“When our ancestors scuttled through the decaying ruins of Old Hallard, who granted them protection from the Chimeras that prowled the dead streets? The Sodality? Hardly.
“When Gens Eltest, greedy for our medical strains, sent a dozen Magi to cow us into submission, did the Sodality provide us with Symbiontic treatments to stand against the unwarranted attack? Hardly.
“Did the Sodality help us bury our dead? Did the Sodality help us to rebuild the Healing House, burnt to the ground with ten thousand injured inside — some of those injured Generosi themselves? Has the Sodality guaranteed our freedom? We all know the answer.
“At the turning of the ages, the Free City of Hallard rose from the dead like a brine shrimp from its own desiccated corpse, and it remains alive thanks to the arms of men, not the grace of the Sodality or the sufferance of the Gentes.
“We keep faith with our Amrician fathers, bowing the knee to no man. To the Sodality’s offer of Symbiontic treatments in exchange for a seat among our Governors, we have this to say: we will not wrap ourselves in gilded spider silk, for sooner or later the spider will grow hungry.”
—Response of the Free City of Hallard to Sodality offer of sponsorship, 1881 CE
----
Chapterhouse of the Sodality of the Metagenic Apotheosis, Acerbia
Tumbling Seeding 20, 1885 CE
“Erus. Era.” Rosabella replaced her mug of xocolatl on the table. The wooden furniture was in the shape of two stylized wolves standing rear-to-rear, their tails entwining, lifting up, and flattening over their backs to form the tabletop, while their muzzles turned to the sky. Leif and his wife sat opposite the the Ambassatrix on the golden-threaded chaise, holding hands and gazing at her with anxious eyes.
Hating the necessity of it, Rosabella put forward her most sadly sympathetic smile and silently released a puff of relaxation pheromone in their direction. “I am afraid, sir and madame, that what you ask is impossible. If Gens Nxtlu has declared your business proposal void, I cannot gainsay them.”
“But why?” Edda asked. “If I may beg your pardon for so asking, Ambassatrix. Could you not simply put in a word for us?”
Rosabella gently shook her head. “It is not the place of the Sodality to involve itself in matters of the Gentes. We serve, advise, and facilitate. Nothing more.”
“Couldn’t you advise them in this regard, then?” Leif asked. “Everyone would benefit from our production of graphene. It has so many uses. And the industry in Acerbia could use a new factory or two.”
The poor fools. If Gens Nethress still held the city, the answer would have been different. Indeed, if Gens Nethress still held the city, there would have been no need whatsoever for this gentleman and his woman to come to Rosabella in the first place. “Gens Nxtlu is ever so… traditional, my lord, my lady. They would not likely consider changing their stance on this matter based solely on the word of a lowly Sodalitatis.”
“I have no doubt,” Edda said, leaning back stiffly into the seat. “And of course, you certainly would not wish to stake your reputation on the scheme of a pair of lowly red-bloods.”
“Edda!” Leif interjected, but Rosabella held up a hand.
“There is some truth to this, but if you believe me in anything, Era, please believe me when I say that this is the least of the troubles. The General Principles of Gens Nxtlu prescribe suspicion of outsiders and those who pretend to positions of wealth and power. The rise of the bourgeoisie has already frightened them. I am aware of several similar proposals from others in your position, but I am not aware of a single one that the Gens has not rejected out-of-hand. Believe me when I say I am sorry, but you will not find a less likely place in the world to build your business than Acerbia.”
“What do you propose we do?” Leif asked, fidgeting slightly. Rosabella could tell from his scent that the movement was only partially out of distress. Even when crushing dreams, Rosabella could quicken hearts.
Poor man, falling victim to Rosabella’s greatest blessing and greatest curse.
She released a burst of moderating pheromones. Hopefully that would grant Leif enough presence of mind to turn his thoughts toward his wife, rather than toward Rosabella. “Have you considered requesting a Consent of Departure? There is any number of cities which would be glad to have your entrepreneurial mindset at their disposals. I have heard that Gens Poramir especially is seeking new industry. Or you could depart for one of the Free Cities.”
“We discussed that,” Edda replied. “We’ve lived in Acerbia for so long.”
Not as long as I have, thought Rosabella. And the Acerbia that we loved so dearly will not return.
“The Ambassatrix may have a point, Edda,” Leif said.
The woman rolled her eyes and whispered something acidic. Rosabella did not need to hear it in order to know its meaning. How troublesome was a code of honor! With the proper flick of her ruby hair, Rosabella could have the wife as deeply under her spell as Edda imagined her husband to be. But the two lovers’ troubles clearly went far deeper than a moment of jealousy. With hours at her disposal, Rosabella could perhaps convince them there was nothing untoward in her efforts; she truly did wish to see them overcome their troubles. Alas, hours were a luxury the Ambassatrix simply did not have.
A knock came at the door to the parlor, and it creaked open. Golden-haired Aoife peeked into the room and raised an eyebrow subtly, a silent summons. But Aoife’s presence could be the trouble that the wife only thought she saw in Rosabella, for while the Ambassatrix only looked young, Aoife herself was so. Rosabella had learned a certain calm self-comportment, a winsome presence that spent her assets to best effect without relying on them, but Aoife had not yet succeeded in reaching that stage of maturity herself. If the wife was jealous of Rosabella, the girl’s presence would not be of help.
Aoife raised her eyebrows more urgently. There was nothing to be done for it, then. Rosabella lifted a finger, and the girl, clad in a sweeping gown of gold that accentuated her hair perfectly, stepped lightly into the room and came about the side of Rosabella’s chaise. “Magistra, there is a delegate of the Gentes here to see you, waiting in the reception hall,” she whispered.
The silly child still hadn’t learned the General Principle of the Sodality: Let all be equal in the eyes of the Ascending. “I am entertaining guests, Aoife. Generosi or not, they shall have to wait.” Being forced to attend until the Ambassatrix had finished her audience with the commoners would sting in their wretched Nxtlu hearts, no doubt. So much the better.
Aoife nodded. “The woman’s heraldry,” she whispered, dropping a small forgebone icon into Rosabella’s hand and turning to leave. The pin on the rear was bloodied, and Rosabella assumed that the genetics had been confirmed before Aoife had brought it here, but when she turned the icon about to look at its front, she had to stifle a gasp. The shape of the icon was not the feathered serpent that she had been expecting, but a stylized jungle wolf’s head.
It was almost identical in shape to the heads of the wolves on the table in front of her.
Rosabella stilled her heart and tried not to show her discomfiture as she looked back up at the man and woman. “I am sorry, Erus, Era,” she announced, causing Aoife to turn with surprise, “but a matter of gravest import has arisen. I am afraid I shall not be able to continue our interview.”
“But we—”
“I am a poor counselor in these regards, but I have provided you with the wisest advice that I could. But please. There is no need to depart hastily. Allow our Acolytes to attend to you.”
The woman sat up straight, and her face went to stone. “I’ll have no Acolytes attending to me. Nor will I allow them to attend to my husband, either.”
“My dearest Edda,” Rosabella said, smiling, “if you will forgive me for so saying, you misapprehend me. Forget what you have heard about what goes on behind these walls, and allow me to provide this gift to you.”
“I—”
“You are troubled, Edda,” Rosabella said softly. “I can see it in your face. The lines of your care are hard to miss. Please. I will not betray your trust in this regard. You had enough faith in me to come and make a request, which I, unfortunately, am unable to fulfill. Please allow me to do some good for your spirit instead.” She rang a bell. Immediately, beautiful man-and-womanservants, a pair of each, appeared at the doorway. “Please provide my Erus and Era with balneotherapeutic treatment, in whatsoever manners upon which they might both agree. They are our guests for the evening.” She turned back to Edda and Leif. “I beg your forgiveness for my rudeness, but I must see to this matter.”
“Oh, no,” said Leif. “It’s no trouble.”
Rosabella left the couple in the capable hands of the Acolytes. “To whom will I be speaking, Aoife?” she asked as the girl took her arm and they went to the elevator.
“They didn’t give me their names, Magistra.”
“Descriptions, then.”
“A girl. I mean, a woman, but not much older than a girl, I think.” She shrugged. “It was hard to tell with the blood and the dirt, to be honest. She looked like she’d just come back from a hunting trip gone wrong.”
The elevator door opened, and they entered. “She is hurt?”
“I think she’s a Maga, Magistra. She’s wearing a skinsuit and the wounds don’t look to be too deep. There are also a boy and two girls. Siblings, I think. They have the same hair.”
“Also of Gens Nethress?”
“No. They were ragged. I think they were beggars.”
Unusual. “You were right to come to me, my dear.”
“He’s cute.”
“The beggar is cute?”
Aoife shrugged, but the smile was unmistakable. “He’s small, but he’s all gristle.”
“Ah, young love.”
“Magistra, I said he’s cute! That’s all!”
“An old woman cannot enjoy the memory of wonderful days?” Rosabella asked, touching the girl teasingly on the shoulder. It was an unfair question, she knew; the Symbiont inside her was ensuring she was aging but one year for every ten she lived, and that her face and body showed only one for each ten of those. Still, while her body retained its youthfulness, her soul was growing old. “To live those days again,” she murmured as the door opened on the marble hallway, “I would give a great deal. Cherish them while you have them, Aoife.”
“I will, Magistra.”
“Now, show me to the reception hall,” Rosabella said, offering her arm to Aoife again. “If there is blood involved, we should walk quickly.”
The servants threw open the doors as the glamorous Sodalitatis, the Ambassatrix and the novice, approached. Rosabella subconsciously put the most enticing slip in her step, the most enticing sway in her hip. Indeed, for her, moderating her sensuality took focus; whenever she ceased to pay attention to her bearing, she slipped back into the old ways.
And she had never before had to moderate her sensuality when that wolf’s head icon was at hand.
They entered the reception hall maintaining the perfect glamor of a Sodality breedinghouse: the golden virgin and the ruby woman.
The dirty Nethress girl was lounging across one of the couches precisely in the middle of a bright glow of sunlight passing through a glass skylight in the vaulted ceiling, but the rapid kick and sway of her foot attested that she was excited and nervous. The boy and the two little girls— Aoife may have been right; they did bear a family resemblance by way of their curly black hair, though the boy’s skin was dark compared to the pale flesh of the twins, and he had his arms around them protectively— stood off from the center of the room, looking about with a mixture of uncertainty and distrust.
The boy was bloody, bruised, and dirty from head to toe. One of the girls appeared to be having trouble standing, grimacing with pain whenever her right foot touched the ground.
Rosabella took all of this in in an instant, and before the Nethress girl could hop off of the couch and come to her feet, Rosabella dropped into a deep curtsy, putting into it every ounce of affection and emotion that she had ever borne Gens Nethress— which was to say, a great deal. “My lady,” she said, “it is with the greatest and most earnest pleasure that I welcome Gens Nethress back into this humble chapterhouse.” The girl opened her mouth as Rosabella reached the low point of her curtsy; the Ambassatrix gave her no chance to speak. “I am Maga Ambassatrix Acerbiae Magistra Uxoris Rosabella Sodalitatis.” She straightened back up. “Speak, and I will be at your command.”
The Nethress girl looked thoughtful. “Rosabella? Good. I need transportation out of this hellhole to Thorssel.”
“Of course. But haste is wasteful. Please, come in. Let my brethren see to your needs.”
“I mean, I need to move quickly,” the Nethress girl said.
Rosabella nodded. “Of course you do. You are surrounded by enemies. I am not blind nor foolish. Believe me, however, when I say that here, you are among friends, and that it is better if your friends see to your wounds and your needs before sending you on your way.”
The girl glanced at the door to the room. “Ambassatrix, I don’t trust anybody in this city. I’m only here because this is neutral ground. I know that asking for an airship is a long shot. Either lend me one now, or I’ll split. No skin off my nose. But I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Forgive me, Magistra,” Aoife whispered, tugging on Rosabella’s arm. “She’s probably in trouble with Gens Nxtlu. She looks like a deer in a trap.”
“I know, Aoife,” Rosabella whispered back. “You have only just learned the meaning of the General Principle, Let all be equal in the eyes of the Ascending, just in time to learn the meaning of a more important one.”
“What’s that, Magistra?”
But Rosabella had already turned back to the girl. “Your caution, and, no doubt, your haste, are well-placed. But believe me when I say that no harm will come to you as long as you are here.”
The Nethress woman crossed her arms and grumbled. “And after I’m gone? Maybe this was a mistake. I don’t know what dad was thinking. ‘Secondary dustoff,’ my arse.”
“And a lovely arse it is, Era. But if you will not stay, at least allow me to return to you your property.” Rosabella held out the heraldic icon, and the woman reached for it. The Ambassatrix pressed it into the Maga’s palm and sighed. “It has been so very long since I saw this icon. I had almost forgotten the angle of the wolf’s chin and proud set of its eyes. So like Dorsin’s own face, wouldn’t you say?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The woman paused in the middle of pressing the icon back through her skinsuit. “Dorsin? You know Dux Dorsin?”
“Knew. A long time ago. But I would remember that design anywhere. After all,” she said, shrugging carelessly, “I created it for him.”
The Maga stared, and the children shifted uncomfortably. Poor dears, so far out of their element. “Who are you?” the Nethress girl asked at last.
“An old friend. Beloved. It would be improper to say more. And unsafe! After all, if you are going to leave the safety of this home, how can I know you will not take this information straight to Gens Nxtlu, who, needless to say, are unaware of the… indiscretions of my youth?”
The young woman looked thoughtfully at the pin, then up at Rosabella. “This is how you bargain in Acerbia?”
“My dear girl, this is simply how I bargain, and that is the end of it.” Seeing that the woman still looked uncertain, Rosabella added, “And I swear to you, I will see you out of here safely or die. So please, come inside and let us see to your wounds. It will take some hours before a whaleship is ready to bear you to Thorssel.”
The woman nodded at last. “Maga Senrii Generosus Ortus Nethress, and I’m grateful for your help.”
“Senrii, I have long wanted to meet you.”
“And these are Tvorh, Hrega, and Bilr— wait a second. You’ve wanted to—”
“There will be time enough to talk inside. Where you will be safe.” She ushered her guests through the doorway and into the main hall of the chapterhouse.
Oh, Dorsin. What have you done?
***
Senrii decided it wouldn’t be a complete waste to live in Acerbia, at least not if she could live in a place like the Chapterhouse. She was partial to colorful organic mineral structures — growing up in the coral city of Thorssel had had that effect on her — and the black, hard-angled hexagonal structure of this alpine city just rubbed her the wrong way. Still, the Chapterhouse was colorful enough that she would be willing to suffer through it. Even so, with every footfall, she expected to feel the uneven coarseness of coral, and the smooth marble confused her feet.
It was very irritating.
Never mind the Ambassatrix and her little hanger-on! Had the woman really called her “dear girl?” She didn’t look but a few years older than Senrii. Sure, the Symbiont did an excellent job of telomere retention, but wasn’t there a rule that you couldn’t call someone by a childish name if you didn’t even look much older than her?
The way they just glided down the hallway, nodding magnanimously to the lovely men and women passing by — had she really dared to receive them in that outfit? The thing was practically backless, a factor mitigated only by the shining red locks falling down her back and covering up most of her skin, and the decolletage— it was pretty close to a couple of strips stretched up and down her body. She would never have gotten away with wearing that in Thorssel.
Her dad would never allow it, for one thing.
“Maga Senrii,” Rosabella said evenly as she smiled and waved as they passed a room where a bourgeois couple appeared to be receiving back massages, “you are troubled.”
“Just want to get out of here as soon as possible, Ambassatrix.”
“Mmm. There will be time, my dear. Never fear. But I think,” Rosabella said as she turned and continued down the hallway, “something else is troubling you.”
“No. Not really.” And that, in itself, was troubling, because as flabbergasted as Senrii was at the implied lasciviousness of her hostess — wearing those clothes, standing on those precarious shoes, smiling with heavy lids at every passerby as if she knew something unbelievably lewd about each one — it didn’t really bother Senrii. The reception, the bearing, the slow, soft speech, the garments; on anyone else, they would have been obscene, but on Ambassatrix Rosabella, they fit perfectly. The sway of her hips, the curve of her calves, the —
Senrii suddenly realized what was troubling her. Her face burned — bright red, she was sure; it was a curse from her mother’s side — and Rosabella, though she didn’t turn around, appeared to sense it, because she laughed gently. “Forgive me, Maga Senrii. It is… I do not know if such pheromones are a blessing or a curse. But natural, or as natural as such a thing can be. Do not think about it, and it will cease disturbing you after a time.”
“I’ll remember that.” A quick glance at Tvorh indicated that he didn’t mind being disturbed so much as Senrii did. When his eyes weren’t following an opulently (or barely) dressed floozy or mound of muscle down the hall, they were firmly affixed to Rosabella, drinking in her shape.
He must never have seen anything like this before. “You must be starving,” Senrii said. The boy merely nodded and licked his lips.
Pig.
“We have food and fine company both,” Rosabella announced as they turned aside through glass doors into a sterile-looking chamber full of beds where a man wearing an immaculate white coat with a double-helix pin arranged records in a cabinet, “but let us address the necessities first.” She looked straight at Tvorh as she held the door open for the rest of the party, and when he passed in, bearing Bilr in his arms, she said, “It would be a shame, after all, to lose such a brave boy after he has come so far.” And then she winked at him.
Actually winked.
Tvorh glanced at the ground. “Not brave,” he said. “I just did what I had to.”
“Come. Let the chirurgeon see to you.” At the sound of his title, the white-coated man stood and approached Senrii, who waved him to Tvorh, who placed Bilr on the bed. “Aoife, please wait outside the infirmary. I will call for you if I need you. Yes,” Rosabella said, turning back to the boy as the doctor began to inspect him, “I am sure you did. But I do not know the story. Please, you must tell me.”
“That’s classified,” Senrii said, before Tvorh could respond.
“Of course. I was foolish to have asked.” And Rosabella said it so sincerely that Senrii half-believed she meant it. “But surely,” Rosabella went on, “acquiring a trio of bloodless citizens was not part of your mission description.”
“No. I sort of fell in— why am I telling you this?”
“I have that effect on people. But I use it only for the good.”
“The good of whom, though?”
“Of the people I love, and of the people they love. So Dorsin’s daughter has nothing to fear. I will not betray your trust. I would hear the story of brave Tvorh.”
“I found Senrii outside my hovel in the Chasm,” Tvorh said.
“The Chasm!” Rosabella shook her head and glanced to the ceiling as the chirurgeon finished with Tvorh, turned to Senrii, and was once again rebuffed in favor of Bilr. “Aoife would say that it is a miracle of Adon and Yesh that you escaped.”
Aoife, the golden girl — she was an Adonist? Senrii hadn’t known that was even allowed for Sodalitatis.
“I had help.” Tvorh glanced at Senrii.
“If I may ask, where in the Chasm did you live?”
“Not far from the Archives. Except, way below.” Tvorh took Bilr’s hand in his own.
“What a loss, the Archives. Their closure saved Gens Nethress, I’m sure, but it has harmed the people. Of course, I doubt many have profited from Nxtlu’s conquest as a general rule.”
“Closure,” Tvorh said softly.
“Yes, darling. The Archives have been sealed since Gens Nethress lost the city.”
“You look like a chimera swallowed your favorite plant, Tvorh,” Senrii said.
Tvorh took a deep breath. He’d looked like that before he told Senrii about the Libraratory. Bile, did he have another secret? “They’re not entirely closed. There’s still a way in,” he said at last.
Senrii forgot herself at this revelation. “What?”
Tvorh sighed and squeezed his sister’s hand. “After my father died and my mother and I had to move below, I didn’t have much free time to spend in the Archives, even though the guards would let me in when I did come; they remembered me. My father was a janitor there, see, and he took me there during the day. But after he died, we couldn’t pay the rent, and Mother and I had to move under the Table. She was pregnant. I spent most of my time waiting in line at the mycoprotein vats, trying to get her enough food to eat, and then after my sisters were born, I had to spend most of my time scrounging. So I didn’t have a lot of time to spend there.”
“But they are not lost?” Rosabella, in her calm, deliberate way, seemed as shocked as Senrii was at the prospect.
“How’s ‘unflappable’ working out for you, lady?” Senrii subvocalized it so deeply that she was sure it wouldn’t sound like more than a heavy breath, but Tvorh gave her an uncertain look. Ears like a bat, to go with the libido of a pig.
A teenaged pig.
Tvorh continued, “Anyway, my mother… disappeared a couple of years ago, not long after the conquest and the Walking Death and the refugees. We were pushed farther down. Believe me, it’s hard to get food from the vats when there are twice as many people there and everyone there is twice your size and there’s nobody to keep order.”
“The Nxtlu conquest was a difficult time,” Rosabella agreed.
“Anyhow, one day, I was wandering the deep tunnels, scrounging, and I… well, I found a way back into the Archives. I couldn’t spend long there, because I had to get back to my sisters and it was too far away. The tunnels are twisty underground.”
“And the defenses?” Senrii asked.
“What defenses?”
She licked her lips and paused. What she was about to reveal was, if not precisely classified, at least protected information. But if Tvorh knew things about the old Nethress Archives here in Acerbia… “The external defenses are still engaged around the Archives — last-ditch effort to keep Nxtlu out. They ought to have vaporized you. Or poisoned, or eviscerated — you get the idea. It wouldn’t have been pretty.”
Tvorh shook his head. “Not in the tunnels.”
“Is it possible, Maga Senrii, that there was an underground entrance of which Gens Nethress was unaware?” Rosabella asked as the doctor turned to Senrii.
The Maga pointed him to Hrega, then shrugged at Rosabella. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before, so I’m not the one to ask.”
“Imagine! Your Gens may not have lost that treasure trove forever.”
Tvorh frowned. “Treasure trove? Aren’t there other libraries for the public? At least in other cities, where Nxtlu hasn’t closed them?”
Senrii shook her head. “The Archives weren’t just a library.” The chirurgeon finished a perfunctory examination of Hrega, and this time when he turned to Senrii, she begrudgingly allowed him to look her over. “I was hit here and here,” she told him, pointing to her shoulder and her leg. “I mean,” she continued, “they did serve that purpose, but they also played a role for the Gens proper.”
“What role?” Tvorh asked.
Senrii snorted. “I’m not gonna talk about that here, that much is for sure.”
“Maga Senrii,” Rosabella said, a businesslike edge entering her voice, “I’m sure your guests are quite hungry. If I may have your permission to have a meal brought forth?”
Tvorh’s eyes grew wide at the mention of food.
Senrii waved her hand. “It’s your place. Do what you want. I’m sorry. That came out harsher than I intended. I mean, please. We’d appreciate it.”
“Of course, dear girl. Aoife!” Rosabella called, and immediately the double doors pushed open. “Bring up a repast for our guests.”
“It’s my pleasure to serve, Magistra,” Aoife said. She curtsied, cast a genuinely delighted smile at Tvorh, and disappeared.
Rosabella turned to the doctor. “Well, Chirurgeon? What do we have?”
“Lungburner gas inhalation all round, Ambassatrix. The Maga has taken several non-life-threatening bullet wounds, the boy has received several atrocious bruises in addition to the cuts on his face and feet, and one of the twins is suffering from third-stage Delver’s Foot. With your leave?”
Rosabella waved a hand. “I leave them in your care. I’m sorry, but I have business to which to attend. Aoife will return soon; she will take good care of you. I’ll see you anon, dears.” With a rustle and flash of scarlet, she departed.
The doctor got to work, coaxing open Senrii’s skinsuit over her wounds, wielding a rooter tweezer to expert effect in order to extract the bone shards, and covering the wounds with phage-infused bandaging. Tvorh received a slimy rub over most of his body. All of them had five minutes breathing from nasal cannulae; whatever they were pumping into her lungs, Senrii had to admit that it worked. Bilr’s Delver’s Foot, unfortunately, was too far gone for the doctor to do anything for it. She would need a full facility.
Senrii knew just the place in Thorssel. She’d visited it often enough, thanks to her propensity for injuring herself during training.
Aoife returned once they were all breathing oxygen, glorious oxygen, without a trace of burning remaining in their lungs. She pushed open the doors and curtsied. “Maga Senrii, I have been instructed to show you and your guests to my chambers. Supper will be served there.”
“Good. I’m starving.” Oops. Well, company notwithstanding, it was too late to take that one back. Senrii and the kids followed her down the hallway, into the elevator, and up to her room in one of the towers of the estate.
The golden girl’s chambers glowed the same color in the late afternoon sun. An ornate crystallography table sat off to one side, an unfinished nude engraving still sitting in its alcove, and a richly-appointed bed that appeared to be more marshmallow than mattress dominated one of the rear corners of the chamber.
Near the center of the room stood a warbler, a meter-by-meter device, open at the top, containing hundreds and hundreds of small cylinders, each one containing a dozen coiled tendrils. Opposite the doorway, an open-aired balcony provided a luxurious view of the mountains to the west, which were lit as if by flame in the dying light.
Aoife spun about, threw her hands out, and announced, “Welcome to my abode.”
Senrii pushed past her into the room. “And here I thought you’d been programmed to ape the Ambassatrix. Nice to know you don’t take yourself so seriously.”
“You’ve come into my room,” the girl said. “I’m allowed to be myself. But just between us?” She smiled conspiratorially. “The Ambassatrix isn’t all business all the time, either.”
“Really? When do we get to see that?”
“When you go into her room, of course.” She shrugged with fake innocence. “So they say, anyway.”
Senrii noticed that while Hrega was drifting toward the pillow-laden four-post bed, Tvorh and Bilr had eyes, or perhaps noses, only for the steaming feast for five that occupied the twisting wooden table in the center of the room. Aoife followed her gaze.
“You must be starving. Come on! Eat, eat! I’ll be right there.” Aoife strode over to the warbler and stroked two fingers down a pair of crevices in the body of the device. Immediately the strands burst out of one of the cylinders and wrapped themselves over a bar in the object’s backboard. The bar began to roll, and a haunting melody filled the room as chordal units opened up throughout. A satisfied Aoife nodded once, smiled, and took her place at the table.
“What is this?” Hrega asked after they had seated themselves and Tvorh heaped helpings of the repast onto her plate. She grabbed a thick slab of meat between her fingers and made to hold it up.
“Steak!” said Aoife. “It’s not quite as good as the deer you’ve hunted and dressed yourself, but it’s a lot less work.” She reached past Tvorh to pry Hrega’s fingers off of the food. “And we eat with our utensils, not our fingers.”
“Utensils?”
Aoife held them up. “Our fork and our knife.”
Hrega looked uncertainly at the forgebone place-settings.
Aoife rose, came around, and knelt down next to her, taking up the utensils as she did so. “Stab, hold, cut. Just like this.”
“Stab, hold, cut. Sounds like my kind of outing,” Senrii murmured, earning a chuckle from Tvorh.
“I don’t know how to do it!” Bilr wailed.
“Oh, darling—” Aoife began.
Tvorh stood. “It’s fine. I’ll show her.” And he did. He cut a piece for her; she opened her mouth; he fed her. He cut another piece; she opened her mouth; he fed her. She pointed to the potatoes; he gave her a bit.
Senrii watched in amusement as Tvorh and Aoife took charge of the twins, cutting their food, feeding them, cutting their food, feeding them. The girls couldn’t get enough of the stuff. They barely even seemed to chew before forcing down eat bite and opening wide for another.
“So, Tvorh,” Aoife said, “where in the Chasm are you from? Since I’m not allowed to ask your ladyfriend here about where she comes from,” she added, smiling at Senrii.
“Fourth level. It wasn’t pretty. Bilr, put your rat away.”
“But she’s hungry,” Bilr protested.
“But you spent time in the Archives.”
“That’s right. How did you know this?”
“Someone’s been eavesdropping,” Senrii observed.
Aoife shrugged. “Just a little. Those glass doors to the surgery aren’t very thick, you know.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “But I want to know about the Archives. They were closed soon after I arrived in the city, and—” A knock came at the door. Aoife smiled with embarrassment. “Excuse me.” She rose, opened the door, and curtsied. There was whispering that Senrii couldn’t hear. Aoife nodded and curtsied again, then closed the door and returned to the table.
“Who was that?” Senrii asked around a mouthful of cow. Delicious, delicious cow.
Aoife gave a strained smile. “Just one of the other novices. Hrega, dear—”
“What’s so important? Why does she want us to stay in your room?” Tvorh asked.
Aoife dropped Bilr’s utensils, and they clattered to the plate.
“Kid’s got good hearing,” Senrii offered.
Aoife shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I do.” Tvorh didn’t bother to look up; he just fed Bilr another mouthful. “They’re here, aren’t they?”
“Who?” Aoife asked.
“Nxtlu,” Senrii said, swallowing her last bite and wiping her mouth. “Where’ll she meet with them?”
“I’m— I’m sorry?”
“Nxtlu is here looking for us. Rosabella wants us to stay in your room, right? That’s what you heard, Tvorh?”
“Right.”
“Then Nxtlu is definitely here. And I,” Senrii said, “won’t get caught off guard. Where will she be meeting with them?”
“The reception hall, but—”
“Then I’m heading down there.”
“Wait!” Aoife cried. The girl had a pair of lungs on her; Senrii had to give her that. “Wait,” Aoife said, more softly. “I don’t know what’s happening—”
“I’m not discussing this.”
“—but if you don’t want to be seen, you shouldn’t head down to the room. It’s a well-trafficked area. You’re sure to be noticed. There are guards outside the door. Even deer avoid their hunters. Be smarter than a deer, at least.”
“If you have a better idea, missy, I’m all ears. But I get it. You’re loyal to the Sodality. You wouldn’t want to help me to—”
Aoife pursed her lips playfully. “There is the skylight.”
“What?”
“The skylight above the receiving room. You should be able to look through it. You’re a Maga. You probably have some way to get down there, don’t you?”
“What? You’re not going to try to convince me that it’s a horrible idea, that I should just sit tight up here, that this isn’t the place for old vendettas?”
Aoife snorted. “You’re joking. This is the most exciting thing I’ve heard all month. A Maga of Gens Nethress, blood enemy to Gens Nxtlu, shows up at my doorstep followed immediately by Nxtlu Generosi? It’s like something out of a vidality show.”
“Do you even see vidality here?”
“Occasionally the Magistra lets us off the estate, you know. Occasionally the theaters are even operational, when Nxtlu hasn’t shut them down, I mean. When I first came to Acerbia, I was shocked. There were no theaters back on the frontier. The first time you see the membranes change, the pictures grow, you think it’s magic. It’s all so romantic.”
“Romantic, huh? So I have your permission to jump off your balcony, rappel down the side of this mansion, sneak over to the skylight, and eavesdrop on your Magistra?”
“Well, no. Not exactly.”
Senrii felt her face grow flush. “Girl—”
“You’re not allowed to go anywhere in the manor without an escort.” Aoife sat back in her seat, smiled beatifically, and waited.
“Aoife, if—”
“Of course I’d be happy to escort you off my balcony, down the side of the mansion, and over to the skylight so that you can eavesdrop on my Magistra. Why, I thought you’d never ask!”