“Careful, Tvorh!” Senrii hissed from behind him. “Get down! You’ll give us away.”

“I’m already down, Senrii.” Tvorh stopped his crouching walk just long enough to flash a grimace back at her. He’d spent his life living in the shadows, sneaking from place to place. He knew how to be inconspicuous. Senrii, on the other hand, seemed to be more interested in peering over the edge of the roof to the open courtyard below, where well-built men, naked to the waist, practiced a slow, sensuous martial prana, their hands making circles before them as they evenly shifted their balance from foot to foot. “At least I’m not ogling the Sodalitatis,” Tvorh said as he moved on.

Senrii snorted. “You must think I haven’t been watching you this whole time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rosabella? Or Aoife?” Senrii nodded her head forward, indicating the girl much further ahead. “Your eyes haven’t left them since we got here.”

“That’s not true.”

“That’s right. You spent some of that time feeding your sister.”

“Leave Bilr out of this.”

“No, seriously. That was a sweet thing you did back there, doing the whole job for her, not letting her learn on her own—”

“She’s sick.”

“She could still have moved her hands enough to do it herself.”

“I said, leave her—”

“Shhh!” The sound brought them both to silence. Aoife crouched not far ahead near a glass skylight built in the shape of a five-sided pyramid. On the lawn beyond her, the twisted remains of the shattered front gate were visible. So was the wreckage of the lungboat that they had piloted into the dirt. Tvorh felt a sense of pride at that, not because he’d crashed the boat but because he’d piloted it this far at all.

Next to the remains of the destroyed lungboat was a pristine whole one marked with the feathered serpent symbol of Gens Nxtlu.

Aoife waved them forward and then lay down next to the skylight. “They’re already inside.”

Tvorh peered in. Rosabella stood at the door of the hallway in the sunlit receiving room; Dux Ilhicamina and his sister, feathered headdresses and all, stood opposite her. Aoife, Tvorh, and Senrii hustled around the skylight to put themselves as far outside the view of the Nxtlu Generosi as possible.

This meant coming closer to Rosabella’s view, but better her than the Nxtlu. Not that it mattered; the Ambassatrix’s full attention was on her guests. She glided forward as she spoke, gesturing gently toward Eztli as she did so. The two women seemed to favor one another with open stances, while Ilhicamina stood with arms crossed and chin raised at Eztli’s side. Tvorh strained to hear the muffled sounds of the conversation through the skylight.

“—boat is not fifty yards from here, on the grounds of this very estate,” Ilhicamina said.

Rosabella made what appeared to be an apologetic shrug. “I am afraid I cannot help you, Erus. Perhaps they ran off after crashing?”

“Why would they run off into the city when they could run for asylum, Ambassatrix?”

Eztli turned toward her brother and placed a hand on his arm. “Perhaps they thought it would be too obvious?” Her voice was hoarse.

Senrii let out a dissatisfied grunt. “I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

“You can’t?” Tvorh asked. “I can.”

“How about you let the rest of us in on it, then?”

Tvorh nodded and relayed the rest of the conversation as he heard it.

“—dear! You sound awful!”

“It’s nothing, Ambassatrix.”

“Nonsense. It is very clearly something. Is your Gens not capable of taking care of you? My sweet, you sound as if a rogue attacked you with lungburner gas.”

When Tvorh relayed this exchange, Senrii grunted gutturally and jerked her hands against the glass. The thump was light, but Rosabella immediately glanced up at the skylight. Her eyes lingered there for only a moment, but it was long enough for her gaze to catch Tvorh’s.

“Down!” Tvorh hissed, grabbing Senrii. They hit the roof hard and lay there breathing heavily for a few long moments. “What were you thinking?”

“She’s going to give us away, Tvorh. She can’t play those games with those people. They’ll figure it out.”

Tvorh risked raising his head far enough to peer back inside. “They… don’t seem to have figured it out,” he said.

“Why? What?” But Tvorh barely heard the question. He was too engrossed in the proceedings below.

Rosabella had a hand on Eztli’s arm, and her face was very close to the other woman’s. She was susurrating something low and quiet, but Tvorh didn’t have to be able to hear it in order to know what it meant.

Senrii groaned. “You’re a pig, Tvorh. Now put your ear to the glass and tell me what she’s saying!”

Ilhicamina was speaking. “And are not our resources good enough for you, dear sister? There is a great deal of business to which to attend. What cause would you have to abandon your family in favor of frivolity?”

Rosabella’s voice was sharp and clear. “Not frivolity, good Erus. Your sister’s lungs have been burned, even while she was in your care. Tell me, did this happen while you were seeking these dangerous children?”

“You presume too much, woman.”

“Of course. Forgive me. I grow irate when those I care for are harmed. Surely you can understand, Erus.”

“I do.”

“So please understand that I only offer what I think is best for your sister. Ease her into her responsibilities. Do not force too much on her at once. Do not your General Principles declare that the edges of the Smoking Mirror cuts its bearers? Allow her to care for herself. Allow me to care for her.”

“Ambassatrix,” Ilhicamina said, “your offer is generous, but I see my stolen lungboat crashed in your estate. I see dangerous fugitives from justice disappeared. I must believe that they have taken up asylum with you. How then can I trust that your intentions toward my sister are genuine, rather than an intended distraction?”

“They are genuine,” Eztli said evenly. “Tell him, Rosabella.”

“Erus,” Rosabella said, “I am hurt and saddened that you would mistrust my motives.”

“I mean to speak plainly.”

“I know, and for this reason I am able to forgive you. Accept this oath, then, to set your mind at ease.” Rosabella’s voice dropped, her tone becoming utterly serious. “I swear to you, to the best of my knowledge, the fugitives you seek are not in any building in this estate, nor on any of the grounds surrounding them.”

“Can you swear that you have not laid eyes on them?”

“I cannot. I am sorry. I lay eyes on many men and women throughout the day.”

“Call in your servants. Allow us to interrogate them.”

Rosabella’s back straightened. “Trust me or do not, but I will not submit my novices and my Acolytes to you, Erus. They answer to me and to the Sodality of the Metagenic Apotheosis. I know my place, Erus, but it would behoove you to know yours.”

“Mark this, Ambassatrix—”

“Leave it, Ilhicamina,” Eztli said.

Ilhicamina strode forward until his face was mere inches from Rosabella’s. “I will not! Mark this, Ambassatrix: I could have your chapterhouse upended, thrown on its side, torn apart. You exist in Acerbia at my sufferance.”

Rosabella gazed back impassively. “Indeed, Erus. As your Smoking Mirror lives in you at the sufferance of the Sodality. Come, Eztli. Shall we be off?”

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“Eztli, I forbid you this diversion.”

Eztli replied, “I am not your baby sister any longer, Ilhicamina, Dux or no. I will accept the Ambassatrix’s offer. You are always telling me to keep to what I know best. Consider me to be taking your advice: I will not presume to hinder your investigation with my presence. Yes, Rosabella. Let us go.”

“If you will excuse us, Erus.” Rosabella took Eztli’s arm and smiled sweetly at the Dux. He grimaced, turned, and stalked from the room; the servants barely had time to get the door open for him. In moments, he was leaving the building.

Rosabella turned to Eztli and smiled. “Time to ourselves,” she murmured.

Their lips touched.

Then they departed back down the hallway.

Tvorh sat back and gulped. “I think we should follow them,” he said weakly. “They could—”

“Pig,” Senrii repeated.

“Eztli is a fairly regular visitor,” Aoife said, so nonchalantly that it was an obvious bait.

Tvorh couldn’t help but take it. “Where does she, uh, visit?”

The golden-haired girl shrugged. “Usually the Magistra’s chambers. Where they can be themselves.” She grinned wickedly. “Adon forgive them.”

Tvorh didn’t know much about Adonist thought, but Aoife didn’t sound very concerned about their souls. He felt his throat go dry.

“Look, Horny Toad,” Senrii said. “I’m not chasing them up the tower so you can watch — how old are you, anyway?”

“Sixteen!” he protested.

“And you,” she said, turning to Aoife, “playing the muse to a self-destructive artist.” That was almost lyrical. Senrii wasn’t usually very lyrical. “Have you no shame?” Bile, but she was on a roll!

“Shame is the first thing the training forbids us.”

“Really?

“No. That would be stupid. And I’m Adonist anyway, not some lustful heathen. But that’s what the ignorant assume about us, so I figured that you would—”

Heavy breathing filled the air, and the three of them flattened themselves against the roof as Dux Ilhicamina’s lungboat rose into the air and departed toward the city.

“Anyway,” Senrii said, “I’m satisfied that she’s not selling us out. And I guess I can’t very well kill off Eztli without giving us away, huh?”

“And breaking asylum,” Aoife pointed out.

“Right. So I’m heading back to your room, evil muse. Anybody who doesn’t want to come with me, you can find your own way up. Or down. Doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Yes it does,” Aoife said.

“Well, yeah, but don’t tell Tvorh I said that.”

“I’m right here!”

***

“Mmmm.” Eztli sighed as she laid her head on Rosabella’s breast. “How is it that you are able to make all my cares melt away?”

“Decades of practice, my darling.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“That I have practiced so as to be able to please you? Era, if you felt anger at me over this, you would leave me with no recourse with which to defend myself.”

“Perhaps I like you defenseless and without recourse.”

“We shall have to try that next time, Era.” Eztli giggled sleepily, and Rosabella wrapped her arms around her. “Assuming, of course, that your brother allows there to be a next time.”

“My brother does not rule me, Rosabella.”

“He was quite angry this afternoon.”

Eztli shrugged. “Ilhicamina is always seeing Nethress plots in the darkness and always preparing ways to catch those schemers. Most of the time, I do not know if there’s any reality to them whatsoever.”

“And this time?”

“This time, perhaps.”

“And next time? Next time, what will he see?”

Eztli shrugged languidly. “Oh, I don’t know. In all likelihood, something to do with the database.”

This was news to Rosabella. “Database? No; forgive me. The question is impertinent.”

“It’s a harmless lark on his part, Rosabella. Lately, Ilhicamina has grown obsessed with gathering information on the genetics of the Nethress line. He claims it will help him to identify the perpetrators of heists such as the one we suffered today.”

“Oh? Have you identified the perpetrator, then?”

“No. There was no match. He is certain that her DNA was tainted at some point; he refuses to believe that she was not a true member of Gens Nethress. I informed him that she could have been a mercenary Maga, but you know how he is.”

Senrii the infiltrator, with tainted DNA? Fascinating. “I do.”

“And then there are the branches.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, the wives and the husbands from outside the Nethress family. It’s simple enough to get a sample from the Nethress patriarch, but what of the mothers and fathers of his sons’ and daughters’ children? You can imagine how the difficulty of gathering that information enrages him.”

“I can.”

Perhaps Rosabella had said it too thoughtfully, or perhaps Eztli simply awoke to what she was saying; in any case, the Nxtlu woman slapped Rosabella’s bare stomach and sat up. “You naughty girl. How do you always get me talking about these things?”

“A bad habit on my part, Era. Forgive me.”

“That is,” Eztli said, leaning in, “I much prefer it when my lips are doing…”

“Other things.” Rosabella raised a hand and stroked Eztli’s cheek. “I understand,” she whispered. “Tell me, Era, would you have me defenseless and without recourse?”

Eztli smiled naughtily, wrapped her arms around Rosabella, and leaned in to nibble gently at Rosabella’s earlobe. “Next time, perhaps.”

***

Rosabella slipped from the covers and went to the balcony, leaving a sleeping Eztli behind in the bed. The full moons were rising beyond the glimmering edifices of the city, and the last chill of the Dying months had given way in the past week to the warm and welcome winds of Seeding. Rosabella leaned on the railing and gazed out across Acerbia, contemplating the conflicting expectations that had fallen to her.

It was well that she could now leave the balcony fully open to the elements, rather than closing it against the nighttime chill. Here in her chambers, she was expected to be herself, and yet she wore so many masks, bore so many layers of personality upon personality, that being “herself” was impossible. At least with one wall of the room open to the outdoors, she could convince herself that she wasn’t truly, fully, in her home, and therefore she could not expect herself to be fully true to herself.

After all, being true to herself would also mean putting people she loved in terrible danger, and that in itself was a contradiction to the woman she was and had always been. So she resolved the paradox thusly: she was true to herself and yet lying because she was both in her boudoir and outside of it.

In truth, this place had never been her home. There was another place, much farther away, that had been that for her once, when she was young at heart and filled with the flower of love, but the demands of society and biology had forced a different path on her beloved.

Not that she begrudged him this; he had given her more than she deserved in exchange. She felt it even now, whispering in her mind, spreading its tendrils throughout her nervous system, asking for a little more strength, a little more attention.

The Chrysalis had been difficult for her. The Priests of Inquiry told her that she had been gone three whole months and had endured no fewer than twelve separate treatments in order for the symbiosis to take hold.

To Rosabella, however, it had felt like years that she had struggled with the Symbiont, forcing it to her will, feeling it overwhelm her until she failed from exhaustion, only to awaken anew and plunge back into the fight to subdue it. She had emerged a new woman, more whole and sound of mind and body than she had ever been before, a worthy object for her beloved, only to watch as he took another woman to wife.

It was to be expected; Rosabella was, in the eyes of his Gens, no more than an evolutionary dead end despite her unique traits. Her genes were barely fit for a SOPHIOS; awakening it beyond the most minor applications of STIGMOI was dangerous. Such a weak woman could never have given Dorsin the powerful sons and daughters his Gens deserved and required.

What good was this body — these feet, these legs, these breasts, this hair, this angelic face — if she could not spend its credit where she would? What good her SOPHIOS, a nearly-feral creature that seemed to live only to overwhelm her, if it would not capture for her the man she loved? There had been only one option for her, only one way for her to protect the family to whom she was so devoted.

And so she was here.

And in service to that family that would never be her family, to the man she loved, now she had to leave.

Just like that, she had made her decision.

The thought of it both terrified and elated her. She felt a tiny jab in her heart, the same electric jolt that she used to feel every time Dorsin looked her way, the same jab she had felt in the half dozen times over the years that he had come to visit. It had been so long since she had seen Thorssel, and now, all of a sudden, she had decided that she had to return. Was it selfishness? Was it self-delusion? Was it honesty?

Which mask was she wearing today? There was no way to know until she saw her plan through.

And what of Eztli’s comments about the database? Had she provided Rosabella with a simple and harmless — or at least, less harmful — way of gaining the trust of her beloved family’s blood enemies? Could Rosabella insinuate herself into Nxtlu’s graces in order to help the troubled Gens Nethress?

Rosabella turned and padded back into the room. The many women of her family — her flesh and blood, not the Sodality — had long since evolved, or been engineered with, a natural toe-walk that was better for more than simply inducing lust via well-heeled shoes. Her naked feet may have had a foreshortened stride, but they traded speed for silence. Where her feet succeeded, however, her wardrobe failed her, for as she opened it, it creaked, and there was a stirring in the bed.

“Mmmm.” Eztli opened a sleepy eye and graced Rosabella with a lazy smile. Her silken black hair, which had been so ornately and intricately structured when she entered the room, now sprawled messily on the pillow. She was an angel born to a devil. Poor, beautiful girl!

Eztli smacked her tongue once against the top of her mouth, then mumbled, “Don’t get dressed. Come back to bed. I promise to you, I’ll make it worth your while.”

Rosabella went to the bed and seated herself on the side of it. She reached out long, delicate fingers and stroked Eztli’s hair. “I’m sorry, my love. I cannot stay. I have obligations.”

“So late.”

“Yes. You have my deepest apologies. Stay. Rest. I will return as soon as I can.”

But Eztli was already asleep. Rosabella rose, packed a small parcel of modest attire — Thorssel was beautiful and warm, but Gens Nethress insisted on a more conservative mode of dress to match its more traditional mating behaviors — slipped from the room, and went to Aoife’s chamber.

When the girl opened the door, Rosabella pushed past her into the room. The twin girls were asleep in the capacious bed, while Tvorh, Senrii, and Aoife pushed up from their chairs at the central table. “Quickly,” Rosabella said. “The whaleship is ready, and we have a long journey ahead of us. We will take the rear exit. I have seen to it that a whorlboat be waiting to bear us to the landing pad on the mountain terraces. The walk up the steps is beautiful, but tonight a leisurely stroll must bow before expedience.”

“Us? We?” Senrii asked, more loudly than was polite at this hour of the night. “Who is us?”

Rosabella smiled gently. “I am coming with you, Maga Senrii Generosus Ortus Nethress, daughter of Dux Dorsin. No arguments. Your father will vouch for me. Are you able to reach him via Synapsis?”

Senrii grunted. “Would you believe they haven’t taught me that trick yet?”

“A pity. I suppose my presence shall have to be a surprise. Up, children! Not you, Aoife, of course.”

“Of course, Magistra.”

“Did you think to come with us? Oh, dear girl.”

“I… I’m sorry, Magistra. I was just being foolish. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown over the Wildlands.”

“Not at all foolish, Aoife, and I hope someday you’ll return to the frontier with a strong, handsome husband and a herd of children in tow. But you will not see Thorssel this week.”

“Week?” Tvorh asked.

Senrii jerked her head around. “Four days’ journey by — I assume civilian — whaleship.”

“Four days of beautiful landscapes, of lovely scenery,” Rosabella added. “Four days for beauty to fill your heart.” Four days soaring above chimera-infested Wildlands. “Four days,” she concluded, “that we truly ought to commence as soon as possible. Come. The crew will be waiting.”