.
All they saw was one body under a black sheet and two sent to Lady Knot’s mercy while the Unluckies went unpunished.
“I hear one of the fishmongers refused to sell to your brigade,” Lindiwe ‘idly’ said as they strode down the street.
“That is their right,” Angharad made herself reply.
The man had lost a brother in the fire, and blamed them for it. Song had not deserved the scene he made, but the Khaimovs reacting by drawing Gloam had not helped – even if they never used it. Angharad heard the hard laugh from a corner as they turned west and forced herself not to look. She would rather not know if she was being pointed at.
“It’s actually eating you alive, isn’t?” Lindiwe said, her tone wondering.
“Is there anyone who enjoys having a poor reputation?” Angharad said sharply.
“No,” she replied, raising her hands in appeasement.
It might have worked better without the smirk tugging at her lips.
“I am only surprised the mighty Unluckies do not merely laugh in the face of disapproval.”
Angharad ground her teeth and did not reply. The situation was becoming untenable, that was the truth of it, and she was not so certain that facing down the ketos would truly solve it. They reached the Dregs all too slowly and Angharad did not let herself stop and look around, instead cutting straight to the back of the room. There the others we were waiting: Shalini, who had agreed to be present, and Izel’s suggestion.
Yaotl Acatl did not wear the same face paint she once had, now keeping to a simple band of black across the face at the height of her eyes, but otherwise seemed little changed by the year’s debacles. Angharad envied that dauntless some, and the princess wore it well – she was still a tall, shapely woman with a sharp beauty. Angharad did not let her gaze linger, however. She and Shalini had never discussed the seriousness of their entanglement, and it was early days, but the implication had always been there that a single bed would kept to so long as bed was kept.
She slid into a seat facing the other two, pointedly refraining from pulling Lindiwe a chair, and spared Shalini a smile – which was returned. Her lover had not promised to join the effort, but effort that should the plan suit her she would consider joining the effort.
“Good evening,” she said. “Yaotl, thank you for-”
“Yes,” Yaotl Acatl interrupted.
“Pardon?”
“Yes, I will join your ketos hunt,” the princess patiently said, as if dealing with someone a little slow.
“You don’t want to hear the plan first?” Shalini asked.
“Their captain is not incompetent,” Yaotl shrugged. “And Izel would not countenance a sacrifice play, so the plan should be sound. Who would not want to slay such a mighty creature?”
“Someone uninterested in giving the Unluckies that honor,” Lindiwe said.
Yaotl sneered at her. Lindiwe sneered back. Shalini tried to sneer at them both, but it mostly looked like she was about to sneeze.
“I see no one else offering a berth on a ship headed for that fight,” Yaotl said. “Honor is won blade in hand, it is not for others to give.”
“How well has that philosophy worked out for you, Izcalli?” Lindiwe smiled.
The princess’ eyes flicked across the table, as if measuring if she could catch the other woman by the hair and smash her into the tabletop in hand, and before that could become a very real possibility Angharad cleared her throat.
“Thank you, Yaotl,” she said. “I am pleased to welcome you to the crew.”
“So what is the plan that Song cooked up, exactly?” Shalini said, after sparing a moment to send Lindiwe a superior look.
Angharad smiled at her.
“I’m sure you’ll find-”
She was interrupted by the sound of chair being dragged. Angharad’s gaze flicked there and she found the one at the end of the table being taken out, only for a languid Musa Shange to drop down into it.
“Ladies, I see you’re coming to terms,” he said. “Good.”
“Musa,” she evenly said. “Can I help you?”
“You can,” Musa Shange said. “Cut me in.”
There was a beat of stillness.
“Pardon?” she asked.
“Cut me in,” Musa repeated. “I want to slay this ketos.”
Angharad’s mind whirled. There were too many possible angles here for her to be sure what this was about. Glory, the Ninth wanting to show up the First? A play against Cao? Or perhaps it was all to keep an eye on the Thirteenth for Morcant, to sabotage them from the inside.
“Given the circumstances, that seems difficult,” she said.
“Let me make it simple, then,” Musa said. “I am calling in my favor.”
Her lips thinned.
“You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Are your perhaps unfamiliar with how favors work, Angharad? They are usually lighter on questions.”
She gritted her teeth.
“You know why I balk,” she said.
“And I will state assurances,” he dismissed. “But unless you are to break your word, Angharad, I will be on that most interesting skimmer when it sails out.”
“I am not the only one who must agree,” she said.
“Then remind Song Ren that only weaklings take slights, and we are not that,” Musa coldly said. “It is one thing to refuse overtures, another to treat us as enemies.”
Lindiwe, amused, cleared her throat.
“Well, it seems we’re to be five,” she said. “How bracing! Now, I do believe you were about to tell us the Ren’s plan.”
Angharad got promises of silence first, of course, since some might still walk. But once she was done explaining, none did and that told her they’d stick through. They were in. Now what they needed was ships enough the fight would not begin and end with the ketos’s jaw closing around the sides of the skimmer.
That was, thankfully, Song’s job to manage. She had done her part.
--
Colonel Fermin Azocar was looking down at the stage of the Old Playhouse when Song arrived, but not from one of the lower rings.
Instead of the lodges-turned-garden he’d sat down on one of the benches higher up, far from where the nobles would have been. The old man was whittling away at a piece of driftwood with a folding knife, scattering wood shavings everywhere. He was also, Song idly noted, wielding the knife with his left hand while he usually held his cane with his right. Was he ambidextrous? She slipped onto the bench, keeping a distance of a few feet as much out of respect as because she did not want any of those wood chips on her.
“Sir.”
“Captain Ren,” the old man said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“If you truly wanted to pretend this is an accidental encounter, there are less public venues.”
“The irony of doing this in sight of the Galleries appealed,” Azocar said.
He shaved off a piece, flicked it to the ground.
“Also, I don’t care enough to put in the effort.”
Song said nothing, watching him wield the knife with precise nonchalance. The way the edge of the blade faced his thumb went against everything she had been taught about handling naked blades, but it was not her place to say anything. He was evidently an old hand at whittling.
“I read your proposal,” Azocar said. “How sure are you that your tinker’s work will drive off the ketos?”
“As sure as we can be without actually using it on the beast,” Song said. “The calculations are solid and it has been used on a lemure to the theorized effect.”
He hummed.
“I’ve had one of my captains check on the Sheba Bastion,” he said. “The chiropters are still there, but nothing else appears to have moved in.”
It had been extremely embarrassing not to know the name of the bat-monsters when writing her report, so Song had been sure to research it afterwards. They were not usually native to this part of the Trebian Sea, someone making excuses would say.
“Glad news,” Song murmured. “Will you be seizing the wharf, then?”
She had recommended as much in her report. Holding the water gate and preventing the ketos from closing it was crucial to any expedition into the depths: otherwise the creature could cut off their retreat at will. It had not bothered to do so last time, but then it had no reason to fear a single ship. It might be more inclined to strand a flotilla and pick it off at its leisure.
“Tomorrow afternoon my galleasses will move in,” Colonel Azocar revealed. “Dedicated gun crews can handle chiropters, if they’ve had forewarning, so we should be able to take it without significant losses.”
He paused, the knife sliding against a solid knot in the wood, and shifted around the piece to take another angle. Song ran the timeline through in her mind: today was sixthday, so presuming slight no losses the ships might be ready for a fight as early as firstday. Gods, finally good news. Tristan looked about to bolt, these days, and Angharad was hardly better.
“The ketos is an issue,” Azocar continued, “but unless everyone who handed in a report was gravely mistake about the dimensions of the water gate it’s also too large to get through.”
“Its tentacles are not,” Song warned.
“I’d burn candles to the Sleeping God, if it were thick enough to try that,” he snorted. “The first thing we’ll do after taking that wharf is put cannons on it and point them at the gate. If it peeks its head out, it will get a grand helping of salt munitions.”
That should secure the gates, Song silently agreed. So long as they put up something in the stairs to prevent lemures wandering in from the bastion proper. No creature would have bothered when there was nothing down there but the chiropters but now that there’d be men and smells something was bound to get curious. Still, a man didn’t make colonel in the Watch without knowing how to put up an outpost in hostile territory. She would be doing herself no favors by warning a cautious man.
“With our line of retreat secured an expedition becomes feasible,” Song said. “How many ships are you willing to commit to the hunt?”
The carrack was too large to even enter the cavern, but the four galleasses and the barque under Azocar’s command should all be able to fit. The latter was a glorified supply ship, though, unfit for real combat. She expected only the galleasses, and not all of them either. Three will be enough, she thought. Two, though? Two would get tricky.
“None,” Azocar flatly said.
Song blinked.
“Is Lord Asher no longer pressuring you to advance the delve?”
“He’s been to visit me twice, the old crab,” Azocar said, clicking his tongue. “But I’m not under the authority of the Obscure Committee as a whole, girl, not any single member of it.”
“I know that,” Song impatiently said. “But Professor He is Cao’s backer and Brigadier Laghari a Stripe. If they have Asher’s vote, they have a majority in the committee and can get rid of you at will.”
“Asher’s not going to give his vote over being blown off,” Azocar told her. “That’s now how the Cryptics work, when they’re that high up their ladder.”
The knife sliced through wood.
“Call this a free lesson,” the old man said. “The public faces of the Krypteia usually avoid openly taking sides, Ren. They have to, otherwise they implicitly give Mask backing to whatever scheme they join – and whatever the outcome of that scheme, afterwards it’s harder for all Masks to do their real job.”
“Cutting out the rot,” Song said.
He nodded.
“No, Asher won’t do anything for the same reason I won’t send ships to back you,” Azocar continued.
She made herself raise an eyebrow, pretending calm as he sliced off a chip.
“My foremost duty is to hold Port Allazei for the Watch, and I barely have the means to do so right now,” Azocar said. “A chunk of the city going up in flames has stirred up lemures again and now anything coming out of the Nettlewood to have a look will find an empty field between it and the savory townsfolk inhabiting the Triangle. Even Templeward is at risk, the gate to it is wide open.”
“I’ve not heard of any incursions,” Song slowly said.
“Shuttle-spiders are already setting up in the ashes,” Azocar said. “And last night a hippogriff tried to break into the Galleries through the roof. None have ever ranged that far south before in the years I’ve held this command.”
Song breathed in sharply.
“I’ve petitioned the Obscure Committee for reinforcements, but until they arrive from Lucierna my garrison is stretched thin,” Azocar said. “We have to build and man barricades to protect the entire eastern flank of the Triangle, and now both the College and the Academy are howling in my ear about doubling the guards on their headquarters.”
He spat to the side.
“Like putting up a gunline in front of the Ossurary’s entrance will do a damn thing,” Azocar said. “What we need is screening patrols and a circle of lookouts to stop the Wei girl from torching us again, but I don’t have the men or the means for that.”
He grimaced.
“Ketos hunts are ship-killers and I cannot afford to lose a ship’s worth of soldiers, Ren,” he said. “I already have too few for my duties.”
She studied him for a moment.
“And taking the wharf should be enough to appease Asher until the men from Lucierna have arrived, in a month or so,” Song said.
Gods, it was a horrid timeline but it was still better than nothing. She had to bring something back to her brigade.
“More like two months,” Azocar said. “The increased garrison when they reopened Scholomance already drew from the heart of the Trebian Northwest command, he’ll be pulling soldiers out of the coastal forts to send us this time.”
Which meant sending word to those spread-out forts, ferrying the soldiers to Lucierna and then off to Tolomontera. At least two weeks added, and that was with good winds and no trouble at sea.
“My brigade cannot wait two months,” Song quietly said.
“I know,” Azocar said, chipping at the wood. “It’s why I decided you were owed the courtesy of a face-to-face.”
A cold comfort, Song thought.
“Is there nothing that can be done?” she asked, almost pleadingly.
“After your rat hit up Cao’s private storage for money I thought there might be something,” Azocar said. “She was stirred up, visited the place that same night. But besides sending a complaint and moving a bag of gems to replace the paper money she hasn’t done anything. I’m guessing the gems are cursed, she has some connections among the Akelarre.”
He shook his head.
“The most I can squeeze out is letting your brigade borrow powder from the force I’ll install on the wharf and let you repay it at cost whenever you have the spare coin,” he said. “You’re not the only one with eyes on you – with Cao’s stock on the rise, she’s moving to take over the defense of the city. If I do you favors, she’ll pounce on it.”
“That fucking fire,” Song snarled. “It has done so much good for her that I can only wonder if...”
“No,” Azocar firmly said. “She’s cutthroat, but not at the expense of the black. Cao hasn’t been snipped by the Krypteia because she uses her leverage to get things done that benefit the order – they just also happen to benefit her career.”
He drummed his fingers.
“Where the Wei girl got that pitch and oil, however, is a concern,” he admitted. “I’ve had a census taken of our supplies and she didn’t hit one of our warehouses to get them. Either Scholomance had a stash that the Machinist told her where to find, or she got her hands on someone’s private supplies.”
Or, Song thought, someone had handed Cai Wei those supplies. Someone desperate, who needed the Unluckies to be driven out of town and knew Colonel Cao would do everything she could to get it done. Someone with money and ties to ships. Her fingers clenched. It was just a guess, a suspicion, but the more she thought of it...
“Thank you for the courtesy, sir,” she finally said, getting up.
Azocar studied her for a moment.
“Good luck, Song Ren,” he finally said.
They would need it, she thought, because she suspected that a part of her brigade would be pushing the expedition to happen even if they had to go at it alone.
--
Song had offered to come, but Maryam had declined. This was better handled by them alone.
The meal was hearty, simple fare – they’d sprung for goat cheese and decent ale, the foremost luxury of it – and the mood was fine even thought the adults among the Orels must know why she had come. Word of the garrison’s seizing of the lower rungs of the Sheba Bastion had spread yesterday, but so had Colonel Azocars declaration that he had sent for reinforcements and was retiring the garrison from further expeditions until they’d arrived.
Young Koval was sent off after the meal, Maryam’s gaze lingering on his back.
“He seems to be doing well,” Hooks said.
“He’s had nightmares about being taken,” his father tightly replied. “But then so have I. We can only thanks the gods that Izel was there.”
“Best thank the man instead,” Bolic drawled. “He’s a fine hand with a mace.”
Maryam’s lips tightened. The elder Koval had been arranging for the younger to attend the local Watch school, but now the plans were set aside. It would be months before either felt safe enough to be far from the other, if not more. She couldn’t blame them: if Morcant hadn’t decided that getting the Unluckies expelled would be more practical than using a hostage, the boy would be in the slaver’s hands right now.
They let the conversation ebb low, after, and when Old Horvat was done clearing the plates they turned to the reason for her visit.
“We intend to go forward with the expedition even without the garrison’s support,” Maryam told them.
And, potentially, without most the Skiritai that Angharad had gathered on their behalf. They’d signed onto a plan that counted on garrison support.
“We have done everything we can to stack the odds our way,” Hooks said, “but the risks will not be small.”
Maryam cleared her throat.
“The first minute of the fight tells us if we make it,” she said. “Hooks and I will be keeping watch, but if the ketos lunges out from below the ship without us catching it in time there is little we can do. If it surfaces and then attacks, however, we believe in a victory.”
“How likely is it to attack from below?” Koval the Elder bluntly asked.
“It’s difficult to say,” Maryam admitted. “Usually a ketos would not try to eat a ship made of metal, but this one has been stuck below for who knows how long. After we gave it the slip last time, so it might not want to chance another escape.”
“I’ll go,” Bolic spoke into the silence.
Eyes flicked his way.
“Regardless of duties owed to the princess of the Izvoric, we signed on to serve aboard a blackclad ship,” Bolic said. “It might not be a warship, but neither is it a pleasure barge. Danger is part of the bargain.”
“Well said,” Old Horvat coughed into his hand. “To desist now would be going back on oaths.”
“We’re giving you the out on purpose,” Hooks said. “Oaths or not. No one should be on that ship that doesn’t want to be.”
“I don’t want to be,” Poltava frankly said. “But Bolic’s right that this is what we signed up for. And it won’t be the last time either, will it?”
“We don’t intend to go looking for sea monsters,” Maryam hedged, “but going back and forth across the Trebian, it’s inevitable we’ll run into some.”
“This isn’t some chance encounter, Poltava, it’s going to that lake for a deathmatch with a shiptaker,” Koval the Elder sharply said. “That is not the same thing.”
“Oh, just refuse and be done with it,” Bolic scorned. “We all know you will.”
“That’s enough,” Hooks told him.
“This isn’t a court game, it is a genuine offer to pass on the fight,” Maryam said. “So there’ll be no more of that – we wouldn’t be making the offer if we didn’t endorse some of you taking it.”
That actually had Poltava hesitating, but in the end only the elder Koval desisted. He tried to explain, but they waved him off.
“It doesn’t need explaining,” Hooks said. “You have a son.”
It was one thing to head into the dark knowing there were creatures in it, another to set sail intending to fight them. Maryam had intended to stay a little longer, to ask about Young Koval’s personal schooling and Horvat’s continued investigation of local brew – he was on a quest to find a ‘proper coastlands beer’ – but the sound of a crowd gathering outside put an end to that. Hooks popped her head to the wall to check it wasn’t a mob out for Unluckies blood.
That’d be a sharp escalation, but those happened more than she’d like these days.
“They’re gathering near port,” she said.
So Maryam put on her cloak and pulled down her hood before taking to the street, Hooks matching her. Using a shaping the same cloak, as if Tristan had stolen her one as well.
“He would if I asked,” Hooks insisted.
“But he didn’t,” Maryam happily replied.
They did not bicker all the way to the gatehouse, because when Maryam informed her sister of the correct order of things it was not an argument but a lesson. One delivered to an ungrateful, quarrelsome brat. Pushing through the last of the crowd and striding through the pillared shadows, they emerged into the Orrery light to finally get a look at what had everyone gathering.
Ships.
Ten – no, eleven of them. Three tall galleons formed the heart of the formation sailing for Port Allazei, flanked by two pairs of fighting carracks bristling with guns. Prowling around them like sleek, oared wolves were the five galleasses rounding out the numbers. All flew the black, but there was chatter around from someone who’d brought a longview and had more to say. Instead of going begging Maryam and Hooks traced Gloam, forming a slightly wobbly Eyecatcher – they were falling behind on Autarchics - in front of their right eye.
The square of Gloam was burned with everything the eye saw but could not discern, the sisters then closing in on the detail of the flag. It was a bronze diagonal cross with the letter W in the same shade filling the left space, all on Watch black. The killed the Eyecatcher a heartbeat later.
“Western Fleet,” Maryam breathed out. “They’re here early.”
It seemed like she was going to need Song, after all.
--
Getting aboard the Bad News, the towering and heavily-armed galleon that was Admiral Zokufa’s flagship, proved much easier than Maryam had anticipated.
Her and Song being essentially summoned to attend to the admiral within minutes of docking really cut down on the time making inquiries about when the man might be available. Hooks had not been sent for, so she rode Maryam’s body instead as they were guided to the raised aft deck with its large, luxurious cabin. Black-clad sailors ushered them in, closing the door behind them with a soft click. Standing behind a polished wooden deck was the man himself, watching them.
Admiral Zokufa was younger than Maryam had thought a man whose sobriquet was ‘Old Stormy’ would be. He was not young, mind you, but couldn’t be much older than fifty. The groomed, puffy beard that framed his face was threaded black and white, the dark skin made leathery by a life at sea was not yet measurably creased. His fleshy nose was almost triangular, cornered by deep laugh lines on a stern face and large, thick and heavily-rimmed glasses ate up much of the face under a receding hairline. Zokufa had pale brown eyes that looked oddly gentle, given his sharp and military bearing.
“Sit,” the admiral invited them, pointing at the padded chairs before his desk. “Brandy?”
They both demurred, which had the man looking pleased. He did not pour himself a glass either. His stare moved to Song.
“Fermin tells me that you are unusually reasonable for a Stripe,” Admiral Zokufa said. “I’ll grant you the benefit of the doubt. Tell me everything about the ketos.”
Song admirably summed up three different reports and the Thirteenth’s own preparations without being imprecise or running long, which was a sort of magic Maryam could only admire. Zokufa slowly nodded. He remained silent for a moment, thoughtful, then his head move.
“Khaimov,” he said. “Captain Tianming speaks well of you.”
She coughed into her head.
“And I think well of him,” Maryam said.
“Tianming is a rogue and romantic,” Zokufa mildly said. “He has read too many Ramayan serials.”
The older man drummed his fingers against his desk.
“But he is not a fool,” he conceded. “What are your expectations, for the deal you offer?”
“Expectations?”
“It is a pleasing bargain,” Admiral Zokufa said. “We seize ships and squeeze slavers. But I will not have a student brigade swan around the Trebian Sea claiming the Western Fleet owes them. What do you want?”
“What the terms set out,” Maryam flatly said. “I don’t expect anything more.”
Pale brown eyes moved to Song, a graying eyebrow risen above the glasses.
“She means it,” Song said. “And we have no intention of swaggering as if we were your very own princelings, sir.”
She paused.
“To be frank, the idea that you would do us a fair turn is out of step with our experiences with officers of your rank.”
His lips thinned.
“I would chide you for that,” Zokufa said, “but I have seen it turn worse in my lifetime. The Conclave’s leadership bankruptcy has let the weeds grow in. The order is the largest and most powerful it has been, but also the most gangrenous.”
He shook his head.
“There is no point in making apologies for what is,” Admiral Zokufa said. “We cut out the rot where we can.”
He stepped away from the desk, taking quill and ink from a stand, then returned to pull out a sheet from his desk that he signed without even a hint of flourish before handing it to Maryam.
“The legal arrangement you proposed is accepted,” he said.
Matter-of-fact, like he was passing her a fork instead of bringing Izvoric into the flee. Like he’d not just agreed to using prize ships and traps to free more of her people and cloak them in black.
“I will require your help in a separate matter,” the admiral continued.
“Sir?”
“My flotilla will be resting in Allazei for a month before we begin operations in the region,” Admiral Zokufa said, “but practice is necessary to maintain one’s edge. Are you aware of any nearby body water where galleasses might practice monster-hunting maneuvers?”
Maryam choked. Was he really…
“We could guide you to one,” Song croaked. “Tough there has been a report of a ketos there.”
“A shame it will not reach my desk in time,” Zokufa said, in the tone of someone who would ensure so.
He dismissed them, after, and Maryam should have taken the hint. She didn’t.
“Why?” she asked, on her feet. “Why help us? No one else your rank has ever done anything like this.”
Zokufa considered her through his glasses.
“Because I can,” he said, tone impassive. “Because someone should.”
His jaw clenched ever so slightly.
“Because putting on the black is an oath to be on the right side of the guns, but also to pull the trigger.”