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They traveled down the center of the wide highway. It cut through an expanse of jungled fields overgrown with flora bearing broad leaves and twisting vines, smelling faintly of flowers, faintly of smoke. The moon, now risen in a red crescent over the skyscrapers, was dwarfed by the wound. Occasionally, a streak exploded out of the fissure and burned up across the sky, briefly revealing the landscape and casting double shadows at their feet.

The metropolis loomed vast on the horizon before them. Mountain ranges of buildings crowded and overlapped in a mixture of colors and intensities of lights.

They came to a huge billboard lit by a spotlight. The advertisement was of a woman in a bikini sunbathing near a swimming pool. The script looked like pictographs: characters in the form of an eagle, a standing lion, and pyramids surrounded by strange lines.

“I can’t read it,” Jane said.

“Nor can I.” Ciris stopped to look up. “Much of it was the Dreamer’s doing.” She continued her steady pace.

By and by, a creature moved in the undergrowth, causing the leaves to rustle. Each time, Ciris would pause a moment to listen before continuing, her eyes reflecting the ambient light in a golden gleam.

Eventually, the road emerged to flat fields plowed up for cultivation. The air smelled of soil and fertilizer. A blaring yard light atop a tall pole illuminated the scene of a farmhouse in the middle of a wide, green lawn surrounded by a white picket fence. A swing and sandbox occupied the center of the yard, and a flowerbed bloomed next to the house.

Through an enormous picture window, she saw a family gathered in its living room, engrossed in a television show. A man was drinking a beer, a woman was eating something from a bowl, and two children, dressed for bed, stretched on the floor.

When they came alongside the gate, a barrel-chested dog materialized from under the porch, ran to the fence, and started barking at them with a belly full of thunder. The door swung open, and the man stepped onto the lawn, an angry battlefield rifle in his hands. He tracked them with a steely gaze. The weapon emitted a high-pitched hum, and a menacing ruby beam from the laser sight cut through the airy mist to trace the boundary of his property.

“Don’t look at him,” Ciris said. She pulled her arm and guided her to the far side of the road.

They passed his farm, and the house dwindled behind them. She glanced back once and could still see the laser, now pointing into the sky.

They reached a rundown gas station where a group of teenage boys tinkered on the small engines of their chrome motorcycles, listening to electronic music and smoking long cigarettes. One of the boys glanced up. He said something to his friends and hollered out a catcall. They laughed and continued working.

An apartment complex led to another and another, and then they were in the city proper. They took a long boulevard lined with food carts. Rich aromas of baking bread and simmering soups filled the salty air. A woman called out selling sweet potatoes, another woman selling cigarettes. A girl turned a skewer of meat. A cart displayed an array of colored drinks. Chanting and drumming from an elusive source filtered through the din.

They maneuvered through the pressing crowd. Sweat broke across her skin in the sultry and oppressive atmosphere, dampening her clothes. Ciris held her close, and she smelled the girl’s teenage musk mixing with the sweet smoke of the night market.

At a large intersection, a wok on a blazing fire sizzled and smoked. An old woman in a conical hat stirred it with robust arms and shouted at them in another alien tongue.

The girl abruptly pulled her to the right, and they entered a blue alley, leaving behind the commotion of the crowd. Cool, fresh ocean air hit her face.

“The beach,” Ciris said.

Jane listened and could hear the surf breaking out across the sand.

“Chay?” asked the girl.

Ciris led her to a grove of trees where a woman was watching over a pot of bubbling broth. She directed them to a dainty table beneath the canopy of a banyan tree and soon brought them each a steaming cup.

“Cheers,” said Ciris.

“Cheers,” said Jane. She drank. “Oh! Wow, that’s… that’s something. That’s good.”

“It comes from a flower that only blooms at midnight. They wait in the fields for it to open and drip its nectar into their cups. It’s an invasive species from far beyond the Veil, but people love it.”

“Ciris, what’s happening? Why was I brought here?”

“You are to be one of the Centurion and know the secrets of the Veil. The Sisters believe it will help you make decisions that will protect your people.”

On the beach, a flute started to play. She looked up to see a procession of women and girls carrying paper lanterns. The girls sang softly as they faded down the sand into the night.

“Who is he, your Scorpion?”

“Just a stupid boy. He leads the Maji with his precious little stone, but he is a fickle thing and has a fleeting heart.” Ciris looked as if she could spit into her drink. A storm raged behind those large, dark eyes.

“Good lord, darling. Boys will be boys,” Jane said.

“You know boys, queen with a queen?”

A vague memory of a pretty face flashed before her eyes. A woman wearing glasses and manipulating something in the air. Her hair was damp, like she’d just come from the shower.

“I delayed on the other side for too long. He’s seen a decade to my year.”

They sipped their drinks until they were gone. The sweet and spicy mixture made Jane’s eyes water, blurring the lights of the street.

“Come. We’re getting closer,” said Ciris, standing and walking onto the packed sand. The woman at the cauldron fire did not seem to care that they left.

The beach was wide, and the sea was a plate of glass reflecting the celestial wound. A frozen explosion showered out of it like a blooming flower. There were shouts of celebration in the darkness, sometimes laughter, and now and then, a vague figure would run toward them only to vanish again into the night.

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Some distance down the beach, a white and blue light glittered like a star resting on the sand. As they approached, it revealed itself to be a table with a blue and white lamp. A woman and a shirtless boy were selling a selection of firecrackers. When she saw them, the woman put a rocket in a bottle, lit the fuse, and handed it to the boy. He aimed it carefully at the torn sky. As the wick neared, he closed his eyes and turned his head. The rocket shot up with a whistle, made a beautiful arc of red smoke, and exploded over the water with a pop. The armada’s motionless expedition from one world into the next was undeterred.

The jungle stretched onto the beach before them. Ciris climbed the bank and followed a well-trodden path through the trees, which harbored a musky, sweet aroma and another patch of heat that soaked her in her own perspiration. From the dark bramble came the sighs and whispers of lovers and the slapping of their flesh against each other. A voice called out to them, but they trudged on until they emerged from the branches and vines onto an urban street.

In the distance, above and behind the buildings, a Ferris wheel glittered brightly on its circular mission.

“Sunwheel,” Ciris said, pointing. “It’s the Dreamer’s touchstone, so her brother can find his way home, even if he’s somewhere beyond the Veil.”

“Her brother?”

“Yes, the self-named Black Scorpion is the Dreamer’s brother. He’s been searching for her for so long, but every time he thinks he’s found her, his hands grasp only sorrow.”

“Why can’t he save her?”

“Can’t you remember? She sleeps beyond a slip in the fabric, pulled into her own dream, whisked away by magic birds.”

The street wound up through an enclave of small merchants selling everything from pots and pans to antiques and electronics.

“The Dreamer,” said Jane, “she sent us here?”

“Yes, she has a rare ability with the fabric of the Veil. It’s why she’s such a treasure, but she doesn’t know she’s at the center of a battle between witches and warlords, kings and queens.”

“You speak well,” said Jane.

“I speak well in several tongues,” replied the girl, “but you hear me through a kiss that lingers on your lips and in your ears.”

“The boy, the small one, Lasha”

“Aye, ‘tis his gift, or curse.”

“How can it be a curse?”

“Imagine knowing every sound as language. Imagine hiding in the dark and understanding your hunters’ howls of hate as clearly as you and I know our own words.”

“You are a devotee,” Jane said.

“Only of my sword and my beast,” said Ciris.

“And to this… boy, this Black Scorpion?”

Ciris considered this, and finally said, “Yes. To Nhat.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “It is a long story.”

They turned down a narrow alley, its walls built of black bricks that sparkled with flakes of obsidian. A cat screeched, then another. The felines perched atop the walls and in stoned-off windowsills, their yellow eyes observing two strangers’ passage.

The alley ended at a wrought iron gate guarded on either side by a stone lion. The ironwork of its wide wings of twisted metal was joined at their center by the forged figure of a naked titan, holding them together with his outstretched arms. The crown of the gate was an array of long, sharp spikes jutting up stark against the sky.

Beyond the gate, the small courtyard garden possessed at its center a three-tiered fountain, atop which a faun poured water out of two wine bottles held apart in either hand as it bowed to an unseen master. Other statues inhabited the garden: a child peering out from behind a pillar, a phoenix rising from its ashes, a sentinel with one arm and a broken sword in the other. Behind a line of bushes, a case of wide steps led up to an arched doorway.

“The Majestic,” said Ciris. She approached the gate, grasped the bars, and shook hard three times.

One of the cats cried out, and down the alley, another answered. In the distance, a dog barked.

From within the shadows of the doorway, a small figure appeared holding a candle. It watched them momentarily before approaching.

“What the hell do you want?” said a boy with messy black hair from behind the flame.

“Rent a room. The Queen’s Chamber,” said Ciris.

“We don’t rent that one out,” he replied defiantly.

“Listen here, you little shit, I want to see Nhat.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who?” he said.

Ciris sighed. “The Black Scorpion.”

A grin came to the boy’s face. He pulled back the latch and opened the gate.

“This way.”

They followed him past the fountain, up the steps, and through a corridor stacked floor to ceiling with boxes, crates, old chairs, lamps, and other items that hotels collect over time.

They entered an empty lobby with walls and ceilings of glass. The fissure in the sky threw a golden light down onto the marble floor.

The boy stopped, turned to them, and puffed up his chest. “The Scorpion may or may not honor you with his presence tonight. He’s very busy.”

“Duy! Fuck you. It’s me, Ciris!”

“Ciris…” the boy said the name slowly.

“Do you remember me? I once taught you how to fight with swords, how to cut a man’s throat with the flick of a wrist.”

He gazed up at her with sleepy eyes that held a spark of memory. “Yea, I know thee, hunter. It was long ago, and I was young. I was sad when you went away, and I’ve forgotten much, and now I’ve grown into a stranger. Ten years is a long time.”

“I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.” Ciris fell to her knees and opened her arms. The slight imp of a boy hesitated, then took her embrace.

He was crying.

“Now, boy, are you brave?”

He nodded and wiped his eyes with elegant fingers.

“Then stand tall, Maji, and hush those salty tears. We are together again.”

He smiled wide and gripped her tight.

“Where is Nhat?” she asked.

“The Scorpion is on urgent business, so he can’t—”

“Damn!” She swatted at him, and he skipped away. “Have you taken the beast yet?”

His mischievous smirk turned into a luscious smile. “Several times a day.”

“And are you its master, or does it master you?”

“Depends.” He hissed like he was going to bite her, then he hugged her to him again.

“The Queen’s Chamber is ready for you. Nhat is out on a mission. He didn’t know you were coming. Ten years…”

The boy named Duy led them to an elevator and opened the ancient door. He pressed the button for the 14th floor, and they began a shaky ascent, his candle flame holding them in its halo.

“You have brought intruders,” said Duy. “Two boys with golden hair. Hung says they are orphans from beyond the Veil.”

“So, you’ve met Lasha?” said Ciris.

“Yes, and he’s my sworn enemy.” Duy glared at her. “He bragged of kissing you. Do you love him more than me? Tell me now!”

“Of course not,” she said.

He looked up at her with his suspicions, then he smiled.

“I love you equally,” she said.

“Hell,” he said.

The elevator chimed, and Duy pulled open the doors. They were in a hall decorated with photographic posters: a woman carrying a yolk laden with fruit and cakes of rice, an old, lean fisherman casting a net into misty waters.

Duy stopped by a door ornately decorated with the metalwork of a crane soaring over a tranquil lake bordered by trees and a large, full moon. He opened it. Before Ciris entered she looked beyond him down the hall.

“The Viking’s room?” she asked.

“The Black Scorpion sleeps there most nights. I hear him. Sometimes he cries or screams in his dreams.”

Inside the hotel room, candles burned in lamps upon a carved table and on a mantel over a fireplace. She slipped off the sandals Hung had given her and felt the soft carpet on her bare feet.

“That’s the bedroom. It has a shower. The water is hot. The roof is where all the fun is. Nhat— I mean the Black Scorpion had a swimming pool installed, and he got us a foosball table.”

“And Lasha and Stefan?” asked Ciris.

“They’re swimming now. I’m going up after I finish my chores. We usually stay up there to watch the sky. Every night is a party for the end of the world!” He lingered a moment, quickly embraced Ciris, then bowed and left.

The windows in the living room were open, letting in the soft light of the apocalypse.

“Take a bath. Sleep,” Ciris said. “I’m going to find the boys.” She shucked off her clothes, and the panther glared at her with its yellow eyes, then slipped out into the dark hotel.

The shower was hot and torrential. She stayed in it a long time, pondering her memories like pieces of a puzzle—the full picture yet unknown, but a theme beginning to develop; there was the sense that her authority was at once massive and precarious.

She dried off with a plush towel as large as a blanket and selected a black silk robe with a pattern of red flowers from the bedroom closet.

“Queen, the Black Scorpion is here! He will see you!” a shout echoed from down the hall. Duy stood at the elevator door, luminous in the light of his candle.