After, Ocyl found Aida languidly stretched out in a nest of cushions. His new kimono belted at the waist by a sash, giving him at least a hint of propriety. Aida wore a comfortable, untorn and blood-free dress of layered green silks. Sipping wine and luxuriating in the warm after-passion glow, she wished Ocyl would just go away.

"Go away," the alcohol said through her.

"You're welcome," Ocyl said, bowing deeply. He threw himself onto a heap of cushions near hers and grinned slyly. "I wondered by your fervor if you plan to be mother of more than just exiles. If this were to produce a child, you'd have a broad selection of who to point the finger at for the father. I'm happy your injury didn't impede you."

The fingers of her left hand brushed their fractional counterparts, now freshly wrapped in green bandages after she'd refused another letch. "The albino one, Jaxe, told me fingers are nothing. Some sea monster in Stacks ripped a whole arm off him and it took a year for it to regrow fully."

"His good 'fighting, fishing, fondling, and fornicating arm'." Ocyl gestured Jaxeward with his drink where the albino Dynast held a gon jar under one arm while lobbing its explicit contents at anyone passing by with the other. "Yes, he'll tell that to anyone who will listen and even those who stopped listening ages ago."

A musician wandered over, piping a soft, haunting melody. Across the Eye, Dynasts, Kin, and other power-players formed similar gatherings in the wake of their entertainments to hatch deals, gossip, plot.

"Are all Dynasts black?" she blurted without thinking.

He quirked an eyebrow. "Everyone one of us descends from Ebon. Jaxe there has the Pale, but he thinks it makes him special."

Looking at the Jaxe and remembering their time floating in the silk, Aida's sense of morality and propriety stirred again but she pushed hard against its prudishness. Nothing wrong with a little indulgence after zero sex since the 80s. Not like this would become a regular habit. Trying to blend in. Local customs and all.

"That was certainly... diverting." She waved away another glass of wine as she realized she needed to keep her wits about her even if her new body burned off alcohol faster than an ethanol-powered pickup truck. "What comes next?"

"Interesting you should ask." He drained his drink and tossed the goblet away. An attendant immediately hurried over with a new gilded, gem-encrusted cup while a serving boy launched through the air after the first. "My new Imminent informed me before you arrived that you would meet with her after you were done indulging."

If Fallon was there, she would have asked what an Imminent was, gotten the long sigh and an inadequate response that answered half of what she asked and raised three more questions, then both would have stormed off with fresh frustrations about the others' incompetence.

"She would?" Aida looked around, seeking a likely candidate for the title of Imminent. "Judging by her name should we expect her shortly?"

"Clever." His tone said she bored him even as his eyes devoured her in a way that made her uncomfortable. She stretched languidly to show she didn't care.

"Imminents are a very peculiar and particular bunch. We go to her."

"Now?"

"Unless you'd rather wait here until some Chapter comes to sweep your verse into its pages." He glanced at waxing and waning groupings, gangs of Ferals orbiting their charges while eyeing one another like tomcats.

As Ocyl rose, another swarm of servants rushed to replace every cushion he'd touched. Aida waited for the servants to do the same with the nest she vacated, but they ignored hers completely.

"What are they doing?" She gestured with her wine cup. "They only do it for you."

He looked around blankly before realizing she pointed at the attendants.

"Oh, that. I never use the same thing twice," he said in the way he might say he preferred his coffee with cream and sugar.

"Um... never? Why?"

"Why not? You should try it, it can be quite liberating."

"Isn't that wasteful?"

"There always seems to be more."

"What about the items in your collection?"

"Ah, those are my Irreplaceables. Makes their possession that much more meaningful when everything else so obviously is. Replaceable I mean." He shrugged and took in his small army of attendants. "I once held the same policy towards servants, but Janali threatened to leave me for Reck and life in a perpetual cloud of chalk dust if I kept it up. You know how Seneschals get; sometimes I feel like I rule but she's the one in charge."

"I certainly empathize." As she recovered from her stupefaction at his wanton wastefulness, she covered it with a change of topic. "You mentioned Chapters. I'm assuming it's a metaphor since the whole Book thing?"

He frowned as if the subject, her ignorance, or both proved distasteful. "Chapters personify Dynastic squabbles, ever-changing, -birthing, and -dying factions back-biting and bickering like spoiled children yet none of them ever confident enough to do anything of import."

"What Chapter does Heaven's Tread fall into?"

A nearby group saw them rise and meandered towards them, but Ocyl waved them away while floating towards one of the many exits spaced amid the mounds of cushions, scattered lamps, armies of scantily-clad servants, visiting dignitaries, trailing retinues, and jars of living sex toys. The image of the last oiled and heaped in a messy tangle etched indelibly into her memory.

"To the endless chagrin of all Chapters great and small, Heaven's Tread is, and shall be for so long as I rule, unfettered. The Ancients look down their noses at me for refusing to join their elite number, the Isolates find me annoying since I won't join their unified stand for independence, and the Fractious Fraction hate everyone including each other. None of the others are worth the time to even refuse. My great pride and success lies in ensuring everyone dislikes me and needs Jadeye's markets in equal measure."

They left through a passage near the side of the Eye, though it was hard to tell since up aimed always towards the Sighted Path and down simply radiated away from it. Through the thick glass, Aida stared down the length of one of the towering halves of the Spire, though whether the one she'd come up through or the other she couldn't tell.

"You take pride in not being a joiner then?" She struggled to match his long glide as they followed the curved ramp returning them to a less-dizzying sense of which direction was down.

"I found through much trial and not a little error that to remain untethered maximizes the flow of trade. No other verse, or at least not any important one, holds its doors open to all and ostracizes none." He casually tossed his bejeweled gold goblet down a stairwell as they exited it, pausing to listen as it clattered and banged. "I'm a pragmatist at heart."

"Clearly." She glanced back at the Porcelain Guards trailing them. "Where's Ghillie, my Feral?"

"Hereabouts, I imagine." He swung his arm. "I suggest simply gathering so many that you can't miss them. I barely go anywhere without tripping over three, but knowing would-be-assassins encounter similar issues helps me bear the inconvenience."

"I'll get right on that." She wondered how much Ferals cost and what one bought them with. The thought lurched her to a halt. She'd banished Fallon from her carriage for commoditizing human beings and yet here she was only a few hours later doing exactly the same thing.

"Best you do. Killing a Dynast can be difficult, but it's not unheard of." He stopped and faced her. As her brain caught up with his words, she wondered if he had just threatened her. "If you're lucky they'll ransom whatever's left of you. If not they'll drop you into an ocean or endless void, chop you into bits too small to grow back, or burn you to a charred husk even the Crowmen couldn't do anything with."

"Noted."

His smile drove her walls up. Some smiles served simply to remind that the beast bore fangs.

"Why did we stop here?"

He gestured towards a polished white-oak door exactly like a dozen others they'd passed. "My Imminent. Or perhaps I'm her Dynast. Hard to say with them."

Aida reached for the door handle. Paused.

"Anything I should know before meeting her? Fallon never told me anything about how one is expected to treat an Imminent." Or anything about them at all starting with their mere existence for that matter. "What's she like?"

"I barely know her. She arrived exactly one day before the old one suddenly keeled over a few weeks ago. Lucky me to get another one so quickly. They're dwindling, you know: used to be almost every Dynast had their pet Imminent or every Imminent their pet Dynast more like but now they're like a rare poison almost no one ever dies of."

"You aren't fond of them, I take it."

"Oh no, I lap up their every word and hold it dear to my heart." He cupped his hands before his mouth as though drinking, then pressed them against his chest.

Aida frowned. "I'm getting mixed messages. You really do that?"

"If you treat them that way they'll never be disappointed." He walked away.

"What should I do after?" she called.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"I've been asking that question for centuries," he said over his shoulder, stopping flanked by Ferals at the hallway's corner. "You know the worst assumption people make about Imminents?"

"With a leading question like that I'm sure you're going to tell me, but I'll hazard that prophecy's always poetic riddles like the fairy tales?"

"No, but close. It's assuming that just because they see the future, they never lie about it."

He was gone.

"And I thought Fallon was the master of unhelpful answers." She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

Gold and scarlet, rich and warm. Swathes of bright red cloth highlighted with fringes of dandelion yellow hung from the walls above thick vermilion carpets. Brass floor lamps dangling long, white filaments lit a space thickly furnished with couches, chairs, and end tables all garishly following the motif.

"Hello?" She stepped tentatively into the room. Something crinkled under her slippered feet and she lifted a scrap of thin paper textured with... braille?

Looking for its owner, she spotted an old man wrapped in orange robes napping in one of the chairs. Every scrap of exposed flesh up to and including his shaved head rose with bumps like Parthas back in the One-Eighth. Looked like he'd bathed in angry ants. She cleared her throat, but another voice spoke first.

"Ah, good, you've finally showed up to get on with wrecking everything." A young female spoke from behind a curtain dividing off a corner of the room. "We've been waiting so long and with so much anticipation."

"If you mean the Optomimes I don't know-"

"That's merely a taste, the slightest sample of what you've started." The girl stepped into view. "I laid in bed all morning debating whether to convince Fallon it'll be okay at the Cupola, to let the masonry crush you instead of the Wretch, talk Ryk out of his hundred, or just simply lie to Aj at the beginning end and save us all the misery or work of binding the Book and keeping it bound in the first place just so you could come and unravel it."

Dirty-blond hair hung down over a sleeveless tunic of blue-tinged white vaguely reminiscent of a Kung Fu master. A loose skirt shaded the same creamy off-white fell to soft shoes of laced leather.

The girl's pug nose and slightly-too-deep eyes gave her one of those rare appearances which Aida's brain kept toggling back-and-forth between startlingly ugly and strikingly beautiful. Aida didn't trust her age estimation for young people on Earth much less here, but she'd guess mid-teens. Twenty tops.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but you're making it sound like everything's my fault," Aida said defensively as the girl walked to the sleeping skinscribe and kicked him awake. "I was practically dragged and actually carried most of the way and have no idea what you're talking about."

The old man grumbled as he stirred, eyes blearily taking everything in. His hands drifted over various parts of his body as if checking to be sure they all remained attached.

The girl wheeled on her. "You could have said 'yes' when your Seneschal asked you to let him go. How many times did he make the offer?"

"A few, but you would have made exactly the same decision in my place." Aida thrust a finger at the kid even as she wondered how the girl knew. "You have no idea what it's like to sit alone and forgotten, waiting to die. You'd have done as I did ten times over!"

"Don't try to tell me what I'd do or what I know. I know more than you could ever hope to imagine." The girl marched up to stand close enough to kiss Aida. Kiss her if could reach anyway, since the top of the girl's head barely crested Aida's shoulder. "What's done is done though, for now. As the Inevitables say... well, they'd say what you'd expect given their name."

"The who?"

"They've not convinced me yet, though. Maybe whoever I put in place before I start can do something about it." She turned to the old man. "Rustrovan, get all this down for tomorrow."

The old man grunted, grumbled, then scrounged in a set of vermilion-lacquered drawers to produce a wooden tablet and gilded stylus.

"So you wanted me just to tell me I chose poorly and shouldn't be here?" Aida shook her head. "Could have saved your breath. Fallon's been telling me that since Earth."

She remembered the bit of paper in her hand and held it out. "I found this."

Turning up her nose, the girl attempted haughty, nailed bratty. "You were supposed to find it. It's for you."

"I can't read braille or whatever this is, so why don't-"

"Ocyl will for you later. And no, I didn't meet with you just to tell you that you're the cheat piece set on the board after the game's started only to slip off again right before the game falls completely to ruin."

"I'm so glad there's another reason," Aida said dryly, looking about for a drink.

The girl stepped back to look her up and down critically. Aida returned the favor, trying to determine exactly what in the girl's features confused her brain so. Striking anyway, regardless of what flavor of striking.

When Aida gave up on the task the girl's scrutiny continued. Even the old man seeming to grow bored and uncomfortable with the endless examination. A staring contest with only one contestant.

"I can have someone paint you a picture, it will last longer." Aida wandered towards a table holding a crystal decanter and glasses.

"Actually, it wouldn't. Paintings burn more easily than people." The Imminent stared after Aida. "Your coming kills more than Aj did to stop the Kiss."

"Charming." Aida poured a glass and downed it in one go. "So you're a fortune teller?"

The girl scoffed. "Imminents know the future. Fortune tellers are shams who tell you what they think you want to hear."

"You've solidly proved you're not that. So why talk to me if you already know how the conversation turns out?" Aida turned towards the old man on the couch messing with his tablet. "Want one... Rust-whatever? Rusty?"

"I take one," the girl said. "And Eth."

"Eth what? You're too young to..." Aida shook her head, poured herself another plus two more. "You know what? Whatever."

Aida delivered the drinks, turned one of the garish chairs backwards, plunked down in it, leaned her arms on the back, and rubbed her forehead with her stumpy hand. Half-an-hour ago she was in the hot heart of an orgy, now she found herself stuck in this... whatever this was. "What's your name again? I don't think I caught it."

"I already said: Eth."

"Bless you." Aida giggled and raised the glass approvingly. "Whew, strong stuff. Wouldn't want to mess around too much with this."

Eth didn't smile, maybe never learned how to. "The Fatalists hold that view. A useless lot."

"About the alcohol?"

"About the future." Eth slurped loudly at her drink. Nary a flinch as it went down. Might have barely entered puberty but she could hold her liquor like a sorority girl. "I prefer to think we can make changes even if we'll never know it."

Aida's brain hurt more than it did when Fallon started in. "So how's a Fatalist different from a... what were the other guys called?"

"Inevitables."

"Inevitables, yeah. Sound kinda similar."

"Inevitables hold the future as sacred duty that we must ensure happens exactly as we now see it."

"Which means they say 'it can be changed, but shouldn't be' where the Fatalist just say 'it's all fucked anyway, so why bother?'" She frowned and waved the drink. "Excuse my French, kid, it kinda slips out when I'm drinking. Or excited. Or angry."

"I'm no kid, but I believe the future can change and, unlike the Inevitables, I see nothing holy in the future we're promised. It's the worst possible solution that's actually a solution."

"That good, huh?"

"You have no idea."

"I'm getting one." Aida raised her glass. "On that note, bottoms up."

Aida drained her drink and noted with a smile that Rusty did too. Eth stared in that unnerving, unblinking way of hers. Aida noticed a trail of acne along the girl's jawline. Apparently being a prophet didn't help you with zits.

"So the Imminents agree about the future, but disagree about what to do about it? How depressingly human."

"The Fatalists call it a curse, I prefer to think of it as a gift."

"Seeing a future you're powerless to change? I see their point." Aida poured herself another drink. "Okay, so if you think you can see the future and still change things then I'm guessing you have suggestions for how I do things differently than I already have... will... done... do... did... whatever."

"You don't believe me." The girl phrased it as a statement.

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side." Aida kept a straight face. Barely.

"Think about something I can't possibly know." Eth ignored the reference she couldn't possibly know even if Aida currently sat drinking in a galaxy far, far away. "You don't even need to say it out loud."

Aida smiled. She'd attended a couple Copperfields, a Pen & Teller, and at least a dozen other small magic shows over the years. "Do I write it down and show Rusty over there?"

"Rustrovan. No. Just think it."

She closed her eyes like they did on stage to show they were thinking. Of all things, the date of her first husband's death came up. She hadn't though of that in who knew how long. "Okay, got it."

"Something I wouldn't be able to figure out?"

"No way, sister."

"I'm not your sister, nor would I want to be."

"Tell me what you really think." Aida opened her eyes. "If you tell me, isn't this just mentalism? Nothing to do with the future."

The girl downed her drink and still didn't flinch.

"Damn." Aida raised her glass to Rusty. He grinned, revealing the marginal quality of his oral hygiene, the limited level of dental care available in these universes, or both and returned to his sheet of paper.

Sheets now, plural. Apparently enough notable stuff transpired so far to merit more.

Eth stood directly in front of Aida's chair. "Here's something about the future that will matter. If you exit this room and turn left, an assassin stabs you in the back."

"So I should turn right and get stabbed in the front?" Irreverence in the face of a dire prediction probably did little to endear her to this wannabe prophetess but the last three shots said 'who cares?'

"You don't die either way. If the attack would kill you I wouldn't have said anything-"

"Wow, I really must have do something to piss you off."

"You will. We don't get better than this by the way. I told you about this because it's how I get you to believe me next time."

"What if you're wrong?" Aida stared at the door, imagining a ninja lurking behind it.

"I haven't been so far. Unfortunately."

Already the vodka-equivalent began to burn away and Aida realized she really didn't know the rules here. Maybe this barely-adolescent pipsqueak really could see the future. She reached for the knife at her belt and realized she didn't have a belt anymore. Gone away with rest of her mangled clothing back at the Eye.

"Shit. My knife is gone." She looked about for a weapon.

"You won't need a weapon, the results will be the same either way."

"Thought you weren't a Fatalist." Aida paced the room looking for one anyway, even venturing beyond the curtain to a richly-upholstered, lace-frilled bed scattered with dirty clothes and paired with a matching dresser with all the drawers sticking out.

"Don't go over there!" Eth tripped over the leg of Aida's chair trying to rush over. "Stop!"

"Can see the future but still can't clean her room," Aida muttered as she rummaged through the drawers.

Eth pulled her away, flustered and flushed. "I said there's nothing in there."

As Aida turned away, something moved beneath heaped undergarments in the top drawer. She swiped them away to discover a slowly swelling penis-and-testicles setup like from the jar at the orgy. Gon they called it? Eth slammed the drawer closed, red to the roots of her hair. "An assassin lurking outside and you have to go through... digging in my private..."

"I guess I woke him up with my rustling around. Poor little guy." Aida patted the girl on the head, grinning. “Stole it from the jars in the big orgy sphere, huh? Don't worry, kiddo, secret's safe with me. Probably better messing around with that thing than getting a baby stuffed inside you."

Eth turned away, suddenly frantic to pack her dirty clothing into a wicker basket in the corner while Aida returned to her search for a weapon.

"Guess you didn't see that one coming? No pun intended."

"I forgot with all the stuff I have to do," Eth muttered. "But I'll be happier to forget again."

A glance at Rusty told Aida she'd have to strike the written record if she wanted to live that down, the old man chuckling and poking away with his stylus. Without ink she couldn't imagine how he got anything written. More braille? They could obviously see so she just didn't get it. The last few days sufficed to stretch Aida's strangeness filters wider than she could have imagined so anything might be possible.

At the end of her search, Aida ended up with one of Rusty's styli that might be mistaken for sharp from across the room and a pair of crystal shot glasses for improvised missile weapons.

Aida stood staring at the door. "Why don't I just wait in here if I know what's out there? What's my future then?"

Her embarrassment passed, Eth resumed awkwardness and staring. "You don't do that."

"Why not?"

"You're not the sort. Besides, you know where the assassin will be now. If you wait, they might strike unexpectedly later."

"Damn, you're right." Aida took a deep breath, reached for the door handle with the pincer of her right hand and paused. She glancing back at Eth. "Why does it matter if I believe you next time? Assuming you're not wrong about me not getting murdered when I open this door."

"Because you are the cheat piece and I'm not an Fatalist."

"Neither am I, kid." Aida raised the stylus Psycho-style in her left hand as she fought to control her breathing. She shook her head, trying to process what the girl just told her. Instead, she released the door handle for a moment, walked over to Eth, swiped her drink, shot it down, and added the glass to the clinking cluster tucked under her arm.

"Here goes nothing," Aida muttered, yanking the door open.

Screaming like a banshee, she rushed out the door and spun to the right, ready to face...

Fallon?