The captain leaned over the pilot’s console, listening to the squawking of the shortsphere as his soldiers bound Tvorh’s wrists and ankles. Had they noticed the sticky webbing all over his body? If they did, they gave no indication of it. “The lungburner gas is still too thick for us to descend,” the captain observed when the shortsphere fell silent. “Pilot, how long will we be able to maintain position?”

“I calculate sufficient fuel and strength for two hours of hovering, sir.”

“Plenty of time.” The captain turned to Tvorh and smiled. “Be proud, young man. The Dux says you are about to perform a service of greatest value for the Gens.” The lungboat tilted portward, throwing the captain off his balance. “Pilot, keep the Quetzal steady!”

“I’m sorry, sir; it’s—”

One of the soldiers screamed as an invisible force yanked him off the side of the boat. Chaos erupted as Senrii leapt aboard in his place. “Magus,” one of the soldiers screamed a mere moment before she rammed her palm upward into his chin; blood burst out around the forgebone spike extending from her wrist. She leaned into him and kicked backward, sending another of the Nxtlu off the side of the boat.

Bullets began to fly, but Senrii was living lightning; the shots instead pierced the uniform of the man she’d stabbed as she rolled backward, dragging the corpse over her body and kicking it at the others.

One of the soldiers fell as she slashed his tendons with her forgebone sword.

Another stumbled as a burst of silk covered the mask’s eyeslots.

Senrii leapt, reeling herself in with spider’s silk, swinging over the side of the boat as the pilot sent it into evasive maneuvers which succeeded only in destabilizing and knocking off two more of the soldiers; then like an out-of-control pendulum she arced back up the other side, slashing, stabbing, striking as she picked off the enemy one by one.

The captain stood at the helm, tracking her over the side with his pistol as she disappeared below the boat. “Show yourself, bitch! Is this any way to fight?”

She swung up and around the side, crashing both heels into him and sending him tumbling off into oblivion. “I’ve got no complaints,” she said as she drew her gun and shot the pilot in the head. The boat lurched as she nonchalantly heaved the corpse over the edge. “Up here, Tvorh,” she said, plopping into the seat and steadying the craft.

Tvorh wriggled, hopped, and stumbled forward to the fore of the boat. “Where are my sisters?”

“They’re fine,” Senrii said as she drew back on the controls, prompting the boat to ascend gently.

“Where are they?”

“Hold your hellbeasts. Lemme free you first. Hold still.” Without even looking at Tvorh, Senrii dragged her knife through the plasrope bonds on his wrists. “Ankles, too.” Though the maneuvering was awkward, Tvorh obliged.

He stood up as Senrii rose from the seat. “They’re attached underneath,” she said. “Take the controls. I’ve gotta go get them.”

“But I don’t know how—”

“Better learn quickly. Get us to the Sodality chapterhouse. They’ll hide us.” She shot a strand of silk at the deck and leapt over the side of the boat.

The Sodality of Metagenic Apotheosis? Weren’t they were supposed to remain neutral in disputes between the Gentes?

Senrii obviously knew more than Tvorh did, so he collapsed into the pilot’s seat. When Senrii had wanted the ship to ascend, she’d yanked back on the yoke. That was good enough for Tvorh. He mimicked the maneuver and breathed a sigh of relief as the lungboat gasped mightily and ascended.

The sky above grew larger and larger as the Chasm walls fell away. They were approaching the Table now, the flat surface of the city, the up-above where those remaining enfranchised men and women went about their daily lives among the black hives. Tvorh hadn’t seen it in almost six years, and when the apex of the nearest building came into view, cobalt and glass against the bright blue sky, he caught his breath in awe at the sight.

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They rose up from the maw of the Chasm. Square and hexagonal buildings greeted them from afar, and Tvorh noted not far from the pit the abandoned Archives where he had spent so many hours reading and exploring. He had heard that the Nxtlu conquest of the city had permanently closed it off, and that appeared to be correct; there was no movement in or out of the building, nor any biomobiles parked in its enormous open lots of black stone pavement.

It wasn’t entirely closed. Tvorh himself had found a way inside the Archives after it had been sealed, albeit by using a deep hidden tunnel that he’d found during his long wanderings of the Labyrinth, and it was true that there hadn’t been a single soul inside when he’d wandered its darkened halls.

The damage of the war between Nxtlu and Nethress was evident outside the Archives, too. The streets were messier and sparser than Tvorh remembered. Citizens hawked wares in ramshackle market stalls, while others rode horses or oxen down deserted streets, but where was the bustle of the cycles and walker-cars that Tvorh remembered from his childhood? Where were the busy—

Shots and clangs rang out from below. Senrii’s voice was barely audible above the boat’s heavy breathing. “Bile! Tvorh, they’ve got us marked. Get moving.”

Tvorh closed his eyes, wracking his memory for the location of the Sodality chapterhouse. It had been so long… He pictured the estate in his mind: sprawling red and gold against the darkness of the mineral wealth of the other buildings of Acerbia, double-helix flags flying from tall, round spires that towered over the squat, angled offices and homes of the suburbs. He looked west toward the mountains.

The lungboat shuddered and hissed as forgebone bullets pierced its underside armoring. “Go, Tvorh,” Senrii yelled from below. Tvorh leaned on the yoke, bringing the boat about until its nose was pointed toward the distant peak. He levered open the throttle, and rattling liquid breaths began to pulse from the rear sphincters. The boat picked up speed as bullets sped past or impacted from below.

Tvorh drew the yoke back as they raced over houses and between towering edifices, but the boat only coughed and sputtered. An angry curse from below caught his attention. “Neuter it. Tvorh, the lungs are hit. We don’t have long.”

The boat shuddered in pain as it lost height.

They raced beneath a skybridge between two office towers as the boat began to whine piteously. “Fore thrust, Tvorh.” Judging by Senrii’s voice, she seemed to be coming up the side of the boat. “Give it all you’ve got!”

They barely scraped over a rooftop as the road curved away underneath and the land cleared out in front of them. It was much as Tvorh had remembered: the houses on the edge of the city were larger and more colorful than his memory had painted them, but they were pitiful in size compared to the enormous estate growing out of the black soil beyond.

A tall wall of stone, reinforced, no doubt, by forgebone internals, surrounded the grounds to the front and sides, while the rears of the distant manor buildings abutted the terraced mountainside. An enormous gated arch, the only ground-based path to the manor, loomed in their trajectory.

The Sodality awaited them, and they rocketed towards it as Senrii heaved herself up the side of the boat. She was covered in blood, bile, and lubricant fluids, but didn’t seem to notice as she pulled up the half-cocooned girls after her. They were crying, but as the burning gas had left their lungs, the hurt had likewise left their voices. Now it was fear rather than pain that induced their tears.

Tvorh longed to go to them. He needed to gather them into his arms, to tell them—

“Tvorh!” Senrii screamed, but he was already pushing on the yoke. The boat dove beneath the keystone of the great arch in the wall and crashed through the gates, groaning in agony as forgebone shattered against forgebone. Tvorh hid his face as shards pelted him; the boat lurched underneath him and smashed into the green soil of the chapterhouse lawn, flinging him forward into the console as it rebounded once, twice, thrice, and dragged to a halt.

Someone was yelling his name. Groggily, he looked up and turned around, following the voice; his flesh protested at the motion. Hrega and Bilr, still half-cocooned in the rear of the craft, were screaming for him. Webbing wrapped around them and Senrii, clutching them to the deck.

The Maga took the strands in hand and dissolved them away.

A weak, distant frustration passed through Tvorh’s mind. “Why couldn’t you have bound me up, too?” he muttered to the console.

“Did as much as I could,” Senrii said as she pulled the cocoon away from Hrega, who leapt to her feet and ran for her brother. Tvorh sat back, closed his eyes, and tried to find a means of breathing that didn’t hurt his chest. A moment later, Senrii was there, as well, bearing a bawling Bilr in her arms. “Look,” Senrii said, pointing to Tvorh’s legs.

Somehow, she had managed to bind his lap and legs to the seat.

“I would’ve died otherwise, probably?” he muttered.

“Probably. Come on.” She dissolved the silken strands, then yanked Tvorh up from the seat. “We’ve got an Ambassatrix to meet. Bile. I hope we can trust her.”