Her clothes, somehow, were clean and dry, and the small hole in the shoulder where the arrow had struck her had been patched.

“The mystical voices of fate are expedient laundresses,” Mara muttered to herself as she dressed, watching as Nick yawned and stretched himself into the land of the living. She’d be worried this slow waking was an effect of Eli’s magic if this wasn’t how her son woke up every morning. He took after her in that regard. Davy was a morning person, quick to wake, chipper and clear-eyed. Mara’s mind was slower to warm up, and though she and Davy usually woke together, she’d often spend long minutes blinking, stretching, and breathing her way into wakefulness while he sprang up like he’d been catapulted from the bed, ready to go about his morning.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe them away. It would be best, she decided, not to think of Davy for the foreseeable future. Not until she and Nick were safe.

“Mama?” Nick’s voice was groggy as he pulled himself into a sitting position amidst the rumpled sheets.

“Right here, baby,” she said, setting aside her boots and joining him on the bed. He slumped into her chest, rubbing his eyes, and she squeezed him to her, pressing her nose to the crown of his head. He smelled a little like damp wool, his hair matted on top from wearing that cap all night long. But he also smelled like her baby, sweet and clean.

“Where?” he asked, turning his face sideways against her chest so he could peer with one eye at the unfamiliar room. The single word made her wince. Nick wasn’t much of a talker. He’d been slow even with his first words, but Davy swore he had been as well. “Didn’t make a peep until I was three, and then full sentences,” he’d proclaimed proudly.

More tears, blurring her vision and the mental image of her husband’s cocky grin, the gentle love in his eyes as he soothed her fears.

Curse it.

She wiped her eyes again, surreptitiously.

“We’re visiting friends, my love,” she crooned, cradling Nick to her and rocking from side to side the way he liked. He sank a little heavier against her.

“Dada?”

To her surprise, no tears came in response to his question. Instead, a sickly pressure built inside her head, pressing outward. How could she explain to a child so young when death was too complex for most adults to confront? How could she explain to her son that his father was dead when she herself had to turn her face from it just to cope?

Tell the truth, urged a voice in the back of her mind. It will be hard, but tell the truth.

“Dada’s not here,” she said, the rest of the words congealing in her throat. She swallowed hard, cleared her throat, but the truth refused to break free. So instead she told a lie she knew, she knew, would haunt her. “He’ll meet us where we’re going.”

Nick’s little shoulders twitched in a shrug of mild acceptance. Davy was often away for days and weeks at a time. As long as Nick had Mara, little was amiss in his world. Did she prefer that, she wondered? Was it more painful to imagine him missing his father, or to imagine that he wouldn’t?

Mara knew she didn’t have time for all this maudlin rumination. They were on borrowed time. The gates to the Hive only opened at dawn, but they opened without fail. Whatever help the Keepers were to offer, the quicker she went about acquiring it the better. Already, they had less than a day before Order officers no doubt took advantage of the dawn clause and came looking.

Nonetheless, she took a moment to simply sit with her son in her arms, rocking gently and telling herself the same lie she’d just told Nick. He’ll meet us where we’re going.

Not a lie, really, when she thought about it. Davy had gone somewhere—somewhere they were all headed sooner or later. He’d wait for her, she was sure, for however long it took her to catch up. And together, they would wait for Nick and pray that he took his time in getting there. That he’d show up with his own love on his arm, his own children for whom to tarry at the gates.

“Alright, my love,” she said, stemming the fresh flood of tears with a dam of false cheer. “Let’s go find you something to eat.”

~~~

Eli sat on his pack—Davy’s pack—against the wall by her door, but he stood when she emerged into the hall.

“You can leave your things,” he said, gesturing to the pack she’d slung over her uninjured shoulder.

“I’d rather not.” The contents of her bag were all that remained of her home. Aside from Nick, of course, who stood at her side, clinging to her pant leg.

Eli didn’t argue, but he did grab his own pack and tuck it into the room she’d just left, pulling the door shut.

“Nick needs something to eat,” she said as her son wrapped her pants tighter in his fists and leaned against her knee.

“As do you,” Eli said before crouching in front of Nick. “Would you like a ride to breakfast, Nick?”

Nick studied him, eyes still a little sleepy, and then nodded and released Mara, raising his arms in silent command. Suspecting more persuasive magic, Mara shot an accusing glance at Eli, but he shook his head in silent denial. Did she really believe him? Could she afford to question him? She didn’t even know who he was. Davy never told her anything about him, except that he was a friend. A fellow rebel.

“How’s your shoulder?” Eli asked her, jolting her from her mental tangent as he hefted Nick onto his hip and led them off down the hall.

“It’s fine,” she lied. In truth, it ached and pulled and she felt vaguely sick, her head light. But if she told him that he’d offer to help, and she didn’t want him or his magic anywhere near her. His holding Nick was an affront she only tolerated because she was afraid to offend him by yanking her son bodily from his arms. She turned her attention to their surroundings, the hallway as unremarkable as her room. White plaster walls and plain wooden floors. “I’ll be honest,” she said, aiming for casual conversation. That seemed a safer option than challenging his loyalty or revisiting her ire over his use of persuasive magic. “I expected more opulence of the Hive.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Eli smiled, turning them left down another identical hallway, doors spaced haphazardly along each wall. “The Keepers’ magic is genuine, but their earthly power isn’t,” he explained, his tone contemplative. “They have no fighting force, no material bargaining capacity. Mysticism and enigma are their sole defense. Every regime that rises understands that to violate their sovereignty might drive them out of their neutrality. And to do so would be to lose all power.”

“That doesn’t explain all the marble,” Mara said, a little cross with him for explaining to her something she already knew. “Or the lack of marble once you get inside.”

“Doesn’t it? Their power is genuine, but it’s easy to forget that considering how stingy they are with their services. Anyone can enter, but most queries walk out more confused than they were when they entered. The marble, the ritual of the Dawn Clause, the windowless walls… it’s meant to remind us all what we might otherwise forget if they lived more humbly–that the Keepers own the future, and only they can tell us what it holds.”

“But they do live humbly,” Mara said. She’d been watching the doors as they passed, reading the little placards nailed to the side of each entrance. Dee. Paula. Lon. Ren. Willa. Kris. “These look like living quarters.”

“They are. And some do live humbly. Not all. Beth’s quarters are small, but they’re more in line with what you might have imagined.” Amusement touched the edges of his tone. “Speaking of which, we have some stairs to climb. I can take your bag if your shoulder–”

“It’s fine,” she bit out, hiking the strap up higher on her good shoulder as the hallway opened up into what must be the central hall. The hardwood flooring beneath their boots gave way to smooth marble, and the air exchanged clean mustiness for the vague, befuddling scent of fresh water. The surface they stood on appeared to be the landing of a massive staircase. To the left, the stairs to the next level ascended, carpeted with emerald green velvet, the steps as wide as Mara’s living room. To the right, the descending flight. The rest of the landing was fashioned like a balcony, and curiosity drew Mara to the balustrade.

Looking down made her dizzy. She counted the flights of stairs and judged them to be on the fifteenth floor, at least. Far below, figures roved about a round hall paved with marble tiles of alternating pale gray and stark white, so distant Mara couldn’t make out their faces. Some appeared to be passing through on their way to somewhere else, but others sat at tables or lounged in armchairs. Most of the seating was scattered about a fountain set into the center of the floor, the tumbling water a distant, lyrical crash that echoed about the vaulted space.

The landing on which they stood extended around the circumference of the wall, and similar balconies lined each level like striations in rock, the walls beyond dotted with entrances to hallways like the one they’d just left.

The effect was striking. Airy. Bright.

Grasping the railing, Mara leaned out and looked up. There were several more stories above them, each a little smaller than the one before as the ceiling domed. The very top of the dome was translucent—a massive window, crisscrossed with a latticework of metal support beams.

“I was wondering how they didn’t go mad in here without sunlight,” she said.

Eli hummed his agreement.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is. Shall we?” He gestured toward the staircase and Mara swallowed, wishing she’d been blessed with just a touch less pride so she could hand over her pack.

“Sure.”

They climbed two flights of stairs before Eli held out a hand and she surrendered her bag, breathless and sweaty.

“Blood loss,” he said simply.

“Sure,” she grumbled, nonetheless relieved.

Eli led her up four more flights of stairs, his steps slower—because of the pack she told herself, not because he had to wait for her—and into a new hallway. Though nothing of the Hive was what she had imagined, this hall was somewhat more the style she’d expect. The walls were papered a deep, shiny crimson, and a decorative golden handrail lined the walkway. The doors to each residence were thicker, gold-plated knockers beneath the nameplates, candles in gold sconces beside each door.

Halfway down the hall, Eli stopped before a door marked Beth. Without pause, he raised his hand and lifted the knocker, tapping it twice against the baseplate.

Mara started when the door swung immediately open.

“Mara Swift,” the woman exclaimed, standing back in a swish of red silk and bracing her hands on her hips. She was a tiny thing, the nest of golden-blond curls bound atop her head barely reaching Mara’s shoulder. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for ages!”

“You… have?”

“Come in, sweetheart. Come in. You’ve got questions and I’ve got answers. I’m Beth, by the way.”

Mara didn’t know how she felt about being called sweetheart by a slip of a girl who didn’t look old enough to buy ale at the pubs in city market, but she followed as Beth stepped back and beckoned them into her chambers.

The doorway entered into a small kitchenette, little more than a stove and a counter with a small inset sink, the handle of the pump intricately carved and silver-plated. A small table for two sat against the near wall, but they were led past it, through a narrow doorway into a lavish if cluttered sitting room.

A low table sat before a plump, velvet-upholstered chaise, its surface cluttered with food, a steaming pot of tea nestled amidst the miniature feast.

Eli set Nick down and, mannerless little heathen that he was, her son ran straight to the table and began nibbling on a small cube of cheese.

“Nick!” Mara said, darting forward to snatch him up, but Beth laughed and held up a hand to stay her.

“He’s fine,” she insisted, walking over to where Nick stood by the table and ruffling his dark hair. He grinned up at her with cheese-coated teeth and Mara swallowed a groan. Beth looked at her, a smile on her lips but a touch of sadness in her eyes. “Please, don’t feel badly. The food was meant for him. And you, of course. Not you, though.”

Mara followed the woman’s stern gaze back to Eli, who stood in the doorway, looking large and rough and out-of-place amid all the finery.

“Have you seen Alma?” Beth asked, eyebrows raised.

Eli’s eyes flicked to Mara, then to Nick. “I—”

“I’m an oracle, Eli. A seer. A Keeper of Truth. All my questions are rhetorical. Go see Alma.”

Mara felt the command herself, but Eli hesitated, his attention on Mara. “Are you—”

“She’s more afraid of you than she is of me. She welcomes your absence. Now go.”

His face scrunched a little and he still didn’t move, his eyes on Mara. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, a little irritated with the woman for spitting the truth at him so recklessly. She was afraid of Eli, yes, and she didn’t know if she could trust him, but she also wasn’t stupid. He’d been her ally so far, albeit a dishonest one. The more her head cleared, the more clear she became that antagonizing him was the last thing she ought to do. At least until she found a new ally. “Really. Go, um… go see Alma.” Who Alma was, Mara didn’t know. Another Keeper? An old friend?

He dipped his head in a nod and shrugged her pack off his shoulders, setting it carefully against the wall. “I’ll be back to pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“You’ll be back to pick her up in an hour,” Beth said, ushering him toward the door. “After Alma finishes with you, you’ll visit the baths and get a change of clothes. You stink and you look like a story parents tell their children to scare them.”

Mara caught one last glimpse of his worried expression before he was pushed unceremoniously into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him.

“There,” Beth said, brushing off her hands as if she’d taken out the garbage. “Now, let’s get started.”